The War I Always Wanted (26 page)

Heidelberg fit the mail clerk stereotype. He knew the name of every soldier in the battalion, what his rank was, and what company he was in. He took his job seriously, too, braving the Tal Afar-to-Mosul run every few days to gather our mail and other needed supplies. Heidelberg spent most of his time knee-deep in letters and packages, trying desperately to find some way in which to organize them all.

Now sitting on the freedom bus, with the mail clerk as my security, I tapped him on the shoulder. “Must be nice . . . getting to carry a weapon.”

He turned around. “Oh, hey, sir. I didn't see you there. What? Oh, nah, what am I gonna do with this thing anyway? You know?”

“I'd take a pair of brass knuckles if I could get them right now,” I said.

He looked away as if he were thinking of something. “Hey sir, you were in that firefight the other night, weren't you?”

I nodded.

He paused again. “Why don't you take my weapon, sir? You'd be better with it than me anyway. You're an infantryman.”

My instinct was to say no, but I stopped short. For a split second I thought about it. He was right, but I didn't know if he
really
wanted to give his weapon away knowing the risks. I didn't know if he was just trying to be nice or if I was passively applying pressure from a higher rank. I looked him in the eye and asked, “You sure?”

“Yeah,” he said. “You could use it more than me.”

He handed me the M4 as the bus approached the airfield gate. In a way, he had just put his life in my hands. I wanted to believe that I was a better shot than Heidelberg, and that he knew it. I wanted to think that we had done the math and both knew we'd be better off if I took the gun. In reality, I think I just wanted something to hold onto. I took one look at the other people on the bus and then tapped the magazine in the well. I charged the handle, chambering a round.

Being extracted—whether it's from one battlefield or an entire war zone—is when you start to believe that you've made it through. You get euphoric, but in the back of your mind you realize there's still time to get killed. You're about to get out of class for summer, but you haven't gotten that last report card yet. It's the time in which you promise yourself that,
I will never do anything like this ever again
. Even though somewhere deep inside, you know you're lying to yourself.

Dusk is rapidly becoming night on our last night in the Shah-e-Kot Valley. I'm standing in a draw, watching my own breath. A neck gaiter clings snugly around my neck, while my helmet and night vision still lie on the hard, frozen ground. I look up and see the night's first few stars beginning to appear
.

From behind a rock wall, our chaplain comes walking down a path with his security assistant. It's the first time I realize that chaplains don't carry guns. They've come from the high ground and Charlie Company
.

I spend a few minutes talking to him about how some units have already been pulled from the valley, and how our security is slightly more compromised tonight than on any other night. I tell him the steps we've taken to make sure that nothing will happen to will prevent our getting out of here safely in the morning
.

Less troops meaning less security is something that hasn't occurred to the chaplain yet. Not having intended to startle him, I tell him it's no big deal and not to worry about it
.

That's when we see a strange light appear on a ridge across the valley. He asks me what it could be, and I tell him I have no idea. It's so far away that I figure it doesn't concern us. For all I know, it could be Osama bin Laden
.

But the chaplain is concerned. “Hey man, do you think it's safe for me to make my way down to you guys' CP?”

“Yeah,” I say. “As long as you stay on this path all the way there, somebody from Bravo Company—whether you see him or not—has got his eyes on you.” His face tells me that he's not convinced. He glances up again at the mysterious light in the distance
.

“I think that light's moved. Are you sure you think it's safe?”

“Yeah, you'll be okay,” I try to reassure him. “That light's probably a friendly unit.”

As the two of them amble down the trail, I hope they'll be okay. We're too close to being out of here
.

When I awake the next morning, the first thing I hear on the radio is that our extraction has been delayed by twenty-four hours. This is a kick in the balls
.

But nothing happens that day. Even the al Qaeda anti-aircraft gun on the mountain has been silenced through bombing. That evening, just as the clear blue sky is beginning to turn purple, Sergeant Collins and I find ourselves staring at the Whale on the far side of the valley. We see tiny troops on horseback silhouetted against the skyline on top of the ridge. For me at least, it's a wonderful sight—Zia's troops have returned after over a week in hiding. I'm not so sure if Collins is happy, however. He's spent all this time in the valley being cold, and hasn't gotten to see a single drop of anyone's lifeblood run out
.

Early the next afternoon I get the radio call that the birds are on the way. First comes the whine of the Apache escorts, followed by the familiar thumping of a Chinook's twin rotor blades. The Chinook tries to land but throws up too much dust, causing the pilot to abort. For an instant my heart sinks as I realize I may have to spend another night out here in the valley. But then he returns, this time touching down safely
.

After I'm safely hooked into the aircraft, I think to myself, I will never do anything like this ever again
.

Halfway between Tal Afar and Mosul, I started thinking again about the horse from the valley. In my haste to leave the Shah-e-Kot forever I had forgotten to check to see if the maddened animal was still alive. Looking out over the hills of northern Iraq, the sun just beginning to rise in front of us, I hoped the horse had made it out too. I sat there wanting to believe that he was still out there, and that a returned owner was caring for him. I hoped he was filling himself up with green grass on a peaceful valley floor, and that he'd forgotten about everything that happened.

The ride couldn't have gone smoother. We cruised through ambush alley without a hitch, arriving at the Mosul airfield in less than forty-five minutes. When we offloaded the bus, I
found Heidelberg standing beside the bags. I walked over to him and handed him back his weapon.

I said, “Thanks, man. You know you didn't have to do that.”

“Oh it was no problem, sir,” he said with a smile.

I was still confounded by the idea that he had voluntarily relinquished his weapon in a situation like that. I said, “Well all right. Take care then. Keep all that mail straight.”

He came back with, “I will, sir. See you back at Fort Campbell.”

Shortly after I left, the intensity of the insurgency around Tal Afar ramped up. A week later somebody threw a grenade at 2nd Platoon. A while after that, 3rd Platoon was ambushed not far from where we'd shot up the Passat. It was bloody. An RPG took off a squad leader's leg at the hip. Civilians were caught in the crossfire. Children died. On another night, a suicide bomber tried to drive into the TOC. He almost made it before being shot to pieces and detonating his cargo. It wounded nearly sixty guys in Bravo. Roadside bombs started going off like black cats on a string. Shootings became commonplace.

But when Damian Heidelberg was shot down in a Black Hawk helicopter a month after I left, I took it the hardest. It made me hate myself. Not because I'd known him personally, but because as his body fell to the earth in a spinning, burning wreck, I was home safe and sound, out of danger and sleeping beneath the covers of a warm bed.

Part III
 

RECOVERY

Yes, these are bruises from fighting. Yes, I'm comfortable with that. I am enlightened.

—Narrator,
Fight Club

10
 
Amrika

Fall 2003

Mike Bandzwolek, my 1st Platoon successor, was on leave at Fort Campbell the cool October night that I flew in, so I had him pick me up at the battalion headquarters. Mike had talked to my parents over the phone and said they were waiting for me at their hotel. They still hadn't forgiven themselves for not being there when I got off the plane from Afghanistan, so they'd made it a point to be in Clarksville this time.

I was feeling numb and thought about asking Mike if he wanted to get some beer after I spent some time with my parents. I knew I wouldn't sleep that night for a couple of reasons. One, I was jet-lagged, and two, I'd gotten drunk off of two Guinnesses at the airport bar in Shannon, Ireland, and had passed out somewhere over the Atlantic.

They were standing outside the hotel when we got there—the way two expectant parents might wait for a four-year-old
after his first full day of school. Mike found a parking space and I jumped out. But rather than run to my parents, I walked to the bed of his truck and started unloading my bags. A second later, I realized what I was doing and turned just as my mom reached me. She put her arms around me and started squeezing. When she finally let me go, I saw my dad standing there. I wasn't sure whether we were going to hug or just shake hands. It was awkward for some reason, but I wasn't sure why. He put his arms around me in a giant bear hug.

Mike saw what was going on and decided to throw off the rest of my bags before getting back in his truck to leave. I told him I'd call him. As I watched his red tail lights head toward Wilma Rudolph Boulevard, I asked my mom how my grandfather was. She said not so well.

All of a sudden I started in on her. “What are you doing here? Why aren't you in Shreveport with him? I told you to stay home with him if he was in bad shape. I told you I'd be fine here.” I could hear myself, and I sounded irritated. Not like someone who'd just seen his parents for the first time in nearly a year.

She looked taken aback, maybe even hurt. I'm sure it had been an agonizing decision for her, whether or not to leave her father's cancer-stricken side, and now I was criticizing her for making the wrong one.

I apologized on the way to my apartment. We hung out for a while making small talk before they got tired and decided to head back to the hotel. Where there had been no invisible barrier between us before the deployment, now, I could tell, there was. We could touch hands and smile through the clear glass pane, but there was no warmth, no human touch. I
could hear their words but they came flat to my ears—like I was listening through earplugs. Everything was flat—the few things I divulged about the war, the way I expressed myself. I felt like I had to hold up the carcass of a dead personality and make it move and talk so that I could show my parents that it was still animate.

After they left I couldn't sleep. I decided to walk to the Super Wal-Mart just down the street, the only place still open at half past two in the morning. Shortly after stepping inside, I knew I had a problem. There were people there I didn't know, I didn't have a weapon, and there were no soldiers around me. I got what I needed and left as quickly as I could.

The next morning I got up early, threw some clothes in a bag, and walked over to the hotel at which my parents were staying. When I walked in the room, my mom was sitting on the bed with her back to me. She turned around when she heard me approach and stood up to face me. Then she broke down crying. I looked at my dad, not sure what was happening.

He said, “We lost Grandpa last night.”

I looked at my mom and said, “Oh. I'm sorry.” I felt like it should have affected me in some way, but there wasn't really anything there.

We went to the funeral in Shreveport two days later. Everyone was upset and crying. But to me it didn't seem like a big deal. He was a marine. He'd made it through his war and lived a successful life. He had three kids, five grandkids, and had lived a happy retirement, traveling the world with my grandmother. I couldn't make myself sad even when I consciously tried to. In my warped mind, I felt that I'd just come from a
place where soldiers and Marines were being robbed of their chances to have kids, grandkids, and happy retirements spent traveling with their wives. The way I saw it, he'd done pretty well. To me, there was nothing to cry about.