Maysam and his men fanned out in front of the second building where we’d seen the targets, while I stayed with Cleric J, Haji Yusuf, Abu Faranci, Proust, and several of the men who didn’t have weapons. Arabic escaped me then. It was a language bristling with heat, concentrated and heroic, reaching my cottony ears in surges like staccato elegance from the Koran.

The enemy was “scissored.” They’d retreated inside the one-story building that had lately been used by the local quartermaster. I knew what Cleric J was thinking. This was going to be our new mokeb, because our old one had just turned to shit. An argument ensued. Maysam was giving signals to take the quartermaster’s building down with the engines, but Cleric J wanted the place intact. He was being unreasonable. We could carry our seared onions from the destroyed mokeb a little farther up or down the road; there were plenty of desolate buildings to choose from. But Cleric J wouldn’t have it; he had no time or patience to sweep for explosives in a questionable building before we inhabited it.

We were not going to pound these bastards; we’d flush them instead.

Then he ran. Cleric J, limp-dashing toward that building to show us schoolchildren what it meant to be a fighting cleric. He was, as always, setting an example. For isn’t it said in the holy book that no fear shall be upon the friends of Allah?

He ran, and then Abu Faranci and Proust ran after him.

I’ve tried ever since to hold onto this moment. Investigate it. Try to understand its contours. The moment when men and women choose courage (perhaps a better word would be sacrifice) at the expense of survival, which is everything. I already knew nothing would happen to Cleric J. When you have spent enough time with a guy in a war you get a feeling if he’ll go down or not. I never saw that halo of the martyr over Cleric J’s head. I never feared I would lose this mad guardian-angel cleric.

Now he did what he always did, turning around and screaming something to us that was his version of charge!

Abu Faranci and Proust stayed right with him.

Our turret swung right to left, pointing above the heads of the three men. Out popped the enemy, his legs standing a good meter apart, as if he were drunk or had something precise to prove about how much of this earth he could cover in his last moments.

His shots, wild and random, missed Cleric J, who was hobbling on his prosthetic leg, and instead found Abu Faranci square in the neck and shoulder.