“THIS IS THE TIME WHEN LOGIC AND REASON NEED TO OVERRIDE EMOTION.”
WEEK 1, DAY 1, MOSUL, IRAQ
0900 HOURS, AIRFIELD
Loaded with gear — a three-pound helmet, thirty-pound armored vest, eight-pound weapon, and thirty-pound rucksack — we're running. There are four hundred of us from thirty-seven different states across the United States. All of us have been brought together to run the 178th Combat Support Hospital. In the plane we were briefed about how the bad guys love to bomb the airfield even though we're in Kurd territory, supposedly our allies.
A man is coming through; I tear my gaze from the sky. I automatically salute him, a colonel.
“What are you doing?”
The colonel glares right at me.
“Are you crazy?” Denti elbows me hard. “They want to take out the higher-ups, not the low ones on the totem pole.”
It's been almost two years since I've graduated basic training and was told I'd be going to war. Since then, I've finished a year of college and four months of pre-deployment training at Fort McCoy in Wisconsin. Now, here I am in Iraq with a small, thick, Greek man from Colorado named Denti. He acts like such a kid even though he's twenty-three, which makes him only three years older than me. Denti's always been a storyteller and I quickly learned to never believe anything he says, including the fact that he was a pimp, drug dealer, gang member, and a weightlifting power-lifter — he says he only joined the Army because he wanted to get away from the hectic lifestyle.
“If there was a sniper nearby and he saw you salute an officer, he'd know exactly who to kill. Didn't you ever watch Forrest fucking Gump?!” Denti yells, as he lights a cigarette.
The sky is yellow, orange, and brown scratched together — not like the blue sky in Boston. An Iraqi man is staring at us; I see him: He wears a black and white turban, which I know means he's been to Mecca. I'm not sure if I've seen skin tone like his before; it's golden auburn. I notice that it's the same color as the buildings, and the buildings are the same color as the sand blowing in my face. They're the same color as the sky. I think that if I were fifty feet away and there was a pile of sand, a building, and a naked Iraqi man, I wouldn't be able to differentiate between them. They all look like they belong together: the tiny buildings, the man with a face that's tired, the sand, the sky, and the sun.
In the distance is a dome, clearly American made; it doesn't belong at all. We're not supposed to be here either? It's the northern part of the country, a hot spot in Iraq. The enemy is looking for the officers, the leaders. Don't salute in a war zone.
Lesson learned.
WEEK 1, DAY 2, IRAQ
0730 HOURS, OR
I've got a belly full of bacon and eggs and I'm about to have my arms elbow deep in someone's stomach. I feel anxiety build up, but I know I can't show it. Someone's life is going to be in my hands. Not just a patient, but someone's son, daughter, brother, sister, mother, or father — in my hands. The worst part of surgery isn't the surgery itself, it's before the surgery when you're waiting and thinking. Thinking about what if I mess up, what if the patient dies and it's my fault. This is the time when logic and reason need to override emotion. Emotion can lead to death while reason and logic lead to life. If during surgery I let fear take over, I will become distracted and the patient will die, but if I will myself to stop thinking and let my muscle memory take over, the muscle memory that was programmed into me during my OR (operating room) schooling, then I know everything will be okay. Willing myself to stop feeling is nearly impossible, though. My body is full of emotions swirling around inside, with each one fighting to be the strongest. The fear hits, then the anxiety, then the nervousness. I stand there, taking it all in. I am paralyzed but I know what I must do. I close my eyes and breathe slowly and deeply. With the exhale, I tell myself that I don't care if the patient dies. I tell myself that emotions are pointless and that nothing matters. I open my eyes back up and the fear, anxiety, and nervousness are gone. I am blank. I feel nothing, and this is how it has to be.
I look over at Reto. He's scared; I can see it in his eyes. Although I've only known him for a few months, already he's a best friend. Reto, short for Retoller; he's from rural Maine, and to my surprise he did grow up with indoor plumbing. Not the redneck I expected him to be, he's actually a good-looking guy who could have been a model if it weren't for the fact that he's practically blind and wears quarter-inch-thick glasses. Reto joined the Army, specifically the medical field, because he wants to be a doctor and have the Army pay for his schooling.
“Well, this is it. This is what we're here for.” I try to calm him down and place my hand on his shoulder. Reto looks at me; his eyes are glossy and red.
“Thanks, man,” he says quietly.
Reto and I hold eye contact for a second, letting each other know we're ready to do this, and together we head toward the OR. That's how it's always been with Reto and me. Even though we've only been friends for a few months, we have the silent communication down that usually takes friends years to master. It was easy for us because we are very similar and we remind each other of friends back home. Reto reminds me of my friend Sam, who wears glasses and is a hillbilly. Reto says I remind him of his friend Tom, who is tall and pale.
The main reason Reto and I click, is not because of our strong bond with each other but because of our lack of bonds with everyone else. If I had heard one of Denti's stupid stories in the real world I would have walked away. Same goes for almost everyone else. But Reto is my best friend because I know that after this year is over he's the only one I'll be talking to.
The OR is small. The smallest I've ever seen. In fact, every room in our hospital is small. We have everything a hospital must have — in miniature form. We have an OR (operating room), an ER (emergency room), an ICU (intensive care unit), an ICW (intensive care ward), a respiratory clinic, a mental health clinic, a patient administration section, an X-ray section, and a pharmacy. Everything you think a hospital should have — with the exception of a maternity ward.
In the OR we only do three surgeries at a time because that's the number of beds we have. Even worse is that in one of our rooms we have two OR beds placed only a few feet apart. This means we'll often have two surgeries going on at the same time in the same room. Not the most sterile setup in the world, but we're short on staff and short on space, just not short on patients.
The ICU and ICW can only hold sixteen patients each. This means a constant rotation going in and out. Whether the patients are Iraqi or American, we have to move them to another place as quickly as possible or we'll have no room for the incoming.
Reto and I grab our instrument trays and place them on the back table in the OR; this is where we'll work from during surgery. The room has just been mopped. The air is hot and smells of peroxide. I feel as though I am trapped in a bleach steam room. We walk around and check all our instruments to make sure they work. First is the bovie machine. It's a blue box that we use to cauterize the skin. Check. Next are the lights and the table. Check. Check. Last is the suction. It's bulky and looks like it's from the 1970s, but it works. Check.
Reto and I are doing our surgeries in the two-bed OR; we'll be right next to each other during surgery. Everything is set up, so it's time to gown and scrub in. The others still haven't shown up. A tall soldier walks over and tells us that since it's our first surgeries, members of the forward surgical team (FST) will shadow us. A forward surgical team is a small hospital unit trained to drop anywhere in the world and start a hospital within the hour. They have a reputation for being a bunch of cocky bastards.
I feel like puking I'm so nervous. I can feel my heart beating faster. I want to say I'm sick and back out. I wish that I'd chosen another job when I joined up — ER or ICU or ICW — anything but surgery. I wish I wasn't so impulsive and greedy. When I first thought about joining the military I took the ASVAB test (armed services vocational aptitude battery test). I got a great score, and the Army told me I could have practically any job I wanted. I told the recruiter that I'd take whichever job had the highest bonus and the biggest kicker for school. He said an OR medic gets an eight thousand dollar bonus and a monthly GI bill kicker (for college) of three hundred and fifty dollars. He did explain what an OR medic actually does, but at the age of seventeen I was too busy daydreaming about all of the magical things I could do with eight thousand dollars. Now here I am, three years later, and I would give back every cent to not be where I am. I would pay double, triple even, but I have no choice. The money is gone, the contract signed, and I am here in Iraq preparing for surgery.
0800 HOURS, OR
“You amateurs! Man, they don't teach you guys anything in school nowadays, do they?” I think this guy is Puerto Rican, but his voice gives no hint of an accent. He's this bowlegged FST soldier that comes barreling into the room. His face is covered with a mask for sterility purposes, but I can see his eyes as he talks.
“I can't believe you got all gowned and gloved and they don't tell you what has to happen.”
Great. I haven't even started surgery and already this guy is berating me.
“Who's Specialist Anthony?” He asks, placing his hand in his pocket.
I raise my hand.
“I'm going to be shadowing you today. If we're going to be working together, you've got to learn how to do business. There is one way, and one way only! that we start off surgery, and I don't want you to forget that.”
I nod.
The guy with bowlegs starts plugging in electronics while he's talking. “Rule one,” he's intoning. “For What It's Worth” by Buffalo Springfield suddenly blares in the background. He quickly turns it down. “Get yourself an iPod.” He's got the bass tuned exactly right now. “The last thing you want is to be stuck doing surgery for eight hours listening to some doctor talk about golf or politics.”
0830 HOURS, SURGERY
“What's your name, soldier?” asks the doctor I'll be working with. He's in his late fifties or early sixties. He's skinny, skinnier than I am, and slightly smaller, around 5′7″. He stands with slouch, though, and if he stood up straight we might be the same height.
“Specialist Anthony.” I begin to gown and glove the doctor.
“I am Colonel Jessop,” he says as the nurses wheel our patients in the room and place them on the OR tables. “There are only a few things I ask of you. Just do whatever I tell you to do. Learn quickly and give me what I need before I need it. Do all these things and we'll get along just fine. And call me Bill.”
That's how it's always been in the OR. Even though we're in the military and Bill is a colonel, we keep it casual. When you're doing surgery and you've got a person bleeding to death you don't have time to say, “Colonel Jessop, sir, the patient is bleeding. What should I do?” You yell, “Bill, we've got a bleeder. Get down here now!” That's the one perk of the OR — the doctors and anesthesiologists, who are colonels and majors, take off all rank and relax once in the OR. It's not about who has the higher position, it's about working together as peers and getting the job done. This in itself helps ease the anxiety — somewhat. But a patient's life is still in my hands, in our hands.
My job is simple enough. Just like Bill said, all I need to do is what I'm told and whenever possible before I'm told. Basically, it's like in the movies. A doctor yells out “Scalpel!” and then a gloved hand reaches over and gives it to him. That hand is an OR medic's hand — my hand.
I fall automatically into surgery mode. Life or death doesn't matter to me right now. My only concern is to do my job the best I can. We're taught in operating room technician school that it's the family's job to worry; our job is to save lives. When I first had someone say that to me, I was skeptical. I thought it was just a cute saying that people in the medical field would say to one another. Then during training I had my first surgery. It was on a woman, and I was so worried about screwing up and having the patient die that I handed the doctor the wrong instruments. The patient still survived, though. When I got out of surgery, I saw her family waiting, and I felt so happy to see their relief when they heard their mother/wife had made it through the surgery. But I also felt shame because I hadn't given my best in there. I spent too much time worrying and messed up.
Before I know it, everything fades into oblivion. I can no longer hear the music. I can no longer hear Reto's surgery only a few feet away. I can no longer hear all the beeps and buzzes from the machines. All I can hear is the voice of my surgeon as he yells: “Scalpel!” “Bovie!” “Suction!” “Suture!”
Eventually even Bill's voice fades away. We form a flow. I am inside his head. Our surgery is an I&D (irrigation and debridement) on an Iraqi civilian injured by a suicide bomber. Bill performed exploratory surgery on him yesterday and plugged all his holes. Now we are irrigating the wound to keep it clean and removing all the shrapnel we can find so the patient doesn't get an infection. In this case, the shrapnel is human bone from the suicide bomber. When the bomber blew himself up, chunks of his bones went flying everywhere, and now they are embedded in our patient. The surgery is like any other, but the fact that we're removing human bone makes it harder. For most bomb explosions, metal is embedded in the victims and it is easily findable with an X-ray. However, with human bone, when an X-ray is done, if the shrapnel hit in a certain part, sometimes it's not possible to distinguish between the patient's bone and someone else's bone fragments.
Everyone is too close in this room! Even under all of our sterile protective wear I can feel everyone's breath on me. It makes me anxious. I didn't go through all my training to become certified only to come here and have people watch my every move. I haven't screwed up yet, but all this attention is making me think too much, and thinking is when I get myself into trouble. I need to stop thinking; I just need to do. That's what I always tell myself since that first surgery with the woman. I don't care if the patient dies, it's only about if I do my job well. That doctor told me I was one of the best technicians he ever had. When I saw the patient's family and how happy they were, though, I felt nothing. No happiness, no shame, no pride, nothing — my job isn't to feel.
“Hand the doctor the final suture,” the guy with bowlegs — Specialist Trask — tells me. I've only known him for an hour and already I can't stand him. His voice makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. He's so close to me that I can smell his deodorant, Old Spice Original Style. I long for the civilian world OR, where you've got room to move around and no one is looking over your shoulder.
I hand the doctor the suture and he begins closing the wound. The surgery is almost over. I look down and there's hardly any blood.
“Nice work, Anthony.” Bill looks up at me. “You don't need the FST guy hanging around you.”
I nod my head. “Thank you, Colonel… .”
“Soldier,” Bill says cutting me off. “I respect your bearing, but remember we're in the OR, it's Bill.”
“All right.”
“You got an iPod?”
“Yes, Bill.”
“Trask has the worst taste in music.”
He starts taking his gown off.
“Next time you see my name on the surgery board, sign up to work with me and bring Classical.”
Trask is closing up the wound.
Bill is looking at his watch.
I am also grateful for having met Dr. Bill — actually, he's given me hope. For a while there I was starting to think that I would never meet someone I could look up to and respect, that maybe my standards were too high, that maybe Gagney, the staff sergeant in charge of the operating room (OR) section where I work, is as good as it gets.
Gagney: late thirties. His eyes are brown, his hair is black, and on the crown of his head is a bald spot. He looks to be a mixture of Native American, Portuguese, and Italian. He claims to be none of the above and will not tell me his ethnicity. Back during our three-and-a-half-month pre-deployment training in Wisconsin, he received divorce papers from his wife and then spent twenty minutes calling Reto and me idiots because we didn't have pens on us. Then a month ago Gagney, Reto, Denti, and I were playing Risk, a game of global domination. I had an alliance with Reto and we attacked Gagney's armies. Gagney flipped out, knocked the game board over, called us all “fucking idiot cheaters,” and stormed off. I've seen him yell at a female soldier while she sobbed uncontrollably.
This is the guy who's supposed to be, I mean is, our leader in Iraq.
1100 HOURS, OR
“Look who decides to show up,” Reto says.
Almost our entire OR team is on their way in. Sergeants and specialists like shift leader Hudge — Mexican, she's as pale as I am, attractive, twenty-four years old, and married to another specialist working as a medic in our unit's ER. I know she's a strong woman who isn't afraid to speak her mind, but most importantly I know that she is very emotional. In the past few months, every time I've seen her, she has either been yelling or crying.
What a beginning. Almost everybody is late, including Gagney, and it's only our first day at work.
For some reason Gagney thinks now is a good time to assert his authority as the alpha male of our group.
“Come here, sergeant!” yells Gagney to Elster, a Dominican sergeant.
“Yes, sir,” Elster says as he quickly approaches.
Gagney continues yelling, his voice is hard and stern like an angered father.
“You're late! This is a hospital! This is the military! You show up late and someone dies!”
Gagney is directing his tirade at Elster, but he looks over at all of us to see if we're watching.
“Your tardiness could have cost someone their life!”
Gagney starts to get into character now. His arms are flailing, fingers pointing at Elster. “Do you understand? You're staying late tonight!”
Gagney then turns and speaks to all of us. “Go have lunch! Because starting at 1300, we're dealing with a mock mass casualty situation.”
I don't know whether to clap at Gagney's performance or worry that it's just the beginning of a long year. I feel bad for Elster. During training in Wisconsin he got made fun of for having an effeminate voice and for listening to Michael Bolton. He also likes the Beatles; he's the whitest black guy I know.
But watching Gagney yell at him for no reason twists my stomach in a knot. It's one thing for me to get yelled at, at least I've mastered the art of daydreaming, but watching someone else being yelled at is like watching a car crash. You feel bad and can't take your eyes off of it, but there's nothing you can do, so you keep on driving and say a little prayer.
We all go to lunch — except for Elster.
1230 HOURS, OR
A mass casualty is a surge of patients coming in all at once, possibly more than we can handle. For the mock scenario, soldiers from around the base come in and pretend to be wounded. We have to act out what we'd do if the injuries were real. It usually goes something like this: The fake patients come into the ER. The doctors and medics look them over and say what is wrong with them and where they need to go depending on their injuries. The ones with small or manageable wounds are sent to the ICU or ICW, and the ones who need surgery are sent to the OR.
During a mass casualty, however, there are also patients you send off to die. With our limited capabilities, doctors need to make tough decisions. Eight patients come in for surgery, but you can only do three at a time. That means five lie back and wait. If the wounds are bad enough, then there's nothing we can do for them, except call a chaplain to read them their last rites.
“So you're telling me that all we can do is watch patients die?”Reto asks as we sit and wait for the fake patients.
“Depending on their wounds, yeah,” I say. “Some of them.”
Dr. Bill jumps in. “Say we have eight patients and three need twelve hours of surgery, but only five need three hours of surgery. Those five could die while we spent twelve hours on the other three patients. Even though we can and know how to save everyone's life, we can't.”
I hear Gagney yelling at Sergeant Hudge in another room. He's been like this all day, pacing back and forth yelling at people: Do this. Do that. Stop that.
“In fact, for the real bad patients,” Dr. Bill is continuing, “it would be better for them if we just left them to die in the field. At least there they would have a quick death. All we do by bringing them back here is prolong the inevitable. It's horrible.”
Staff Sergeant Gagney comes out of the room and sees us talking to Dr. Bill.
“What are you doing just sitting down?”
I look at Gagney. “We've got eight patients on the way.” The ER hasn't sent us any fake patients back yet.
“Get your rooms ready.” Gagney is acting as if we've got twenty on the way.
“The rooms are set up,” I say.
“Listen, soldier.” Gagney talks over me at a volume higher than necessary. “ER might have two patients with gunshot wounds coming over. I want you gowned and gloved and sitting in that OR waiting for those patients to come in.”
I was about to stand up, to show him respect, but I change my mind.
“This is a test,” he says.
“If it were a real mass casualty, we wouldn't do that,” I'm saying. “If this is supposed to be real, then we'd sit out here and wait.”
“Stand up when you talk to a superior officer.”
I shouldn't be saying this. “It could be an hour — ”
“I don't care if you wait for ten hours. I want you in there now.”Gagney stares at me.
I stand up reluctantly. It's all I can think to do. I look around the room. Everyone's watching, but no one says anything. I look at the others. I see the sympathy in their eyes, but no words of encouragement are forthcoming. Everyone is afraid of Gagney's temper — and no one wants to be on the wrong end of it.
Gagney continues to yell. “It goes for the rest of you, too,” Gagney booms. “I don't care how long it takes. I don't care how hot it is in there. Gown up and go into your rooms and stay there.” Everyone gets up.
“I don't care if you have to go to the bathroom. No one leaves until I tell you you can go!”
I stare at Gagney and recall a thought I've had many times in the Army. I cut my hair at least every twelve days, and I wear the same uniform without fail because I signed a contract three years ago. The contract says that all my decisions are to be made by somebody else who is my superior. He is my shepherd and I must follow. I am nothing more than a sheep being led into a dry, desolate desert. I must follow my shepherd if I want to get out alive — or at least that's what I'm told.
1600 HOURS, BREAK ROOM
“Let's cut the guy some slack,” says Sellers, the only one to come to Gagney's defense. As if his performance at the mock mass casualty wasn't salt enough in the wound, he then puts Hudge and Chandler on second shift, which started at 1500 hours. (Chandler is a twenty-eight-year-old mechanic from the backwoods of Maine. He's even more “country” than Reto — and missing more teeth than he has.)
Gagney placed Waters and Sellers on third shift. Everyone else needs to be back tomorrow morning at 0700 while Gagney gets to stroll in whenever he wants because he's still working on a final schedule.
Maybe she's right; maybe we are being too harsh on him. I nod in agreement with Sellers. She looks at me as if trying to find out if she can trust me or not. She's not sure she can trust anyone, ever since someone started a rumor about her being a lesbian a couple of weeks ago. She denied it — then got caught fooling around with a girl during our stopover in Kuwait. She refuted it again and accused her detractors of conducting a witch-hunt against her. However the rumor — and her mistrust — persist.
Reto blurts out from his chair: “I don't care if it's day one or one hundred. That guy is an asshole.”
Denti says he doesn't want to waste any more time on the douchebag and gets up to leave the break room.
I don't say it, but I think Sellers is right. Just do your job. Give it a few weeks. There's a lot to get used to for everybody. Maybe military life hasn't been all I thought it would be. I pictured men and women shoulders back and heads held high, living their lives by virtuous ideals and proud to wear the uniform of their country — maybe I'm not that naïve. I saw a military marching, flying the American flag, singing the national anthem, and defeating all our enemies without losing a single man. But I think there's something behind that, that in the end it's right and it works, and we can trust that — we have to be able to trust that.
1900 HOURS, GYM
Bunkers are cement shelters designed for mortar attacks. They run about four feet high and around fifteen feet long. There's room enough for about twenty people. The first thing we're told to do when we enter a new building is locate the closest bunkers.
In Iraq we carry our M-16s with us everywhere we go, and that includes the shower, the dining facility, and the gym. When I first started carrying the weapon around, it felt awkward having to take it with me everywhere. I even had to balance it on the bathroom floor while I relieved myself. Now, after all these months of having to carry it around everyday, it still feels unnatural and cumbersome. Back home, my friends talk in awe about what it's like to be a soldier and a man, someone who walks around all day with a weapon, but I don't tell any of them the truth. The truth is that I don't feel like a real man. A real man would have a choice in the matter, but in my case it is merely an order. In the end, though, I know it's for my own good to carry the weapon with me everywhere. I'm learning weapon awareness, and if I ever come upon an enemy soldier, I will have my weapon ready to fire and kill.
Although sometimes I can't stand Denti and the stories he tells — like the time he told me he had a girl pee on him, or how he had sex with an Asian prostitute — it's pretty cool being at the gym with him. Since he is allegedly a former powerlifter — not that he isn't a great bullshitter at all times — he says he'll get me jacked by the time I go back home. I figure I don't have much else planned while in Iraq, so I might as well go to the gym when I can.
Denti's workout is very thorough: sit-ups, push-ups, leg work, benching. Most of the time he's screaming at me — either telling me I'm doing something wrong or yelling in some type of weird powerlifting congratulatory manner when I do something right.
I'm spotting Denti and Reto comes over, finished with cardio.
Then we hear the sound of this car door slamming: Bang. Bang. Bang.
The runners stop running and look at the weightlifters to see if the noise was the weights banging. The weightlifters stop lifting and look at the people playing basketball to see if the noise was a ball bouncing. Everyone turns and looks at the cyclers, who have stopped riding.
Loud noises. Boom. Boom. Boom. Louder than I've ever heard before, like fireworks and thunder all together.
Freeze.
Suddenly everyone's rushing toward the weapons rack, grabbing guns, running outside.
The explosions are coming closer now, closer together, one on top of the other.
We're sprinting for the bunkers. I'm breathing deep, it's twenty-five feet away. Crouching down as I enter.
Huge crash, very close.
“Get the fuck in there now!” Denti yells.
Bbbbbooooommmmmm.
It's hitting the dome right outside. Mortar, a huge bullet fired from a cannon explodes and sends shrapnel flying over and into people.
A second later and Denti could have died. I look at Denti and try to gauge how he's feeling since he came the closest to getting hit. It's too dark to see Denti's face, though.
More mortars are going off and hitting around the gym. Since it's a huge dome, it's an easy enough target.
We look around; there are fifteen people in the bunker. It's pitch-dark; I can't see who is with us in the bunker.
I sit there and replay what just happened. I'm not sure how I'm supposed to feel about the whole thing. I've never had a near-death experience before, and I'm not sure how to react. Everyone else is just sitting in silence. I feel like I should be happy to be alive; I feel like I should have a newfound perspective on life, but I don't know what I feel. It's no emotion I've ever heard described before. I can't describe it with a word like nervous, scared, or afraid; I've felt all those before, but never before have I felt the feeling of almost dying.
“Who grabbed my ass?” a burly male voice yells out. Everyone in the bunker laughs. No one seems fazed by the attack and how close Denti came to injury or death.
“I grabbed it and I'd do it again,” a different male voice yells out. This brings even more laughter. I try to force myself to laugh with all of them, but I am still shaken up. I almost died and people are making jokes. Intellectually, I know that joking about a situation should help, but I don't feel like joking. I'm just not there yet.
The mortar rounds continue to go off, some sounding on the other side of the base and some hitting next to us. Everyone goes on talking and laughing as if we aren't in danger, as if this is no big deal, as if people almost die all the time. Denti lights up a cigarette. I'm riled up so Denti offers me one. I normally don't smoke, but I take a cigarette anyway. As I take my first puff, I start to relax.
The lights from the cigarettes illuminate the inside of the bunker and we can finally see the hints of each other's faces. Everyone looks relaxed and calm. My heart is still racing, but I begin to realize that I will have to learn to accept that the base being mortared and me jumping into a bunker is going to be a part of my life for the next year. I can either sit and wallow in fear or learn to laugh like the rest of them.
1915 HOURS, BUNKERS
Fifteen minutes go by. No further rounds go off. A soldier gets a call on his radio saying it's all clear, we're safe to walk around again. Emerging, we're looking at the damage to the bunkers. Amazingly, there hasn't been any structural damage, the concrete was so thick. The gym is alright, too. The ground surrounding, however, is a different story. Although there's only a small indentation in the ground where the mortar hit, the area is covered in bits and pieces of metal — shrapnel. Someone picks up a piece, it's hot; it burns his hand.
We decide to start walking. Our hospital policy dictates that everyone must report in after a mortar attack to count who's still alive, and we don't have radios.
“You know I almost got hit by that,” Denti brags. “I jumped into the bunker at the last second.”
People seem impressed and Denti is proud. I look at Denti and laugh. I'm happy that his near-death experience hasn't scarred him for life, but I know I will have to hear the retelling of this story, again and again.
1930 HOURS, BASE ROAD
As we start our trek back to the hospital, I notice that it's dark and the base has a new feel to it. This is our home — but we are not safe here. I think this is what the enemy is trying to accomplish: They want us on alert until it burns us out. The worst part is thinking about how it could happen at any time or at any place. It makes me feel like a prisoner inside a prison that I was sent to liberate. I think I can finally realize a name for my feeling. It's the feeling of impending doom. I could be dead or mortally wounded anywhere, at any time.
The moon, standing alone in the sky, is our only light. My legs are tired from the workout at the gym; it feels like we have been walking forever. We pass the dining facility and the Iraqirun Hajji stores that sell bootleg DVDs and cigarettes. We aren't seeing damage from mortars; the rest must have hit on the other side of the base.
It becomes hypnotic, the noise of each step we take; they're the only distinguishable sounds within earshot. None of us speak as we walk. This must be what the world would feel like after a nuclear war.
“We're the only people on the street,” says Reto. He and Denti light cigarettes and I stop and look around. We're standing in-between streetlights and there's a fence on either side of us. Up ahead are buildings. This is the busiest street on the base and there is no sound, only Denti throwing his old cigarette to the ground. It feels like impending doom, like something's going to happen, like people felt on New Year's Eve 1999, at 11:59 and 58 seconds, possibly the end of the world.
“Where the hell is everyone? If it's all clear, where are they?”Reto asks.
I think for a second. “They're probably all at their units checking in.”
I have a cigarette with them, even though I don't smoke. It's my second in the country, a pretty worthwhile occasion I would say — just nearly got my head blown off. The nicotine kicks in fast and is relaxing. We see a Humvee speeding down the road behind us. It pulls up next to us, but the window doesn't roll down.
“What the hell's going on?” Reto asks.
I'm really starting to get nervous: “Fuck, man… .”
The window cracks open: “What are you guys doing walking around? It hasn't been all cleared yet; get to some fucking bunkers now!”
And then it leaves, speeding away. Reto's hand shakes as he puts the cigarette to his mouth and grips his weapon.
Denti's head jerks back and forth as he looks in all directions.
“Do you guys see any bunkers anywhere?”
We start running, running as fast as we can for the hospital. I've never run this fast before, none of us have, and probably never will. When we reach that front door at the hospital I look down; my hands are shaking, too. As we head inside the main lobby we hear a loud explosion, followed by an even louder one.
After a while, staff for our unit check in one by one to let everyone know that they're alive. Some are scared; some excited. It's strange to see the ones excited about a mortar attack.
Someone from another part of the hospital comes in and tells us we shouldn't be here. We should have stayed in the bunker. Nothing's all clear until there's an announcement on the loudspeaker.
A soldier pokes his head through a door and yells into our room. “Don't send anyone home. We've got a mass casualty. This is real.”
My anxiety from this morning returns. Inside I'm screaming. I want to throw up, it's too much fucking pressure, I can't take it, I can't fucking hack it. I wish I had gone to college. If I had gone to college I would only be worried about girls and midterms, but instead I am worrying whether or not I can save someone's life, and whether or not all my worrying could cost them their life.
We hear shouting and a lot of commotion coming from the ER. The first casualties are arriving: two Iraqis and an American soldier; the American soldier is from the unit we're replacing. He was hit by shrapnel in the second attack. He was going home in a few days. A year in Iraq he survives everything, then a week before he's supposed to leave he gets injured.
The medics and doctors in the ER are looking the patients over, deciding what type of care they need.
The same soldier who told us not to leave sticks his head through the door. He tells us two Iraqis need surgery. A gunshot wound to the leg and arm. The other has shrapnel to the head and neck.
We've got to ready our instruments. Before we can grab our instrument trays, the ER soldier is back: “Four injured Iraqis on the way. All need surgery. Not sure about wounds, sounds like all GSWs [gunshot wounds].”
Six patients now need surgery — three OR beds. Grab Basic Instrument sets: different clamps, scissors, retractors, and forceps. Don't fucking think!
I'm in the single room. Denti is in the double room with Torres — a thirty-one-year-old with broken English from Guatemala. Torres joined the Army, specifically the medical field, because his younger brother joined the Army and died while in combat — in Iraq.
Prepare for an all-nighter. “Four more on the way, they're thirty minutes out.” The Soldier yells again, for the third and hopefully final time.
2100 HOURS, OR
It's complete chaos. The FST people try to take over operations of the hospital. Gagney's all pissed off and he starts yelling again. Not only is he getting in everyone's way, he's annoying the doctors.
The three surgeries are going quickly. I'm working on an Iraqi that needs both his arm and leg amputated. The injured American isn't as bad as they thought; he can wait to be seen until tomorrow. Torres and Denti are working on Iraqi patients.
Working on the Iraqi relaxes me a little bit. I know I'm doing my best to try to save him, but I also know that, truthfully, if he dies it won't be as big a deal as if an American dies. If that happened on my table, everyone would read about it back in the States and his name would be on a wall, forever engraving my inability not to save his life. But if an Iraqi dies, I know that most likely he will be given a pauper's funeral, and back in the States his name won't appear except as a statistic. It's not a pleasant thing to think about, but I need something to take the edge off.
Everything moves like a dream. It's finally here. It feels more intense than I ever imagined. Everyone is doing exactly what they did this afternoon. I can feel myself slowly put a wall up, though. I'm unconsciously separating myself from any emotion that might be bubbling to the surface. I look around at everyone in the OR with me: the doctor, the nurse, the anesthesiologist. It seems like everyone else is on autopilot, too. Today is just another day in a place nobody will ever hear of. I look at some of the doctors and they are laughing, full of energy and ready to work all night if need be. I can tell they've perfected the emotion block. I'm trained for it too, even if I need to get better at it in the operating room, and out.
2300 HOURS, OR
I overhear a conversation between Dr. Bill and Gagney in the next room.
“Listen, you may be in charge of the OR for the enlisted section, but I am in charge of the ENTIRE OR. No one needs to hear you losing your shit. You aren't helping anyone by screaming your head off. In fact, you're hurting the situation. I let it go this afternoon because it was only a mock scenario. But right now, this is happening. People are injured and could die. You're going to cause more damage; you have to relax. Come back tomorrow, leave, get a level head.”
Gagney is visibly embarrassed and I see him lower his eyes to the ground. I avoid eye contact as he walks past me.
0100 HOURS, OR
There are just a few of us left. Sellers is out back working diligently putting together instrument trays; Waters chatters on about nothing.
Back home in the States, she's a waitress at a strip club, but I have a feeling every woman who works there says they're a “waitress.” Waters continues speaking, and the more she does, the more I can tell we are never going to get along. She has the undeserving self-worth of a high school prom queen who now works at a strip club, and I have the deserving self-worth of a wallflower that never went to his prom. I know that she is the type of girl who will use her sex appeal to get her way, and I know that I am the type of guy to fall for it. “Hey girls,” I say, with Reto standing next to me. “Are you all good? It's late and we've got to be back for an eight hour shift in a few hours.”
I've seen the look Waters then gives me many times before. It's the look I get while talking to a girl that thinks she's out of my league.
“Gagney did screw us over the most.” She bats her eyelashes. “Maybe you can stay a little later. Besides, you guys need the practice. So you two should stay and do the next cases.”
Waters turns soft then as she changes tactics and tries to convince us of the virtues of staying late. “Gagney will probably let you come in late anyway. You're young too, and don't need much sleep. Besides, I'm sure there will be plenty of late nights. You might as well get used to it.”
We should have just fucking told them we were leaving instead of asking. Reto has now fallen for her trap and decides to take one of the cases. Waters takes the other one. I stay for another hour and help put instrument sets back together. As I leave for the night, their patients are just coming in. I tell Reto I'll cover for him so he can sleep late tomorrow.
0200 HOURS, MY ROOM
When I get back to my room, my new roommate is asleep and snoring. Reto told me his name is Specialist Markham. He sounds like a hibernating bear with sleep apnea. He's probably going to die, but I'm too tired to care.
Do I wake up in four hours at 0600 to eat then go to work, or do I wake up in four and a half hours at 0630, skip breakfast, and go directly to work? I'm asleep before I can even think about it.
WEEK 1, DAY 3, IRAQ
0600 HOURS, BARRACKS
My eyes crack open at the sound of my alarm. I only went to sleep four hours ago, and now I have another full day ahead of me. Markham is still asleep and snoring. I want to “accidentally” make some noise as I get dressed because my pounding headache is being aggravated by the sound of him choking on his tongue. I slam my door as I leave to go to Denti's room.
Denti is wide-awake, smiling, well rested; he went back to his room after the first case. He's lighting up a cigarette, telling me I look like shit. I have to stop myself from hitting him, all hair-gelled and teeth brushed. He's so full of bullshit.
“Hey man, remember yesterday at the gym when I almost died?” We're walking along the road to the dining facility on the same road the Humvee stopped us. A crowd of people is standing around and taking pictures.
There's a six-inch-deep and two-foot-wide indentation in the ground. In the parking lot, Humvees are peppered with shrapnel; all their front tires are blown out, and the tires on one of them have melted into the ground.
A soldier taking a picture says, “It happened last night during the second attack.”
“Holy shit!” Denti gasps.
“We were standing in this exact spot last night. Two times in one day I was almost …” Denti begins and trails off . No one is listening. No one cares how close he, Reto, and I almost came to dying. Three more people in the crowd speak up about their own near-death experiences last night. Millions of people almost die every day, and thousands do die everyday. But listen, I don't have to be psychic to guess what Denti's thinking; I know how his mind works … These people on the road may not be impressed, but they're gonna love it in the D-fac at breakfast.
“So there I was …” “Minutes away …” “No I wasn't scared …”“The bomb hit right after we'd …,” “Seriously, I was minutes away from death.”
I'm just shoveling it in.
0700 HOURS, OR
When we get to work we have four cases already lined up. They are all I&Ds for the mass casualty patients from yesterday. As we prepare, Specialist Torres and Reto come in.
Denti and I have our rooms set up for surgery, but no one is here yet. We take our gowns and gloves off and head to the break room to wait for the doctors. They're most likely tired from last night, too, but unlike us, they can come to work whenever they want.
Torres, Reto, and I complain about having to wait around for the doctors, but we shouldn't. It's an unexpected break and we don't see too many of those.
0800 HOURS, OR
Staff Sergeant Gagney walks in; he is an hour late for work and Reto and I stare at him as he saunters into the room and plops himself in a chair near us.
“Aargh,” Gagney sighs, trying to make a production of how tired he is.
“Man, am I tired. Hey Reto, go make me a cup of coffee, will you?” Gagney says as he pushes further back in his chair.
“I was up late all night working on a schedule for you guys,” he says, as he gives a fake yawn.
Reto just stares at Gagney with fire in his eyes and doesn't move to get him a cup of coffee. I try to avoid eye contact with Gagney so he won't ask me to go.
“Aaaghh,” Gagney sighs again as he now stands from his chair, feeling satisfied that we understand how hard he worked and why he has an excuse for being late. He walks over to the break room and posts the schedule on the door. It's three pages of yellow-lined paper and only covers this month.
As Reto, Torres, and I are crowding around the door to read the schedule, Denti walks over and rips the schedule from the door: “For Christ sake. Look at the schedule. Anthony. You're on first shift today; tomorrow you're on second shift. The day after that you're on third shift and the day after that first shift.”
He starts talking to me slowly as if I'm a child. “That means tomorrow you work three to eleven. But the next day, you work eleven to seven, got me? And the day after that you work seven to three. That means you'll be working sixteen hours.”
Reto grabs the schedule and starts analyzing it.
“How the hell are we going to sleep if our shifts change every day? Elster, Gagney, Hudge, and Waters all have the same shifts every day. It's just us fucking specialists getting screwed over.”
Torres grabs the schedule from Reto. I know he can barely understand it, but he stares at it as if he is reading a book. “So what does this mean? We will be working a different shift every other day? Why? That doesn't make sense.”
“It means we're getting screwed. Gagney is such an idiot!”
0900 HOURS, OR
“Needle holder …” Dr. Bill yells, taking me out of my daze. I don't know how many times he's asked for it, but I grab the closest one and hand it to him. It's the wrong kind, but he uses it.
1445 HOURS, OR
When I first met Chandler at our training in Wisconsin, I didn't like him. He seemed too goofy for me to be able to talk to or take seriously, but as the days go on and we've formed a common enemy — no, not Al Qaeda or Osama bin Laden, Staff Sergeant Gagney — I would say we're now friends. In fact, the first day I met him, he had a saying that summed up how people feel about him: “I'm like mold. You may not like me at first, but I grow on you.” He had all kinds of bumper sticker sayings like that. He once even told me a line that he wrote in a Valentine to his fiancée, Jill: “My love for you is like herpes. It may subside at times, but it will never leave you.”
Denti is ripping the schedule off the door again. “He has us changing shifts every other fucking day.” Hudge and Chandler are looking at it now.
“What!” Chandler squeaks out as he spits up the sip of Pepsi he was drinking.
That's another thing about Chandler. It seems like he has a can of Pepsi permanently glued to his hand.
“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” Denti is going on. “First of all, there are no days off scheduled for any of us, except for Gagney. Next to his name in parentheses it says, ‘will make own days off,’ whatever that means.”
“This is wicked retarded,” Hudge says, her voice thick with a Boston accent.
Chandler starts laughing.
“Look at this. Gagney and Elster are on first shift every day together. I'm sure that's going to be fun,” Denti says, making reference to our first day where Gagney chewed him out in front of all of us.
“It always seems to be something with this guy doesn't it?”Hudge says. “He can't even make a schedule without somehow making it the worst schedule possible.”
“We've got to say something,” Chandler says. “We can't let this stand. He's probably just trying to make a point that he can do whatever he wants. You want to know what the worst part is, and no offense Hudge, but the reason that Elster, Waters, and you are all on shifts that don't change is because Gagney knows you three are the most vocal people. He knows that the rest of us probably won't complain.”
“Fuck that, I'll walk right up to him and shove the schedule down his throat,” Denti angrily exclaims.
Reto jumps from his chair. “Let's go talk to him.”
The six of us walk together toward the main OR, we're like a gang about to kick some ass. I start snapping my fingers and bobbing my shoulders like in West Side Story.
“We need to talk about the schedule,” Hudge announces as we reach Gagney's desk.
He is busy playing a computer game and doesn't look up.
“What is it!” he says as he starts to shut down his computer.
“Well,” Hudge says, her confidence starting to subside, “We just had a few concerns about the schedule we wanted to talk about.”
Gagney's computer is now off, but he still hasn't turned around to look at any of us. He stands and grabs his weapon and his jacket from the back of his chair.
“Well, there shouldn't be a problem. Like I said, it's not permanent. I still have to work guard duty into it.”
“There seems to be — ” Hudge is saying.
“But this is the military, so I suggest you find a way to deal with whatever problems you have. The schedule sticks so deal with it.” Gagney doesn't make eye contact with any of us as he walks out the door.
We are all left standing there. Denti, who said he would shove the schedule down Gagney's throat, looks like he's about to cry. His voice is trembling and he sounds like a child.
“Fucking unbelievable.”
Hudge is especially silent. Right now she isn't one of us. After all, she has the comfort of working the same time every day while our schedules are changing.
“Maybe he just doesn't understand what's wrong with the schedule. Maybe if we explain things to him …” says Chandler. He already knows his plan isn't going to work.
“Listen guys, go back to your rooms and get some sleep or go eat. I'll try to talk to Gagney when I can. Maybe even Dr. Bill can help.” Hudge's voice is now calm and caring; she sounds more like a mother than a soldier. We feel some comfort knowing that she has this side to her. That even with everything that's going on we still can have someone who truly cares about us … even if they … aren't going to do anything.
1600 HOURS, OR
My quick notes on three women:
Hudge met her husband in the military. She loves chocolate. If she starts craving chocolate she'll do almost anything for it, even give you a back rub.
I'm still not sure if Sellers is a lesbian. I flirt with her and she flirts back, but after work she spends time with the other lesbians in our unit. I spend a lot of time with Sellers because she is an insomniac and she'll come in on every shift. Most of the time she does more work than the person on shift. She is also a major germophobe; she washes her hands once before going to the bathroom and twice after. She puts gloves on to floss her teeth, and she uses an entire roll of toilet paper whenever she goes to the bathroom — and that's just to build a nest on the toilet seat.
I also met another officer I'll be working with. Captain Tarr is a Caucasian woman from Washington State. Although she often tries to tell people she is in her forties, the crows-feet around her eyes and mouth give her away. She looks good for a woman in her fifties, though, and you can tell that she used to be attractive when she was younger. She's married, has two kids, and gives a killer back rub. Often I'll be sitting there and she'll come up behind me and start rubbing away — these are on her good days. She does have bad days, too. Or I guess it's more good hours and bad hours. One minute she'll be giving you a back rub and the next she'll be cursing at you for unplugging the coffee maker. I've learned to wait and see how she acts around other people before I approach her. I'm worried she is bipolar.
WEEK 3, DAY 1, IRAQ
2200 HOURS, MY ROOM
Beep. Beep. Beep.
It's ten at night, but it's morning to me. It is my second day in a row on third shift and I've got to be at work in one hour. I'm still tired and Markham is sleeping next to me. He always sleeps well and his schedule never changes. As a laboratory technician, he tests blood to make sure it's good to put in patients and collects it from donors when our supplies run low. I'm working eight hours, then I get eight hours off, then I'm back on for eight hours. Two days ago, I was on first shift. Gagney didn't come in to work; he gave himself a day off. It's been two weeks and none of us have had a day off . Gagney's had two.
0300 HOURS, OR
Waters wakes from her nap (inside the supply closet) and finds that I have fallen asleep while working on putting instrument trays together.
“Anthony, wake up! What are you doing sleeping on the job?”
I put my arms in the air and open my eyes as best as I can.
“Whhatt?”
“You were late. I had to stand around waiting for you.”
“I'm sorry, I fell back asleep, I told you — ”
“I don't want to hear it, you were on this shift with me yesterday, two days in a row; your body should be on schedule.”
I knew little about her. Besides being a “waitress,” she's a registered nurse. She says she makes more money working at the strip club so she does that instead. I get an image of Waters in my head working at the strip club and having men slip dollar bills into her thong. If only they knew later on she'd be fighting for their freedom.
“Get the sterilizer machines ready. You didn't finish the work you were supposed to do; now we'll both have to do it.” Waters starts rummaging around the room. I'm not sure what she's looking for.
“Didn't you do anything while I was sleeping?!” She screams.
I come out of my daze enough to realize that Waters is asking a rhetorical question. She doesn't want an answer but I decide to answer anyway. “I didn't do anything while you were sleeping! God forbid you should do anything, actually do some — I'm sooo sorry that Waters has to do work. God forbid, I fall asleep and you might actually — I'm switching shifts every other day. My sleeping and eating are all fucked up and you might actually have to do something — you might actually have to do something yourself like some of your own work… .”
I'm tired; I'm not thinking straight, I keep talking.
“You've been on third shift every day since we got here. Have you even done any surgeries since our first mass cal? Third shift never gets the surgeries. You sleep your entire fucking shift!” For the first time in two weeks I feel as though a burden has been lifted off of my chest, as if the yelling has released all of my pent-up anger. Waters breaks eye contact first; her eyes go to the floor and she starts working. I start working and we finish up what we had to do. After that we go to opposite sides of the OR. Waters starts reading a People magazine; I'm writing in my journal.
WEEK 3, DAY 6, IRAQ
0645 HOURS, MY ROOM
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.
“Turn that thing off,” my roommate Markham says as he throws a pillow at me. I open my eyes and stare at him. I don't know what's going on —
“Wwwhhhatt … thheehhell …”
Markham shuts my alarm off.
“Gagney is really screwing you guys over. I didn't think you could get any whiter than you are, but you look like a fucking holocaust victim.”
“What time is it?” I grumble as I start to get out of bed.
“Six forty six,” Markham replies.
I need to be at work at 0700.
0705 HOURS, OR
Reto and Torres tell me that Gagney is taking a day off and that Elster is in charge of us. I can't remember the last time I smiled like this. The world seems like a better place. Captain Tarr approaches us and I smile at her.
“What do you think you're smiling at!?! You came in here late. You think you can come in late just because Gagney is taking a day off?”
I quickly snap to the position of attention. Even though she is not my boss, she is higher ranking so I have to show her the proper respect.
“This is incredible. You men are all the same. You think you can get away with anything. When the cat's away, the mouse will play.”
Captain Tarr continues to ramble and I notice that she's starting to not make sense. She's been acting strange for a few days now — stranger than I've seen her before. Normally her mood is up and down; she's either giving you a massage or verbally strangling you, but now it's as if her mood is constantly on one side — the bad one. And I know I'm not the only one who's noticed it. Just yesterday Reto told me she yelled at him for using the last piece of paper in a notebook. The day before that she yelled at Denti and threw a pen at him because he ate the last muffin in the break room.
She continues to yell and I stare at the middle of her forehead. I refuse to give her the respect of my eye contact as she screams at me.
“Unbelievable … piece of … you should be … screw… .”She yells and yells and I can't help but wonder if there isn't some type of heavy suppressed anger underneath. Something must be eating her up, and she's taking it out on all of us. But she continues to yell, and I begin to wonder what it would be like if she and Gagney had a child. I wonder if it's really possible for someone to be screaming every time they open their mouth. Eventually she storms off. I don't know how long we stood there; because when you're staring at someone's forehead you lose track of time.
“No cases until twelve today,” says Reto in the break room.
Today is Sunday and the doctors don't come in until twelve. They all go to church in the morning. Well, they all say they're going to church. Half go and the other half use it as an excuse to come in late.
It feels good to have a break from doing surgery. The last few days we've been loaded with them. We've been getting bombed at least twice a week, and that means we're overloaded.
Torres looks happy. This is his third day in a row on first shift so he's getting into a routine.
“Anthony, listen to what Reto was just telling me. You will never believe who got caught having sex.”
I don't have to hear any more, I'm already laughing. Torres told me that in Guatemala everyone minds their own business and no one cares what anyone else is doing. But since he came to America, and specifically since he joined the Army, he loves to hear gossip; sex is usually the number one topic of discussion. It's probably because it seems to be the most taboo. People have sex, yet the military likes to pretend they don't. The Army does this to try and keep everyone under control. They want to run things like a well-oiled machine, and when sex is brought into the equation you bring in emotions; emotions have no place in a machine. I don't know whether it's because of the no-sex rule or in spite of the no-sex rule, but regardless, everyone still has sex and because of the rule they are forced to sneak around, which can often lead to hilarious circumstances. Like in Wisconsin when two soldiers got caught having sex in a Porta-Potty, and then two got caught having sex in a dumpster. I guess that's what happens when you try to control people — sex in a dumpster. Personally, I don't want to do that.
“Sergeant Cost got caught having sex yesterday in the TV room. And get this, it was in the afternoon, the door wasn't even locked, and it was First Sergeant Mardine who caught them.”
Sergeant Cost is a short woman with thick glasses and a bowl hair cut. She is also mentally challenged. I'm not sure how she was even able to get in the Army. I think by some grace of God she did well on a test and the Army didn't even bother looking into what type of person she is, only her test score. She also has five children who are mentally challenged, some functionally, some not.
Here's a story about her: While we were at our pre-deployment training at Ft. McCoy, Cost called her kids back home —
“Listen honey, Daddy doesn't love you. That's why he broke up with mommy. Put your brother on the phone. Hey baby, listen, no, don't put your Daddy on the phone, he's a bad man. I don't know why your sister's crying. It's probably because she realized that your father doesn't love you guys. I love you, though. Okay, talk to you later.”
First Sergeant Mardine overheard Cost on the phone and immediately ran over to her. “You can't talk to your kids like that! It could emotionally scar them for life!” Cost just looked at her as if she was crazy to tell her how to parent her children.
First Sergeant Mardine is just below the rank of command sergeant major — she's in charge of the enlisted soldiers for our unit. Even though she's in her late sixties, she has more fire in her than ninety percent of the people in the unit. She's tiny, 5′4″, but she's built like an ox, strong and thick. She has been in the Army for over thirty years, and it's obvious that those years have toughened her up. She has puffy white hair shaped into a male hair cut — high and tight. I guess the hair cut fits, though, because she's a lesbian.
Torres is still talking: “First Sergeant Mardine really wants Cost strung up. I heard she's going to give her extra duty and loss of pay for a month.”
I realize First Sergeant Mardine can be quite vindictive and overly dramatic. Extra duty and loss of a month's pay, just for having sex?
“Do you think they're just trying to send a message, since she's the first one to get caught having sex and the Army doesn't want us having sex?” I say to no one in particular.
Torres starts laughing.
BAANNGGG!
The noise is loud but it's not a mortar. It's a gunshot. It's close, maybe even in the hospital. We jump up and run toward the front of the hospital where the noise came from.
A small group of people are gathered around the front door looking out. Sergeant Elster walks through the door. He looks confused. His head is hanging low and he's holding his weapon at a weird angle, cocked to the left and down at the floor. He just had an accidental discharge.
At the front of our hospital there are two armed guards and two metal barrels filled with sand. Before going into the hospital, everyone must put the nozzle of their weapon into the barrel, pull back the charging handle, and show that the inside chamber of their weapon is empty of bullets. Then you pull the trigger to prove that there are no bullets. Once the guards check to make sure that the chamber is empty, the person is allowed to enter the hospital. Most of the time the guards are tired, bored, and don't pay close attention. I know what happened: Elster was coming off a guard duty shift, something that anyone below a sergeant rank has to go through.
(Every seven to ten days, everyone has to do a day of guard duty. It consists of six hours on duty, six hours off duty, six hours on duty, six hours off duty, and then back to the regular schedule of work in the hospital.)
Elster was tired from being on guard duty so he didn't pay attention when he locked his weapon to the rear. The guards were tired from being on duty and they didn't pay attention. Elster pulled the trigger and fired a round into the barrel. With the crazy hours we are working in the OR, it was only a matter of time until something like this happened. Luckily, though, it was only into a barrel of sand and not a fellow soldier.
Elster walks by us and toward the commander's office for disciplinary action.
WEEK 3, DAY 7, IRAQ
0700 HOURS, OR
We have three injuries on the way: two amputees and a GSW, all Iraqi civilians. When the patients arrive, I'm working in the one-bed OR to perform an amputation. We cut his arm off and on each leg give him an external fixator (ex-fix) — a type of instrument we use for broken bones. We put a drill on either side of the broken bone connected with a carbon pole; it's like a child's toy.
1520 HOURS, OR
When I get out of surgery I notice that Crade, Chandler, and Reto are all in the main OR talking to Torres. This is strange because we usually talk in the break room. I wonder why they're all out here in the main OR. I turn and see that the break room door is closed.
“What's everyone doing out here?” I ask as I sit down with the group.
Crade looks at me.
“Gagney had to come in to deal with Elster's accidental discharge of his weapon. When he did, Captain Tarr saw him and started yelling. She was shaking and her whole face was red. Then Hudge and I came in, and Gagney, Hudge, and Captain Tarr all went to the break room to talk.”
“What's her problem this time?” I ask.
“She's yelling at him because of Torres.” Crade points at Torres.
Torres laughs uncomfortably. “Well, Captain Tarr was our nurse in surgery today. I asked her for an instrument but she gave me the wrong one so the doctor yelled at her. She told him that I asked her for the wrong one.”
The break room door bursts opens and Gagney walks out. His face is beet red and it looks like steam is rising from his bald spot. He storms out of the OR. Captain Tarr walks out and she's redder than Gagney. Tears are streaming down her cheeks and her hands are shaking.
Hudge walks out; her cheeks look pink. “You guys will not believe what just happened,” she says, almost laughing.
“Tarr pulls Gagney and me into a meeting and I have no idea what's going on. Tarr is making no sense; she's yelling and her entire body turns red: face, neck, hands, and arms and her whole body starts shaking uncontrollably.”
What none of us immediately knew was that Captain Tarr had been broken. Being in war is a true test of character. First I blow up at Waters and now Tarr is losing it. Everyone has their breaking point, the only question is who will reach theirs first. Only time will tell if Tarr's able to pick herself up and move on.
WEEK 4, DAY 1, IRAQ
1500 HOURS, OR
The next patients come in: One is an American soldier and one an Iraqi insurgent. The Iraqi is someone our guys have been trying to find for a long time. Only minutes earlier both had been trying to kill one another — now they're lying next to each other.
In my mind I can see the families and friends of both victims. They would begin to pray for them, praying for the death of the other, saying as long as their son “didn't die in vain” it would be okay.
Hudge is in the single OR, so Crade and I have to do surgery on the American and Iraqi in the double OR.
Crade is twenty-two — two years older than me — thirty pounds overweight, and has a baby face that makes him look about thirteen. Tattoos of satanic symbols cover both of his arms. A few months ago, I saw him reading the Satanic Bible by Anton Szandor LaVey. He tried to convince me to read it with him, telling me that I'd get a lot out of it. But I turned him down because of something my eighth-grade health teacher said a long time ago. She told me that if someone ever asks me to worship Satan, politely say, “No thank you.” So that's what I said to Crade. “No thank you.”He told me he's dating a specialist from the mental health section, but he won't tell me her name. He also has an ex-girlfriend back home who is pregnant with his child, but that's all he says — he doesn't like to talk about it. Even though I think it's a little freaky that he worships Satan, he's my friend; I love him.
I'm working on the Iraqi. Both patients, sworn enemies, look so fragile and vulnerable next to each other.
“Scalpel!” Dr. Bill yells.
It takes me out of my daze. I shake my head and get back to work.
Two men walk into the room, joined by Captain Tarr. All are gowned up in the proper sterile medical gear: hat, scrubs, and mask. One of the men is carrying an expensive camera. He is young and has long black hair pulled back in a ponytail. The other man looks older and tall. He doesn't look happy as he writes on a note pad.
I look over at Dr. Bill.
“They're from the Boston Globe.”
We finish our surgeries and both of the patients leave the OR — alive.