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From the original production of Duty Honor Country performed at The Drilling Company Theatre in New York City.
DUTY HONOR COUNTRY A Ten-Minute Play
By Stephen Bittrich
read review of Drilling Company Production
WARNING: ADULT LANGUAGE
5701 W Slaughter Lane
Suite A130-204
Austin, TX 78749
E-mail: SBittrich@aol.comCopyright © 2004,
by Stephen Bittrich(Please note that there is a licensing fee due if you want to perform this play.)
"DUTY HONOR COUNTRY" BY STEPHEN BITTRICH SETTING: A trench in Iraq, somewhere on Route 1 between Kuwait and Nasiriyah in the early days of Operation Iraqi Freedom. AT RISE: LABONNE, an African American soldier- patriotic, even-headed, duty bound--is standing in the trench to look at ground level with night vision binoculars. BOBECK, a white soldier--southern, cynical, loud, and self-preserving--keeps his gun trained on an IRAQI PRISONER OF WAR. There is no love loss between the two Americans, but they are bound together in a test of survival. The Iraqi Prisoner is gaunt and exhausted and holds a tattered white kerchief in his hand. BOBECK Have you got 'em? LABONNE (talking without looking at Bobeck) I can't see shit. BOBECK Mother fucker! (beat) They're probably kickin' ass in Nasiriyah by now. LABONNE No. They'll find us. They'll find us... BOBECK Yeah, right. Would you like some hand cream while you jerk yourself off? LABONNE You got any? BOBECK I ain't got shit. (BOBECK looks in his pack) Damn. I really ain't got shit. (LABONNE sits) LABONNE I think it's a new moon or somethin'...cannot see a damn thing. BOBECK Yeah, it's black as a nigger's ass. (LABONNE gives him a shut-the-fuck up look) Sorry. (beat) Black as a sand nigger's ass. LABONNE You know, Bobeck, if I didn't know you had shit for brains-- BOBECK Hey, let me ask you somethin'. How come all you blacks get to call each other...the "N" word...but the minute a guy as pale as me does it, he's a racist asshole? LABONNE Cuz you ain't part of the club, son. It's like when you call your sister a "ho." You can do that because she's part of your redneck, inbred family, but if somebody else tries to call her a "ho"-- BOBECK --I fuckin' slap 'em up side the head. LABONNE Damn straight. BOBECK Thanks for clearing that up for me, bro. (back to looking through his pack) Look at this, a couple of MRE's, five rounds of ammo, a smashed fucking radio... LABONNE How many MRE's? BOBECK Six. LABONNE What kind? Don't say Scalloped Potatoes. BOBECK At least two of them are Scalloped Potatoes. LABONNE Make me wanna puke. We'll make Saddam's man eat 'em. BOBECK Fuck no! He ain't gettin' shit. LABONNE Don't be a dick. We all need to eat. BOBECK Well, he then shouldn'ta signed up to be all he could be. LABONNE Look at him, Bobeck. Man just wants to go home. He's no soldier. BOBECK Tough shit. I don't care how many pictures of his wife and kids he pulls out; this is Survival Iraq, and he's getting voted off the island. (BOBECK smiles at THE PRISONER and wags his gun) Right? You hear me, don't cha, you fuckin' camel jacker. Saddam is a faggot. Right? LABONNE Bobeck! BOBECK Yeah? LABONNE Cut it, the fuck out! Don't taunt the man. BOBECK This ain't no man. Look at him. Look in those two brown spots passing for eyes. Does he look like he has a soul? (BOBECK wags the gun again. THE PRISONER holds up his white kerchief) LABONNE Bobeck! (LABONNE pulls BOBECK up sharply by his flak jacket) BOBECK You ain't in charge of me, LaBonne. LABONNE Come on! Let's stick together, brother, or we fuckin' dead meat out here. Enough fuckin' around. Let's follow procedure. (BOBECK shakes loose, pauses, turns the gun on THE PRISONER again, though more calmly) BOBECK That's right, that's right. I'm watching you. Ready for your 72 virgins yet? I didn't think so. (BOBECK sits) Look at this grinnin' Jihad monkey-mother-fucker. Wavin' his little white flag. Thinks he's going home. This carpet pilot thinks he's going home before me. Gonna be bowin' down before Allah in his church-- LABONNE --mosque-- BOBECK --smokin' his Arabian tobacky, stickin' it to his veil wearin' ugly ass old lady before me...and he will be...and he would be... (THE PRISONER waves the flag) That's right, wave your little snot rag. Don't mean shit to me. LABONNE (quietly) Keep it together, Bobeck. (Long pause) BOBECK So what's the plan, genius? LABONNE There's no plan. Just stay here until first light. Maybe they'll find us by then. BOBECK Or maybe a horde of Republican Guard will be raining down on our ass by then. LABONNE Well, there's a crispy fried Humvee three klicks from here that might give our guys a clue come morning. (beat) I'm open for suggestions. But I'm tellin' you nobody can see anything on a night like this. BOBECK (after a beat) Wait for mornin'. (A camel moans in the night sending the American soldiers into high alert rolling on the ground. The prisoner remains calm and smiles slightly) PRISONER (after a beat, looking for the English word) Camel...camel. BOBECK I didn't sign up for this shit, that's for sure. LABONNE Yeah, I guess none of us did, but we're honor bound to answer. BOBECK Yeah right. (long pause) When did you sign up for the Guard, LaBonne? LABONNE 'Bout week before Tropical Storm Allison. BOBECK No shit? I was deployed for that storm. LABONNE Yeah? BOBECK Yeah. LABONNE In Texas? BOBECK Houston. You're from Louisiana, right? LABONNE Yeah, I was in Baton Rouge. They had it bad down there. BOBECK No shit. We did some real good for those people, hauling sandbags, helping EVAC flooded neighborhoods. There was this crazy old lady with this little rat pooch, Shiatsu or somethin', and she got caught in her pick up truck in high water. She was all panicky and wanted us to save her dog. Save her dog! LABONNE Did you save the dog? BOBECK Damn straight! We knew what the hell we were doing, ya know, on home turf. Floods we could handle. We didn't train so much for desert warfare. LABONNE No. (beat) Well, you're helping that old lady again, Bobeck, just in a different shit storm. BOBECK Oh yeah, she and her pooch are in real immediate danger of gettin' buggered by Saddam. You're a regular Dudley Doright Mother Fucker, aren'cha? LABONNE You think I'm messin' with you, man? What if one of these Saddam loyalists sets off a WMD in Houston? Or San Antonio? You've got about five air force bases in that area. BOBECK You gotta be kiddin' me, LaBonne. LABONNE No. BOBECK Damn, I thought you were smart. There ain't no WMD's out there. LABONNE Man, where have you been? President Bush-- BOBECK Look at this tattered mother fucker sittin' here. This is the big Iraqi threat to the American Way of life. Uniform in rags, hasn't eaten a good meal in like a month 'cept rats, probably inherited his boots off a dead soldier. Operation Iraqi Freedom is unfinished family business, that's all it is. And George Bush can kiss my lily white redneck ass. LABONNE (in his face) Soldier! Our commander and chief has called us to sacred duty. To quell the terrorist threat and keep America safe. To liberate the people of Iraq. Where's your--? BOBECK WHERE'S--MY--WHAT? (beat, they stare each other down) Oh, I can't wait to go hold hands with liberated little Iraqi children. Dancing in the street. Don't you get it, LaBonne? This is all for nothin'. They don't want us here. They fuckin' hate us. Because one, we support the religious zealots that aren't them, the Israelis, and two, they realize this double talk of freedom is all about Operation Iraqi Oil Freedom. And our being here will only inflame terrorism. It'll be like a Goddamn Hydra monster. Two heads growing for every one we cut off. And even after we kick Saddam's ass--which we will--some fuckin' Shi'ite mother fucker will step up to take his place. Damn, man! Wake up! (beat) The one salvation I got is that if I don't die tonight, in 150 days my tour of duty will be over, and I'll be sippin' a Lone Star at Gilly's. LABONNE Fuck you. BOBECK Hey LaBonne, you know your man Bush-- LABONNE He's not my man. But he's my Commander. BOBECK Okay, okay, your man is Colin Powell. He gave a real perty speech at the UN, by the way. He's really lookin' after the brothers. But you know your Commander Bush in his first eight months in office was on the longest vacation in the last thirty two years of the Presidency. No shit. When Al Qaeda was putting the finishing touches on 9/11 GW was playing fetch with Spot, God rest his little soul. There were fuckin' memos circulating in the FBI and CIA about Arabs that were taking flying lessons with no interest in learning how to take off or land. Memos about terrorists planning to fly planes into buildings-- LABONNE Bush couldn't have stopped 9/11! BOBECK Right. Because he was on VACATION! LABONNE So why the hell you sign up, Bobeck? BOBECK Damned if I know. Seemed like a good idea at the time. Actually, as I recall, it was to avoid jail. LABONNE You're a real patriot. BOBECK Yeah, that's me. LABONNE I refuse to believe that this is for nothing. We're gonna to free these poor people and bring a democratic way of life to them. BOBECK Oh yeah, we're here to free the people all right. Hey, how come we never give a shit about freein' people in places like Haiti? LABONNE Can't help everybody, Bobeck. But if Haiti needs our help, I'm sure we will-- (Mortar fire explodes in the distance) BOBECK Holy fuck! What the hell was that? LABONNE I don't know. (LaBonne rises to look with his binoculars LABONNE (cont'd) I still can't see a damn thing. I can see some flames--about 20 klicks off. BOBECK Do you think they're coming for us? LABONNE No. BOBECK Sounded close. LABONNE No. They don't know we're here. BOBECK Unless Dusty Nuts is leading them to us. LABONNE I don't see how that's possible. BOBECK Come here, you! (Bobeck searches the prisoner) LABONNE Leave him alone. What are you doing? He's clean. BOBECK He's got a bug or something. I know it. What are you hiding, Muhammad? (LaBonne stops looking over the top of the trench and squats down to grab Bobeck) LABONNE They're not coming for us! That fight is 20 klicks from here. BOBECK LaBonne, this prisoner is a liabililty. LABONNE Be that as it may-- BOBECK We need to travel light. LABONNE Don't fuck around, man. BOBECK You know I'm not fucking around. We killed about a hundred of these Hucka-Lucka's in the past 24 hours. What makes this one so special? His little white hanky? He's dead fuckin' weight. LABONNE Soldier, it is your duty--"you are forbidden to kill or wound an enemy who, having laid down his arms, or having no longer means of defence, has surrendered." BOBECK You're a joke, LaBonne. We're also forbidden from attacking undefended targets. How many undefended targets do you think we've bombed the shit out of in the course of finding some defended targets? Let's off this dead weight and hump it back to Kuwait. LABONNE That's not happening. (Bobeck takes his gun off the prisoner and waves it casually in LaBonne's direction) BOBECK Who's gonna stop me? LABONNE Holster your weapon. BOBECK I'm on prisoner watch. LABONNE Don't wave that fuckin' thing at me, you Muppetfucker. BOBECK I thought you had more class that that, LaBonne. (LaBonne takes out his pistol) LABONNE I'm prepared to go all the way--all--the--way--for what I believe. How far are you prepared to go? (long pause as they stare each other down) BOBECK I want to live. I just want to live. (Softly, softly, the Iraqi prisoner starts to sing. A plaintive song, native to his culture, cuts through the haze of violence. He does not look at the two American soldiers or even seem to acknowledge the volatile situation unfolding, he just chants with quiet conviction his humble song. Bobeck holsters his gun first and slumps down defeated to the ground. LaBonne lowers his gun to his side and watches the prisoner for a moment, then holsters his gun as well and sits beside Bobeck. The prisoner's song fills the still dark night. Lights fade slowly to black) (END OF PLAY)