Soldier Girls (48 page)

Meanwhile, Charity had begun behaving suspiciously. She quickly closed her laptop whenever Desma walked into the CHU. They went out on a mission, and Brandon Hall told Charity that he had looked her up on MySpace. “Shows what you know,” Desma told BB. “She doesn't have a MySpace account.” Charity turned to Desma and said, “I have one now.” Desma was taken aback. Why would Charity have opened a MySpace account and not told her? Later Desma found Charity's page on MySpace and asked for permission to connect; she tried to be patient but days went by and still Charity had not welcomed her. “I know it shouldn't be a big deal,” Desma wrote to Michelle. “But I don't understand why she feels the need to hide it from me. It makes all kinds of crazy assumptions come up. I wouldn't hide anything from her like that. Maybe she is hiding me from the majority of her friends back home, well, how is that gonna work out if we are supposed to be living together then too? I don't understand!!!!”

Michelle wrote back that she and Billy had recently weathered a similar situation.

I've had the same shit in my relationship (I did something bad) and yes we are recovering, but take it from someone that's done wrong . . . if she ACTS like she's hiding something, it's because she IS.

Maybe she's flirting with other girls online, maybe there's a resurfaced ex you don't know about, whatever the case may be, myspace opens up communication with people that you normally would cut out of your life. (How else can I check up on Pete and see which movie set he is working on?) . . . Take my advice with a grain of salt, since I don't know shit about your relationship except what you just emailed me. Listen to your gut, it's usually right.

I love you Des.

Desma and Charity never actually resolved the issue. Instead they all switched over to Facebook, and Desma felt better after Charity accepted her request to be friends on that site. Later that same month, Josh sent an email saying that Desma would not be able to reach him on his cell
phone because his stepmother had taken it away. Josh confessed that he had gotten in trouble:

You have to call my house phone because im grounded i got caught driving someone car in rockport a couple weeks ago im sorry that i did that and im going to see the probation officer on monday to find out if i can get my licence before im 18 or not. i love you and call the house phone. . . . i love you and ill talk to you when i can bye

What was her second yearlong absence doing to her son? Would Josh have been getting into that kind of trouble if she was at home? Desma wanted to safeguard her children, but they were far apart from each other and the distance complicated everything. That same week, Paige and Alexis told Desma that they had not received a pair of gift cards she had sent. The gift cards were supposed to enable the girls to buy clothes and supplies for the coming school year, and they were the second set to go astray. On July 20, 2008, Desma wrote to her father-in-law to ask if he had seen the missing gift cards, but he had not. Tired of sending cards that did not reach her daughters, and concerned in case someone had been stealing them, Desma mailed the next set to her sister. She mentioned her fears to the girls. Her sister then received a furious phone message from her ex-husband's sister Joanne. In an email with the subject line “Drama that I don't have time for,” Desma wrote an exasperated email to her father-in-law:

Not exactly sure what is going on. I sent gift cards to my sister's house so that she could take the girls shopping. . . . Apparently Joann left my sister a crazy voicemail, yelling about how she is raising the girls, and how little my sister comes to visit. I only sent the cards to my sister because I had sent $300 in cards to your mailbox and they haven't been tracked down yet. When my sister got the cards, I activated them and asked her to take the girls shopping for school clothes. I didn't think it was such a big deal. If it is too much for Joann, we need to figure out what needs to be done. I will be home
in a few months. I plan on the girls finishing the school year there. With another deployment to Afghanistan looming for 2010, I want to be sure that I am not going to turn them upside down again. Honestly, I know its a lot to take care of the girls. If other arrangements need to be made, please let me know. Love Desma

Her father-in-law, a steady man, sent a low-key reply:

I think we have the issue addressed. Apparently the girls had said that the cards were sent there because they were stolen here. I told Jo that there was probably a difference between what was said and what was relayed by the girls. . . . I don't see any additional problems. We will keep it under control here. You just be careful there.

Love

Dad

A few days later, Desma heard from Jimmy. Her lease had come to an end, the rent checks she had left were gone, and he had decided to move out. He wrote:

Desma,

Writing to let you know that your stuff is in storage, I will keep the unit paid every month so you won't loose your stuff, the unit number is 17 and the code is 5860. I havn't seen the dog I don't know what happen to it. I put the last check on the electric bill you owed. If your tax check comes in I will put it in the bank. If you'll send a address . . . I will mail the keys to you. I want to get on with my life and you to get on with yours.

Jimmy

Then Jimmy emailed a series of photographs of belongings that he had not deemed worthy of putting into storage and that he had hauled into the backyard and lit on fire. “He sent me a slide presentation as to how all my shit went up in smoke,” Desma would say later. For June and
July, that was her life—constant missions to Tikrit, occasional barbecues, confusing signals from Charity, drama at home. At the end of July, Desma and Charity did another fuel run up to Mosul. It was a relief—a quick trip in the middle of the day, as opposed to a twelve-hour ordeal. The main military post, Forward Operating Base Marez, stood beside a highway, directly across from Forward Operating Base Diamondback. Desma knew that Debbie was stationed at Diamondback, and had once driven around looking for her, but had never found her. This time Charity said she knew where Debbie was working. They walked through the front doorway of the office building wearing their flame-retardant flight suits—Desma's was tan, Charity's olive-green—and saw Debbie sitting by herself behind a panel of bulletproof glass. She looked stricken. “She had just gotten off the phone with Jeff,” Desma would remember later. “Maxx had died. And she was hysterical, almost.”

During the lonely months in Mosul, Debbie had missed Maxx terribly. Back in April, she had discovered the therapy dog, a black Lab named Budge, and she had been visiting the dog once a week ever since. She had written in her diary:

It's a little lonely here at times. I don't have a close friend. . . . No one is mean just not overly friendly. . . . I'm somewhat depressed but it comes with the territory. So you just move on. I need to get on Budge's schedule a dog always helps. That's what was great about Diamond she helped so much to pass the time.

But what she really wanted was Maxx. Or a friend like Will Hargreaves—although he did not have as much space in his life for Debbie anymore. That summer Will had written to let Debbie know that he was going to get married. On Sunday, July 13, 2008, two days after she turned fifty-six, Debbie wrote in her diary:

Will bought Linda a ring and told me he would wait till I got home to get married. He went ahead and did it July 9th. I am mad but happy too. I hope it works out okay.

Well I had my b-day pretty uneventful.

One week later, Jeff had opened the door to the garage and called for Maxx but the dog had not come. He found Maxx lying on the concrete, already stiff and cold. Debbie was so upset by the news that she stayed up all night crying. After she reported for work on Monday morning, ready to prepare the slides for the officers' weekly meeting, her colleague Kathleen took one look at her puffy face and asked what was wrong. Everybody Debbie worked with knew about Maxx; she talked about her dog all the time.

“Have you slept at all?” Captain Buchanan asked her.

“No, sir,” Debbie answered. “But I'm fine. I've got to get the slides ready.”

“I'll do them,” Captain Buchanan said. “You don't have to go to the meeting.”

“No, I'll go,” Debbie said. “It's my job.”

“You know what? It's not your job today,” Captain Buchanan told her. “I want you to go back to your CHU, and I want you to try to get some sleep. I will do the presentations today.”

Debbie was immensely relieved. Sleep still eluded her, so she took out her journal.

I lost my best friend (Maxx) yesterday. . . . He probably felt so alone with me not there to pet him + talk to him. I hope he went without pain. He really was my best dog ever. . . . He always snuck in to sleep with me in the mornings after Jeff left for work. . . .

It was so good when I came back the last time to have him home + this time will be very sad. . . . He won't be in the way on the kitchen floor while I'm trying to cook or be laying in the bathroom after my shower. . . .

I'm so afraid Dad is next.

Jeff said in a phone call that he and Will had buried Maxx in the woods across the street. Debbie fretted about the location—it was not where she would have buried her dog. “I don't know why he thought that was better,” she wrote. “Jeff said it was under some trees for shade. I still would rather he be in my yard.” She ordered a marble headstone
for the grave, and did not phone Jeff again for several days. “I'm afraid of saying something to him + be sorry later,” she wrote in her diary. “I feel like he didn't pay Maxx enough attention + put him in the garage too often when he probably wanted in. I know he wasn't his dog but Maxx loved him too, but I know Jeff thought he was a nuisance.” She wanted a drink badly, and at the same time voiced a concern about her own drinking.

I have to get a happy face on I've got several months to go yet. People are not use to me being sad + neither am I. But I don't want to be happy. I might have to put his pictures away I can't say that's my dog anymore. Because now it's that was my dog.

I wish there was some place to go + sit + enjoy a cocktail or 2 + it be legal. . . . I wasn't suppose[d] to be on this deployment I was afraid someone would die again just like last time. I need to find another form of release.

It was the following day when the 139th came to Mosul. After Desma and Charity walked into the building in their mismatched flight suits, hot and sweaty from the road, Debbie jumped up and hugged them both hard, hanging on to Desma for a little longer. “What are you doing here?” she asked. “We had to pick up fuel,” Desma said. “The trucks are getting filled right now.” Debbie had not seen a true friend in months and hurried to find out how they were doing. Fifteen minutes later, Desma said it was time for them to get back on the road.

The following week, Debbie wrote to Michelle Fischer and told her about Maxx's death. As soon as she heard, Michelle wrote to Desma, thinking that she might not know. “Deb's dog died, if you see her hug her for me,” Michelle said. “Love you babe.” Desma wrote back that she had just seen Debbie. “I hugged her for all of us,” Desma said. “She is looking super thin. Scares me a bit. Love you much, gotta get up early.” And then Michelle wrote to Debbie:

I'm so sorry to hear about Maxx Deb! I do know how much he meant to you, and I'm sorry you weren't with him. . . . [J]ust
remember that he had a long, great life, and it was because of you. . . .

I love you! I hear you are looking thin these days—go eat something =)

After Maxx died, Debbie stopped writing in her diary for several weeks. She forgave Jeff, of course—it wasn't his fault, the dog had been thirteen. And it was really herself she felt angry with: she thought Maxx might have died because she was gone. But it helped tremendously seeing Desma, even for fifteen minutes. She knew it was Desma who had told Michelle that she was looking thin. It felt as though they were all connected once more, an unexpected by-product of Maxx's passing. Debbie did not see Desma again while they were in Iraq. She heard about any major incident that took place out on the highways, however; Colonel Agron always made a point of coming to her with news if there had been another explosion. They kept track of all those statistics.

B
Y
A
UGUST THEY
were coming undone. None of them had taken a leave that year. Patrick Miller gave his time away to a young soldier who would not otherwise have been able to take a break. Debbie was saving her leave until she got home, so that she did not have to return to work immediately. She had planned a weekend getaway to Qatar but ferocious dust storms kept delaying her departure. Neither Desma nor Charity took a break at all. They had been in-country for five months and they had been running a lot of missions and they had to wear a lot of gear and it had been hot for a long time. The heat did strange things to their bodies, made their blood run like water. Stoney cut his hand on his weapon and it bled for more than an hour. Later they returned from a twelve-hour mission, and Desma emerged with her flight suit stained dark red from the middle of her back down to her ankles. The maintenance crews took one look inside her truck and decided to change out the driver's seat, saying it looked like a crime scene. Desma had always had a heavy menstrual flow, but she had never experienced anything like this. The medics said it was the heat—it was thinning her blood.

Due to the heat, and the missions, and the relentlessness of the deployment, and the drama at home, Desma grew irritable. She did not realize the extent to which the deployment had worn her down until she began to snap. One morning Desma went down to the motor pool to pick up a vehicle and saw the same truck she had already checked back in line to be serviced again. The previous day, she had done every required
end-of-mission maintenance task, but somebody else had spotted sand inside the vehicle and decided it needed to go through the whole routine again. Desma had not had a cup of coffee yet—it was hard to find coffee without walking all the way over to the chow hall—and when she saw her vehicle back in line, her face turned thunderous.