Here’s how one soldier got payback on the Iraqi version of Charlie Brown

Editor's note: Graybeard Publishing, a company owned and operated by military veterans, was planning on putting together a book of humorous combat stories called "SNAFU". While it's unclear whether the book was published, the following excerpt from SNAFU was submitted by an anonymous lieutenant who came up with a unique way of dealing with belligerent civilians in Iraq:

Charlie Brown by Lieutenant Anonymous

I was about to hit the road from Baghdad to Al Jaber Air Base one day and stopped by the TOC to get the latest intel updates. When I got there I found another Lieutenant freaking out about an incident he'd just had. He was driving through Safwan when he approached a bridge and saw a bunch of kids holding hands blocking the road. This Lieutenant stopped his convoy and suddenly got ambushed by citizens throwing bricks down onto his convoy from the bridge overhead. But that wasn't the worst part. While his troops were covering up from the bricks, a bunch of Haji's dropped grappling hooks and took everything they could off the vehicles. Rucksacks, boxes of MREs, you name it, they got it. And some were even bold enough to run up to the Hummers and steal stuff straight off them.

So before I left I told my guys "when we get to that bridge, we're going to blow right through anyone there. I don't care who's on the road, we keep going." They all nodded and away we went. Sure enough, we were driving down MSR Tampa and got to that bridge and a bunch of kids were holding hands blocking the road.

"Keep going!" I yelled at my driver, knowing they would move if he hit the gas. "Don't slow down!"

But he did. He slowed and stopped dead under the bridge, which was the wrong place to be.

Next thing I know bricks and cinder blocks were raining down from above, which could have killed my guys since we weren't in armored Humvees. In seconds we we're surrounded by a bunch of Haji's who were trying to steal stuff off the vehicles.

One guy in particular was wearing a yellow Charlie Brown shirt. He reached into my window and tried to steal my radio right in front of me until I punched him square in the face four times. I nearly stabbed the fucker, but I hit him solid in the face enough that he backed away.

Finally we get going again and I'm fucking livid. I yelled at my driver repeatedly all the way to Al Jaber Air Base and then spent the next few days steaming mad about the incident. We got punked. Our vehicles were damaged, we lost some shit, and the worst part was we didn't have to. We knew it was coming and still they got us.

So I'm sitting there for days wondering how to get back at those fuckers until one night I had to take a piss. The latrine was too far away, so I got out of my hooch and pissed in a water bottle. A big one too, something like a gallon. And then it hit me. An idea. For the next few days I filled that thing with as much piss as I could muster then went to the chow hall to get as much powdered grape drink mix that I could find. I mixed it up, found myself a cooler and iced it down for a day before we were scheduled to leave.

The next day we hit the road and I've got this big bottle of purple piss in my cooler and a whole shitload of skittles and candy packs. I made my guys secure everything inside the trucks so nothing else would get stolen and told my driver to go ahead and slow down when we hit that bridge.

So we approached the bridge and sure enough the crowds came out to stop us. I immediately threw out all the skittles bags to keep the kids away and looked for Charlie Brown because I knew he only owned one t-shirt and would be wearing it again. It took a minute, but sure enough I spotted him, his shirt, and the bruises I gave him a few days ago. When he ran up to my vehicle I pulled out the ice-cold bottle of purple piss, gave it to him, and told my driver to take off.

As the convoy started rolling I watched him like a hawk in my rear view mirror. Charlie Brown lifted the frosty bottle high above his head and drank my piss. And he didn't just take a swig and spit it out, but he kept drinking, probably thinking it was some exotic tasting American energy drink that would give him vim and vigor. I watched him as long as I possibly could and laughed my ass off for the next ten miles.

He may have puked it out a few minutes later. He may have fallen ill and been in agony for days. Or he may have died. I really don't care either way. All I know is I went past that spot at least three more times before I redeployed, but never saw Charlie Brown again.

If you have a funny story to tell or are a veteran trying to get published, send a note to Kelly Crigger at kcrigger@graybeardbooks.com.