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After all these years, I still remember the whistles. Mortars did that as they reached their target, gliding through the air while singing the morning conversations of birds. Until they landed, of course, and their tunes gave way to violent screams. Their existence was an important tool in our arsenal, a weapon designed to cause devastation from afar. We used them to smother a sniper’s nest, cover our egress, or lay waste to an enemy stronghold. A support system, designed to be accessible at the call of the radio and precise enough to turn the battlefield in your favor. Death dealers, and ones we called friends, or so we thought. It was the middle of July in Afghanistan, and we were Marines deployed there. The heat was inhospitable, the humidity a tick, bleeding our bodies of water faster than we could replenish it. Sweat would dry almost immediately, leaving chalk outlines of salt scattered across the canvas of my camouflage uniform. Our body armor weighed us down, an amalgamation of gear, rifles, and ammunition. We roamed endless expanses of farmland, tilled and growing in spite of the bleak wasteland conditions, marching through fields of poppies destined for the inside of a needle. The day started with a patrol, like every one before it, exploring until gunfire had us hunting for the enemy like a pack of bloodhounds. We left that day to move to a village and interact with the local populace, identifying them with our biometric systems and questioning tribal elders for the locations of insurgents. It was a reoccurring mission, and one that senior leadership believed would help identify critical mission objectives. No house was left unchecked, no person not met, making us the broad bristles of a broom sweeping across the town like cleaning broken glass from the floor. Each home was the same, tribalistic in nature, handmade like the olden days with dirt and mud from the earth, worked until it was hard as stone, made to endure the harsh climate the country dealt with. They were one story compounds, with small rooms made to eat and to sleep in. The nicer ones would have metal doors and decorative stained-glass windows.  It was well into the day when we finished and started our trek back to base. I was the point man, the lead Marine of the squad, responsible for navigating the path we took each time we stepped outside the barbed wire walls of where we called home. We avoided the main roads, no more than dirt and gravel eroded between the patchwork quilts of canals, and predictable paths, maintaining space between each man, small shields against the explosive devices surely buried there, like some metal serpent lying in wait to drag the complacent to their grave. We were more than halfway back, crossing a parted opening in a tree line, when I heard the crack of a whip near my face. Several shots followed, and I dove for the nearest cover, a shallow canal bed, caked with dried mud plaster on its walls. The gunfire picked up, with more weapons joining the foray, and I shouldered my rifle to scan the surrounding area. It was coming from the west, the sun at the enemy’s backs, a blinding mirage meant to keep us from locating them. It wasn’t working, and I could see lightning bolts from the trees across several open fields. I returned fire.  My adrenaline was pumping, cyanide coursing through my veins as I anxiously awaited our next move. The protocol was to move and engage with lethal efficiency, and I relished the idea of running under fire and clearing compounds until we found our targets. There was a building nearby, and I expected to take it over to redirect the battle in our favor. My radio broke the cacophony of lead being exchanged, and I heard my squad leader calling the company position to get 81s involved. These were the big mortar guns, capable of leveling earth, stone, and flesh alike. Our grid location was passed along, in addition to the request of white phosphorus rounds to aid our exit and obscure our movements.  This smoke was a blanket, a ghoulish fog that no man could see through. It would rain down in front of us, lighting the very air on fire, and casting a white avalanche across the whole area so we could safely move. At least, that was the plan. It is often spoken about in military circles that no plan survives contact with the enemy, and this would become a textbook example of that creed. A miscommunication occurred when the company gave the target grid to the mortar men, so instead of placing those rounds to help us, they launched those rounds on our position. The whistles came next, clear and triumphant trumpets signaling their arrival. Then came the rain of flames, bursting a nearby hay pile into an inferno. Suddenly, I was transported into a raging wildfire, with no hope of containing it. The world was a blur, punctured by the screams of check fire from anyone with a radio, which would signal to the mortarmen to stop their lethal barrage on us. It was too late, though, the rounds had already been sent. Our only option was to run, get as far away from the blaze as quickly as possible. The smoke was already smothering, the fire singing skin and uniforms. I stood up, and took off, running blindly through hedged farmland towards our base. I ran through the fire and hails of bullets, feet pounding the earth as I moved away from the dragon’s breath and forward to the walls of our compound. Minutes later, we all reached safety, and I stopped to suck in air for my scorched lungs. Somehow, everyone had made it back, with only minor injuries to speak of.  We were all accounted for, yet it felt like it shouldn’t have been possible. Narrowly escaping death had become commonplace, an expected task like eating or sleeping. But this time was different because it was almost at the hands of friendlies.  Blue on blue it’s known as, and we were lucky it hadn’t resulted in casualties like these incidents so often caused. Nothing major came from the investigation into the incident that I remember, other than a slap on the wrist for the mortar team responsible. The day would fade into night, and I would go to sleep, a normal ending to this eventful day. Patrols continued, along with the gunfights, but we never called for those big guns again. I returned home eventually, and in time this story would slide in along the other memories of war. Sometimes, though, a certain song will play, or some jovial person will walk by mouthing a catchy tune, and I will remember the whistles.