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Operation phantom fury qutoes9/13/2023 ![]() ![]() Real genuine flesh and blood f**kin’ phantoms carried for nine months by the women of Fallujah. The phantoms, the Phantom Furies for real. And that’s when it started, man, that’s when it started. “So I felt like a f**king Olympic champion, fit for a marathon when I saw what happened next. You meet your buddy who lost his bollocks, well you feel like hopping up and down on your stump with delight, you know? I’d be a liar if I said I didnae feel sorry for myself, but you know what – and I learnt this in the army – misery is f**kin’ relative. Now my memory is all f**ked, and that’s the best part of me. “So when all the dust had settled, so to speak, and I went home, I began to feel like sh*te. Just like there was nae proof of Agent Orange, nae proof of Gulf War Syndrome. But there’s nae proof by the way, there’s nae proof at all. And that’s what did it for me breathing in all the Superman dust, in fabulous multi-coloured Fallujah. “So every round, tens of thousands of the bastards over the years, from tanks to cannons, vaporising, spreading the sh*te on every puffy wind and turning the cradle of civilisation into one big dirty bomb site festering with cancer. That’s a f**kin’ long time, even for a mountain. So on impact 70% vaporises, it turns into dust including uranium oxide, which has a half-life of 4.5 billion years. But just one teeny, weeny, wee key fact they kept under their caps. Do you remember that small fry, slimy wee c*nt Geoff Hoon, Ministry of Defence? Astonishingly effective he said. “I’m no as thick as I look, eh? Well we dropped thousands of tonnes of this sh*t. A wee question for youse, what flies faster than Superman but is 1.7 times denser than lead? What burns at 10,000 degrees centigrade on impact? What slices through armoured metal and fries the bastards inside? What penetrates a bunker where the forces of evil wank in the dark? Anyone? Depleted uranium munitions, DU ordinance. It’s about penetration, and the army are really big on penetration. See life is in the detail, as the Devil well knows. Now this is where I need to get a wee bit technical. We were sent north to back up the gringos, cut off the rat runs of the ragheads, Dogwood Camp no far from Fallujah. Anyway, see me and my fellow squaddies, we had a grand view of Operation Phantom Fury. “But I still blame the f**kin’ parents, did I tell youse that? I mean, if they’d just listened to their ain f**kin’ doctors, they were well told man. It’s so long ago my f**kin’ memory’s going, you see, I breathed in some of that sh*t too and I get mixed up. So they baptised it Operation Phantom Fury, and that’s not a joke by the way. “Well I’ll let youse into a wee secret, armies never use a smelly word, like ‘aftershave’. ‘Before you start your journey of revenge dig two graves – Confucius.’ I’m not a wordy prick, but the chaplain, he gave me a wee quote that stuck in my head. It’s a word you can feel too, it’s a sort of nasty rumbling in your gut. I mean, it’s the only word you can smell and by Christ did it stink. And as I saw those bodies sway I knew it wouldnae be long. “And that’s heroic, huh? I still had life in me then, Fallujah, Iraq, 25 years ago. As they delivered a set of f**kin’ cupboards. Remember the American contractors who got lost in Fallujah? Down the wrong street, round the wrong corner, mobbed by the Iraqis, pulled from their motors: stripped, torn, lynched and hung. It all started with the delivery of kitchen equipment. “ Kitchen equipment, I mean it’s f**kin’ hilarious man. If ya didn’t want wee uns keep your tadger to yourself. Nae shagging, I mean, it’s not that f**kin’ hard to understand is it. ![]() I mean f**k’s sake, they were well worn spelt out so even a f**kin’ Arab could catch on. But first thing’s first, I blame the parents. “F**kin’ break your heart that, eh? Nothing like a wee song and a wee dram to get youse going, huh? I was that soldier. Jamie Michie reads an extract of Paul Laverty’s work, after a musical piece The Green Hills of Tyrol. And so, here we are, I hope, 19 years into the future. So you’ve got to imagine this is not 29 September 2011 but 29 September 2030, and Jamie is not a handsome young man as he is, but a grizzled old ex-soldier. So Jamie – he got this at really short notice – I’m so grateful that he’s decided to help us out. I’m always fascinated by what public memory is, and what anniversaries are, and who’s remembered and who’s not. It was written in a blur, very quickly, and I felt some compulsion to get it out on 11 September 2011. It’ll take about ten minutes so there’s not even enough time to fall asleep. I couldn’t give a lecture to save myself, so my friend Jamie Michie – a wonderful actor I had the great privilege to meet on Route Irish – is going to help us out. As Jeremy said, it’s such a beautiful evening. Paul Laverty: First of all, thanks very much for turning up. ![]()
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