Damned if you do and damned if you don't.
A memories make us who we are chapter
All,
This one begins to organize the pieces to my puzzle, at that point in my life..
For me, one of the most interesting aspects of the brain, when speaking of memory, is the way it will capture still images of certain events and experiences. You cannot always remember particulars of a scenario, but you can ‘picture’ them in your mind. Then, there are other times where you vividly remember entire encounters with people, or events that included animals, or places.
That trip to Kuwait was another one of the still images that I stashed in my brain. I remember very few moments of our time there, as a member of the engineer battalion, due to the training tempo and acclimation period. Giant white structures dotted the entirety of the staging forward operating base (FOB). They acted as everything from barracks to classrooms, and some of them had clearly seen better days. There were shoddy entrances built of plywood and a spring-loaded door, which led into a large metal framed plastic canvas covered structure, which reminded you of something an old couple would park their motorhome in. What seemed like an infinite number of green cots next to each other with little to no space as far as the structure allowed and they looked like a Tetris stack from overhead.
We would spend a few weeks here, training and taking classes on Iraqi cultures and proper etiquette, as well as the ever-changing rules of escalation and rules of engagement. The kind of experiences that make you yearn to ‘head down range’, military language for moving into the fighting areas, and not necessarily because the whole thing was so invigorating – more like an escape, which we got in April of 2010. One of the training events was a mass casualty exercise, where a fire team would stack on the door, and then move in to clear the rooms – only to see darkness with bright flashes and loud recorded gunfire and screams. There were manikins on the floor, dressed in Army Combat Uniforms (ACU’s), with multiple injuries. Your task was to perform the steps for ‘Evaluating a Casualty’, under duress, which was the simulated combat noise. My focus was to stop the bleeding, and when I found the leg injury, I came down with the entirety of my body weight, aiming my knee into the femoral artery just above the knee, and applied a tourniquet above the wound, near the groin. It was successful, and when the lights came on, I was proud of the job I did in the dark. An NCO leaned in and said, ‘you’re with me, if I get injured, I need someone to keep me alive – I can’t handle blood – so good thing you can’. (Personally, if that were me, I would not divulge that kind of information – a week from heading into theater – to a lower enlisted soldier, but hey, what did I know?)
Just as fast as it began, it was over, and it was time to head ‘down range’. We would bus down to the airfield, and take a C-130 up to Balad, or more precisely Joint Base Balad (JBB). The last time I had been there, the place was known as Anaconda, my favorite destination on convoy runs, at least until that last blast in 2006.
It had certainly changed in the 4 years since I had been there last, and it was both eerie and exciting to return. Our first few nights there, a mortar came in and hit one of the laundry facilities. One of our battalion’s medics was there doing her laundry, and she was able to immediately render aid, which saved a soldier’s life. The mortar experiences quickly became a consistent nuisance, but the Counter Rocket, Artillery and Mortar System, or C-RAM was a wonderful sound and sight that felt like a warm and fuzzy blanket on a chilly winter day. The minigun bark, which reminded you of a strafing run from an A-10 Warthog, was like waiting for a call back after you apply for a job. The C-RAM, using radar and other integrated warning and tracking systems, would fire off a stream of red traced self-destructive rounds that acted like flak and would knock the munitions from the sky.
The enemy was welcoming us to the theatre as the indirect fire was hot and heavy for our first few weeks in country. The days and weeks that slowly accumulated into a month, were agonizing, as the battalion did not know what to use my platoon for, and we filled our days with constant training and drills, as ways to maintain readiness for when we were given missions. The routine we developed consisted of training all day, then a small group of us would head to the gym and lift weights.
There was a massive fitness center, air conditioned, and stuffed with tons of weightlifting equipment. When you entered the gym, there was a sign in roster that you needed to fill out for accountability, should something happen, and you needed to be found. I still remember the day that David signed-in for me when the two of us went to lift. He started to do his classic evil laugh as we walked toward the machines, so I had to turn around and see what the fuss was about. I read aloud in the Sign In column, ‘Sergeant Buttstuff and Private Parts, in at 21:30’ – I almost doubled over from laughing so hard – it felt like my side was splitting. David was guaranteed to nail the perfect joke, at the most unexpected time.
This first month was especially hard on me mentally, and it really started with my wife, the communication was difficult with the 8-hour time gap, and she was not making it a priority to talk to me. The long days of training over and over, the boredom, and then being unable to talk to the one person that I chose to take the deployment for – slowly began eating at me. I would force myself to work harder and focus more to avoid thinking about her. When you are on the other side of the world, in a warzone, your brain has a way of cannibalizing itself. Negative thoughts, feelings of hopelessness and pure disdain for everything around you – it all begins to chip away at your morale. In a sense, I could say that all of those days of mental self-demolition, were necessary building blocks to my choice of career change in my mid-thirties. It just took me another decade – from the deployment – to figure out mental health was my calling.
Right around the time we started being utilized to deliver equipment and supplies, May 2010, we also began to discuss awarding leave blocks. The choice selections were allotted to the lowest ranking first because it was important to provide them with anything positive that you could. Lower enlisted troops, whether they want to admit it or not, are usually the most susceptible to mental health concerns because of their lack of experience and unknown reactions to the events that lay ahead. Of course, by the time my turn to choose came around, the available selections were getting slim.
I ended up choosing to come home in July of 2010, to be there for my spouse’s birthday which naturally meant that I would then return and have one of the longest stretches away from home, to end my deployment. I was ok with it, and welcomed the chance to return home early – because, why not? Our platoon was quickly adjusting to the operations tempo, and the type of logistical missions we were being assigned.
We had not dealt with much enemy activity on the missions and routes we traveled, however other units of the battalion, mainly the route clearance missions, were just getting hammered. Each mission we embarked on was the focus of my world. I very much felt the pressure to ensure that my crew was landing with me on the tarmac when it was all said and done. Pardo and Vollmer were my everything, each time we rolled out the gate. As a crew, we spent most of the missions bringing up the rear of the convoy, closing checkpoints as we traveled. The lead truck would call out a checkpoint as they crossed it to notify the convoy that we had reached that point in the route. I would call out the checkpoint when my truck crossed it to notify the convoy that all elements had passed that certain point. It is the communication that ensures continuity and accountability of the movement. A break in communication was a threat to our very existence in the field.
As my time to take leave approached, I began to have a strange feeling – I did not want to go – not because I did not want to go home, it was because I did not want to leave my troops. I had spent so much time and energy trying to build everyone up, that would allow me to, that the idea of not being there for them was terrifying. The same questions from before would roll in. Were they fully prepared? What happens when I am gone? Will they make the right decision when the rounds start flying? Was I overthinking it? This thought process was not a slight against any of them, just my persistent concern. You see, it is not that you question your fellow soldier’s competence, but that you feel that if you are not there – it somehow becomes your fault if something happens. (Years later, as I write this book, I look back and realize that my goal of building a family atmosphere within my platoon, was coming to fruition.) Our troops displayed genuine concern for their fellow soldiers, not just the loyalty to your fellow soldiers, but an all-encompassing level of care. For me and the time I had known these men and women, this stretch leading up to my block leave was no different. I was feeling something like a parent dropping their kid off to kindergarten for the first time.
It’s amazing how much can change while you are gone, even if it’s just for a few months. My wife and Dan ended up at odds with each other for different reasons, and she moved into a different apartment on the south side of Stevens Point. I had not seen the apartment yet, so I was unsure of what I was coming back to. The place that I left was a nice apartment, with a balcony that overlooked the parking lot and faced directly to the east, and it provided beautiful sunrises. The apartment complex that I came back to, reminded me of one of those episodes of intervention, where most of the folks seemed less than desirable, and you just assumed that everyone you met was on some sort of drug. Appearances are not everything, and should not be concrete, but there is something about a face that looks like its hiding ill-will. It’s important not to let a first impression manipulate your thoughts and observations of another person, because it is likely that you are not always right. People are strange, and trying to figure someone out, just becomes more difficult and impeded if you continue to look at them through a particular lens, because of a first impression. There is, however, something to be said about sensing that a person is genuinely evil or covets what you have in life.
Much of the time home was spent doing things that she wanted, and I was losing the opportunity to spend time with people I cared about, like Stu and Jessie. A couple that I had known for years by this point, who were always ready to give the shirt off their back if it meant it would help. I remember calling Stu to go with me to watch my wife play softball. I spent the afternoon drinking beer, and Stu drove my truck to the game, and sat and laughed with me while everyone played. At some point in time, she tried to introduce me to someone that played on her team, who she worked with. I reached out to his hand, and he stared at the ground while we shook hands. Immediately I did not like this guy. He had a devious look about him, could not even look me in the eye, and was very short with his words. Clearly there was a reason she wanted me to meet this guy, whether it was because they worked together or if it was his softball team, but to know who I was and act the way he did, almost cemented him as an enemy right then and there.
That would not be the last time I was introduced to someone by her, that made my skin crawl. What was it with her and these dirtbag ‘friends’? They all resembled a different type of snake, and I wanted nothing more than to have them slither away, and out of our life.
Just like that, 2 weeks had come and gone, we did nothing of significance, and all of what she wanted. My family back home was mad because I did not spend more time with them, and looking back, it could just be added to the long list of disappointments that I provided everyone. I was so concerned about not ending up like my dad, and his divorced marriages and failed relationships, that I never wanted to do anything that could jeopardize mine. In the process, I would upset my friends, and family, because I rarely spent any time with them. I think that is what the former first lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, said when she was quoted with “Do what you feel in your heart to be right, for you’ll be criticized anyway. You’ll be damned if you do and damned if you don’t.” This was one of the most difficult stretches of my life, as I tried so hard to succeed, and it was only beginning.
Thank you,
Joshua