I've never been anywhere besides the Americas. Sure, I toured in South America and lived in the US, but I'd never had a chance to cross the pond until I was sent to Namibia.
I don't really know why we're here, much less am I aware of any kind of political struggle. All I do know is that some rich guy wants his land protected from some black guys, and he's willing to pay a paramilitary contractor to put some tough guys on his property. All things considered, it's a good and easy job.
We've got a guest house along the ridge of some canyon in the savannah. It gets hot as Hell, but at least the dry air makes it more bearable than someplace like Brazil ever was. Nights are cold, mornings are fresh, and evenings are quiet. It's the kind of place I'd move to, if not for lack of first-world luxuries.
Our squad leader seems to have conflicting opinions about it. On one hand, he won't deny its beauty; almost every morning, he enjoys his coffee on the canyon-side balcony. On the other hand, he'll freak out from time to time when he looks at the cliff. He always asks someone to be out there with him while he's having his coffee.
"Be ready to talk me out of killing myself," he orders.
So far, only one guy's had to do it. We're not too close, but after pressing him on the details, I've managed to glean some information about our squad leader's recent past.
A little more than a year ago, while he was scuffling against some rebels in the middle east, he was in charge of a much larger group. Not a team of five like he is now, but a unit of twenty-four other operatives, four of whom were in charge of their own five-man squads. Long story short -- since our leader and the guy I know are too tight-lipped about the details -- he sent one squad into a known ambush so that they'd clear a path for the others.
If it sounds cliché, that's because this sort of thing isn't too uncommon. Even for psychologists, dealing with this sort of thing is far from uncharted territory. They've given him the right meds, have him in the right therapy programs, and put him on a low-risk mission until the guilt doesn't bother him anymore.
It'll be a few more years before his pain eases as much as our higher-ups want it to, then he'll be in the same position as before until it either happens a second time or he kills himself.
The other day, the guy I knew said to me, "You know, I wasn't doing shit to help him until I saw that rhinoceros."
I blinked. "Rhinoceros?" I echoed, just to see if the word would bounce a second time.
"Rhinoceros," his head bounced, "I was trying so much, but he couldn't calm down. His face was wetter than the sea and he had one leg over the balcony before I could pull him back. He spun around, socked me across the face, and... well, of course I went down, but he hadn't knocked me out yet.
"You know getting punched like that. Everything in history happens before you can stand up again. I thought for sure that when I looked up, he'd be over the edge. But, well, you know, he wasn't.
"He was frozen there. Not looking down the canyon, but across from it. My eyes were a bit fuzzy, but once I could sit up, I saw it."
"The rhino?" I asked.
"The rhino," he echoed. There the word hung, like our leader did at the edge. Too afraid to fall down. Too afraid to conclude.
"It was beautiful," he said, which I could tell took strength, "Its hide a thick armor. Its horn proudly raised. So stoic, so statuesque. So immutable. And then..." he held his hand up, then lowered it slowly.
"...it jumped right into the cliff."