Macho Side Story #2: Packing Dust and Steel

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Macho Side Story #2: Packing Dust and Steel

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Transcript

Macho Side Story #2: Packing Dust and Steel

The light in the kitchen was dim—on purpose. Macho didn’t like mornings that came too bright, too clean. He preferred shadows, the kind that hinted the world hadn’t fully made up its mind yet.
He stood in his socks on the tile floor of his off-post rental, a half-burnt pot of coffee brewing behind him. The mug in his hand still had yesterday’s black crust at the bottom. He didn’t mind. His hands were calloused and steady, with a miner’s touch—thick-fingered, cracked, edged with embedded dust that never really washed off. He’d once told a young recruit, “You don’t clean it off. You just bury it deeper.”
It was deployment day, or close enough. Nothing official had come down yet, but you don’t get to be an E-8 without knowing when the silence means go pack your gear.
The house was half-packed already. Neat rows of olive and tan bags lined the hallway. Boots, gloves, protective gear, MREs. The walls were bare except for a framed photo of his old platoon, back when his eyes weren’t so quick to harden. Most of those faces were gone now—transferred, or buried. But Macho didn’t remove the picture. Not because he was sentimental. It was about respect.
He scratched his jaw, rough with three days’ stubble, and moved to the bedroom. His uniform lay across the bed like a folded American flag—creased, brushed, and exact. Macho never half-stepped. Not in the field, not in life. The name tape sat straight above the heart: MACHO. Just that. First names didn’t matter much in his world, and no one ever asked for his anyway.
His miner’s tools were packed in a separate ruck. Specialized stuff. Detectors, ground-penetrating radar mods, wire kits, multi-charges, a portable tunnel boring head. If it could break rock or find a way through it, he’d trained with it. He knew the sound of sand under pressure. He could hear the lies in stone when it shifted. He was a miner, yeah—but the Army version. Not coal. Not gold. Threats. Routes. Secrets.
The coffee finished brewing. He drank it in silence, his eyes on the clock above the microwave. 0633. Too early to head in, too late to sleep.
The base would be expecting him by 0800 for final briefings. But there’d be no surprises. Fort Detrick rarely offered anything spontaneous to someone at his level. The real questions—where, why, how long—had all been sealed behind clearance higher than even most brass wore comfortably.
He stepped into the bathroom, splashed water on his face. The mirror reflected a man somewhere between late 20s and early 40s—no one knew for sure, and Macho didn’t volunteer. His features were etched with work and war. A scar ran through his left eyebrow like punctuation on a secret. His eyes were calm in a way that unnerved the jumpy types. Macho didn’t blink when the ground shook. He just calculated.
Outside, his ‘71 Charger sat in the driveway, the same one he’d driven for over a decade.
He glanced toward the neighbors’ houses. Quiet. No kids out yet. The couple next door, a young pair from Georgia, had waved at him last night as they carried groceries in. They didn’t know he was leaving. They didn’t ask. That was the way he liked it.
He walked back into the house and stood by the door. His deployment packet sat on the table, stapled and stamped, official without revealing a damn thing. He ran a hand over the sealed envelope but didn’t open it. He didn’t need to. Whatever was inside wouldn’t change what came next.
Deployments for a miner weren’t like they were for most soldiers. The job didn’t just mean digging or detecting. It meant mapping the unknown, carving paths where no one else dared crawl, wiring charges in unstable terrain while someone in a suit back at HQ wondered whether the rock beneath had been touched since creation.
Macho had been sent to mountains that didn’t exist on maps, jungles so dense the sunlight needed permission to enter, cities buried beneath a century of lies. His job was to find what others feared and make it passable—or make it collapse.
And he was good at it.
He zipped up his main ruck and slung it over one shoulder like it weighed nothing. The house was still—just drywall and hardwood—but it felt heavier now. Like it had held its breath.
Macho paused at the threshold, one last moment in civilian skin. Then he stepped out, locking the door behind him with practiced finality. He didn’t look back. Never did.
The charger’s engine rumbled awake, low and steady. He turned onto Route 85, heading north through the rising sun, past farmland, gas stations, and quiet lots. The morning radio spat out traffic updates and classic rock. He turned it down.
As Fort Detrick’s gates came into view, the routine snapped into place like a steel hatch. He reached for his ID, set his jaw, and thought only one thing:
“Rock or steel, it all gives way eventually.”
And so would he—into the earth, into the mission, into whatever waited beneath.