A newborn (Metaphor)
Chris had left the States “some seven months before,” only ten days after his son was born. He loved him, but they hadn’t really had a chance to bond. According to him, newborns were just “a bundle of needs.” “Feed them, clean them, get them to rest.” However, “now he had personality.” He was “crawling,” he was “more of a person.” Chris had seen him growing up “in the photos” Taya send him, but this was “more intense.” That little boy was “his son.”
The battle (Metaphor)
Chris thought that the Air Force A-10s, “better known as Warthogs,” were “awesome.” They were “slow-moving jets,” but that was “intentional.” Those jets are designed to fly “low and slow” so they could put “a maximum amount of gunfire on ground targets.” Besides “bombs and missiles,” they were equipped with “a 30-mm Gatling cannon.” That night those Gatlings “chewed the hell out of the enemy.” The Iraqis rolled “armor out of the city.” It got to the point where the Iraqis realized they were “fucked and tried to flee.”
The leading role (Metaphor)
The new Iraqi army was supposed to be “front and center in the effort to retake the city and make it safe.” Chris did agree that the Iraqis were “there.” Obviously, they were “not front,” but just center. However, they were not as much involved as one might think. Before the assault began, the SEALs were ordered to help to put an “Iraqi face on the war.” That was the term that “command and the media used for pretending that the Iraqis were actually taking the lead” in “making their country safe.” Chris personally was not too fond of them.
Stiff and sore (Simile)
The waiting was about “to come to an end,” Operation Iraqi Freedom was “underway.” “My war was finally here,” he thought. Chris was “sweating, and not just with excitement.” “Not knowing exactly what Saddam might have in store,” the SEALs had been ordered to wear full MOPP gear (“Mission Oriented Protective Posture”.) Those suits could protect from chemical attacks, but they were “as comfortable as rubber pajamas.” The gas mask that came with it was “twice as bad.”
