Читать книгу Mormon Mayhem - Keaton Albertson - Страница 6

And I, knowing of their unconquerable spirit, having proved them in the field of battle, and knowing of their everlasting hatred toward you because of the many wrongs which ye have done unto them, therefore if they should come down against you they would visit you with utter destruction. -Book of Mormon, 3 Nephi 3: 4

To help bolster the indoctrination of the Mormon gospel, teenage church members are strongly encouraged by their parents and church authorities alike to take part in youth activities with other peers from their ward. This structured socialization process makes it so Mormon kids usually only interact with and make friends with other LDS cultists. The influences of other religions are thus never thoroughly explored by Mormon youth, as all of their formal friendships and dating experiences are typically engaged in with like-minded youth who share the same values as they were brainwashed into having.

Although I went through the motions of conducting the Aaronic Priesthood rites and suffered through the church and family traditions of my religion, I never fostered any friendships with truly obedient Mormon kids. Because I was not ever fully invested into the Church, I tended to associate myself with other peers who shared a shade of deviance with me. One of my closest friends was Dirty, a good-natured Mormon teen on the surface but a budding criminal at his core. I attended a few youth activities with Dirty but always held ulterior motives for doing so. Typically, Dirty would beg for me to join him for the likes of temple trips for Baptism of the Dead rituals and I would generate various excuses to avoid going, along with ditching most of the other youth activities that held no personal benefit for me.

During one of Dirty’s later attempts to persuade me to attend a different sort of youth activity with him, he advised me that an Elder in our ward had just returned from training with the National Guard and was hosting a paintball war at a forested picnic area near town. Under normal circumstances, I would have fabricated some bullshit reason as to why I could not take part in yet another lame event with the Mormon youth group. But, all things considered, I thought that the opportunity to blast little mommy-boy church kids with paintballs was too tempting to pass by. I eagerly accepted Dirty’s invitation and joined him for the paintball war.

On the planned date of battle, Dirty and I drove out to the forest meeting spot to meet up with the rest of the stripling warriors. Over one dozen adolescents from the ward youth group showed up for the event, most of them within the same peer cohort as I. There were also few stragglers that attended who were not members of our local church ward. I came to the battlefield wearing several layers of jeans and dark-colored sweatshirts. I tied small bundles of leaves around my arms and legs with pieces of cloth, thereby creating a superficial layer of camouflage. Most of the other teenagers attended the event wearing loose-fitting pants and t-shirts. One individual in particular decided to attend the paintball war wearing nothing but a pair of camouflaged pants, his torso left completely bare.

“Who is this moron?” I asked Dirty in a low tone while motioning to the bare-chested idiot.

“I don’t know,” Dirty replied, “he just showed up with those two guys over there. He thinks he’s some sort army master or something.”

“He just told that National Guard dude that he don’t need any shirt and he refused to wear any goggles too.”

“What a dumb ass,” Dirty stated.

“I say that whatever happens, win or lose, we target that bastard and teach him a lesson. Even if he’s on our own team, let’s paint him up something proper.”

“You got it,” Dirty agreed.

Once everybody was gathered around, the National Guardsman offered a brief safety lesson and encouraged everyone to play fair. We were each given standard, entry-level air rifles and plenty of paintball ammunition. Then, as we were divided up into teams, the National Guardsman explained the rules to us. A paintball hit to the torso region was counted as a kill. The victim of the kill was to immediately surrender by holding his arms into the air and report back to the starting point in silence. We were prohibited from shooting any person surrendering in such fashion and we were also instructed not to purposely target anyone’s head, although a hit to this area also counted as a kill. The winning team would have to take out every other opponent of the rival team before victory would be declared. One team was chosen to go out into the woods while the other was assigned to go look for them, effectively creating a hide and seek scenario.

I was fortunate enough to have Dirty on my team and it was our squad that was first elected to hide out inside the forest. Upon rallying deep into the woods, our squad leader, the National Guardsman, detailed a plan for several of us to create diversions while the main bulk of the squad would flank the incoming team and shoot them down while they were trying to find us hiding. Dirty and I was assigned to an area in the forest near a massive boulder at the base of a mountain. We were to ambush the first wave of the incoming squad near a bench that was part of an adjacent picnic site. Following along with the National Guardsman’s plan, Dirty and I hid for the planned ambush. I climbed atop the massive boulder while Dirty concealed himself inside a thick covering of bushes near the picnic bench.

Several minutes into the campaign, I spotted two members of the rival team come creeping through the woods, straight down the main path toward the picnic area. I waited to see the rest of the enemy squad behind them but could not detect anyone in sight. Determining that the two boys were scouts for the rest of their team, I decided to take them out right away and ask questions later. I stood up upon the top of the massive boulder and rained paintballs down upon the lead scout, instantly dousing his shoulders with spherical rounds. He dropped his weapon and raised his hands in defeat, just as Dirty opened fire on the second enemy. Disappointingly, Dirty missed his target and the kid ran away, returning fire into the bushes and taking cover behind the picnic table. He began to yell for the rest of his squad to assist him.

“Take that bastard out!” I yelled down to Dirty.

“I can’t get him!” Dirty replied, while shooting at the enemy’s location. “He’s behind that damn bench!”

I quickly scaled down the boulder and met up with Dirty in the thicket. The rival team member began pelting our position with paintballs.

“We have to get that son of a bitch,” I said, while ducking into the underbrush away from the incoming paintballs. “His whole fucking team is going to be coming up here in a couple minutes. We’ll be overrun and we have no backup!”

“What should we do then?” Dirty asked. “I can’t reach him from here!”

“Well, if he shoots us first, we’re dead. If we wait too long and his squad shows up, we’re dead. So, the way I look at it, we either take off running or we go in Rambo style. What do you think?”

Dirty thought for a moment and then said, “Rambo style.”

“Alright then,” I agreed. “On the count of three, you take left and I’ll take right. Let’s get him. 1… 2… 3!”

Dirty and I ran out from the concealment of the thick bushes and rushed at our opponent head on. Without firing a shot, the rival Mormon got up from behind the picnic table and sprinted off into the forest undergrowth. We then took cover behind the picnic table on the opposite side of where he was hiding. The enemy soldier repositioned himself and began firing on us once more.

“We’re back to where we started,” Dirty stated, huddling behind the bench.

“Let’s rush him again,” I suggested. “Ready? 1… 2… 3!”

We charged into the fray once more. This time the kid did not move and, instead, attempted to defend his position. Without taking any hits from his weapon, Dirty shot the enemy first, splashing his shoulder and waist area with paint. The kid held up his arms just as I came through the bushes toward him with my air rifle blazing. Three paintballs from my rifle slammed into the opponent, the first striking him in the chest, the second in the neck, and the final projectile bursting open across his forehead. The kid fell down in agony, crying out in pain, struggling to breathe from the impact of the neck shot.

“Dude, you shot him in the face!” Dirty exclaimed, standing over the top of the wounded kid and looking down at his wounds. “I think you got him in the neck too.”

“I guess he can’t yell to his buddies and give away our position then, now can he?” I returned. I leveled my weapon at the kid rolling around in the tall grass and shot him one more time in the back at nearly point blank range. “Are you dead yet?” I asked the sobbing whelp. “You’re supposed to be silent when you’re dead. Now get your ass up and march back to the starting point before I shoot you again.” The kid moaned while trying to stand and, after finally rising to his feet, stumbled back along the path with his hands raised in the air. Moments later, the shouts of the approaching enemy squad could be heard in the near distance.

“Shit, we need to get out of here,” Dirty said.

“Yeah, let’s move!”

Dirty and I darted off through the forest and began running for cover away from where the rest of our squad was positioned. While we were in mid-sprint, we suddenly came across the bare-chested asshole from behind, finding him walking through the forest on a solo patrol that he apparently deemed himself worthy of performing. He was completely alone and had his back turned toward us. Before he could turn to confront Dirty and I, we opened fire on him, shooting the shirtless youth in his bare back multiple times. He turned around with a painful expression on his face in just enough time for Dirty and I to unload another half dozen paintballs against his chest and stomach. The machismo douche bag quickly fell to his knees, holding his midsection in pain. Dirty and I ran past the wounded child without saying a word to him and hid out by a creek that ran along the forest edge.

“Hey, wasn’t that kid on our team?” Dirty asked me, once we redeployed our rifles across an open meadow.

“Yeah, I think so,” I replied. “Who cares? He was dead weight.”

“Now what the hell do we do?” Dirty asked, lying next to me in the prone position along the creek bank. “We’re out here in the open. We have no cover.”

“That’s the whole point,” I said. “Anyone who tries to come and get us will have to cross that meadow. We’ll see them coming and smoke them as they get near. Don’t you pay attention in history class, man? This is an old Civil War tactic.”

Dirty looked coldly at me. “Which side used this tactic, the North or the South?”

“The South,” I replied, looking across the meadow for any approaching enemies.

“Didn’t the South lose?”

“Yeah,” I shrugged, “but they had a bunch of hillbillies on their team. We can shoot better than those fucks. Now stop bitching and train your rifle on anyone who crosses this field.”

Several minutes into holding our position near the creek, Dirty and I witnessed from afar the humbling defeat of our entire platoon. The National Guardsman’s plan had failed miserably. He split up our team far too thin and when he attempted to flank the enemy, they were waiting for him. We witnessed as the remainder of our teammates marched back to the starting point through the forest with their hands raised in the air. The bulk of the enemy team remained, numbering at least six individuals. And, as near as Dirty and I could tell, we were all that was left of our own squad.

“Shit, we’re fucked,” Dirty commented. “We can’t fight off all them guys. We don’t even have enough ammo.”

“Yeah, we’re going to have to make each shot count,” I said. “We wasted a lot on that dickhead with no shirt.”

“We sure did… but it was well worth it.”

“Yes, it was,” I agreed.

“Hey, man, I’m gonna get up in that tree and see if I can find out where they’re at,” Dirty said. “We could be waiting out here all day.” I gave Dirty the nod and he climbed a nearby aspen tree. His lookout position had the opposite effect of our desired outcome. Rather than hoisting himself into an elevated position where we could gain intelligence on the enemy’s position, Dirty exposed himself from our concealed area, thereby giving away our own location. Before he could retaliate, Dirty was shot several times in the legs and chest. He surrendered, as was required for a critical hit, raised his hands, and began to walk across the meadow back to the starting point. “This is bullshit,” he mumbled to me as he passed. “They have some asshole over there with a sniper rifle!”

I was unsure as to what Dirty was referring to until I saw the remaining mob of enemy troops advancing across the meadow on my position. They were well out of range so I lied in wait for them to draw near. Still, I was somehow getting bombarded by paintballs, despite the incredible distance between the enemy and myself. I peeked up from the creek bed and witnessed one of the enemy team members, an individual who was not part of our church ward and who came in with the rest of the stragglers that accompanied the bare-chested idiot, toting a sophisticated paintball rifle with a very long barrel. The weapon was professional grade, looked like a real sniper rifle, and could easily shoot three times the distance as every other weapon that was distributed out to the players. This was a strong advantage to the other team, a very unequal and unfair advantage.

Standing up from the creek bed, I defiantly fired off several rounds of paintballs at the enemy troops. My projectiles lobbed far short of their position, as my weapon was not powerful enough to breach the range. As I was doing so, the cheating bastard who was packing the sniper rifle shot me in my sack. I fell to my side and rolled back down the creek bed in immense pain. Although I was not considered out of action, due to the fact that I was technically not shot in a critical area that was defined at the beginning of the event, I still felt in no condition to continue the war.

Hearing the advance of the enemies, I waited for them, trying to gather as much strength as possible so I could stand and face them. Once I calculated that they were in range of my air rifle, I strenuously jumped up from the creek bed and opened fire upon their advance. Shooting two of them in their torsos, I was discouraged to see the sniper-toting bastard well behind the advancing foot soldiers. As he brought his rifle to his shoulder to aim, I hobbled off into the woods and dodged behind a tree. The remaining handful of enemies then converged on my position, covering the surrounding foliage and tree bark with multiple colors of paint. I ran away, ducking and dodging the paintballs through the thick forest like Willem Dafoe in Platoon, running wounded from the pursuing Vietnamese forces.

Finding a gazebo near another picnic area, I planted myself inside and waited for the advance of the enemy. I fired my weapon as soon as they came within range but was forced to withdraw, as the sniper rifle rained down once more on my position.

Eventually, I ran out of paintball ammunition and returned to the starting point without officially getting killed. I objected to the inherent unfairness of the tournament design, given the unmatched range of the rival team’s sniper rifle. My team lost the battle and I was blamed for facilitating the defeat, as the National Guardsman pointed out that I did not follow the plan and isolated myself from the rest of the group. I saw nothing wrong with separating myself from a losing team who got shot up by the unequal and unfair advantages of our rivals. Furthermore, I argued that I was a POW who had suffered a shot to the nuts, but I was still alive to fight another day.

All in all, the youth activity proved to be much more fun than those previous, even though Dirty had been killed in action, our team ultimately annihilated, and I taking a paintball to the nads. The time that I spent in battle with Dirty created a bond of brotherhood between us. Unbeknownst to me at the time, this friendship would carry me through many periods of turmoil during my adolescent years.