Warrior (First to Fight #1)

by Nicole Blanchard

  The first procedure will have to be done before he’s two weeks old. Two weeks and he’ll have to have heart surgery. How am I going to deal with that? How does any mother deal with that?

  Hot tears seep from my eyes and soak my pillow. I grab my phone and the glow lights up my bedroom. I tap out a desperate email to Ben, hoping for some kind of connection. Any kind of connection that will pull me from the hole I’m sinking into.

  I hit send, but I fall asleep while waiting for the reply I’m afraid will never come.

  THE FRIGID COLD seeps through the material of my gear, no matter how many layers I wrap myself in. I fumble in my pocket for the only thing that’s kept me sane the last four months. The photo is beyond crumpled now, with a smattering of age lines snaking over its surface. Despite the tattered quality, it doesn’t diminish the immediate calming effect its subject has on me.

  My gloved finger traces over the miniature of Olivia’s smile and it warms me from the inside out. Soon. Only five more months and then a year at my last duty station and I’ll be back home. This time for good. And this time I won’t be leaving until Olivia is a permanent fixture in my bed. And in my life.

  I fold the picture along the deep grooves and tuck it safely away, both literally and figuratively.

  I readjust my legs and hope that my socks weren’t completely soaked through from the ruck across the stream. The last thing I need is a case of foot funk to accompany the raging headache from the two days without sleep and the frozen ass thing I’ve got going on. The only food I’ve got left in my pack is an MRE, one that I’ve been putting off eating because I’d almost rather die than eat the beans and 4 Dicks of Death. They’ve long since stopped looking like beef links and smell like someone’s junk that hasn’t had a shower in weeks. Maybe years. I inhale them, chewing quickly so it spends the least amount of time near my taste buds. It doesn’t help. They really do taste like death. And janky dicks.

  The wind howls in the distance and I hope we aren’t assaulted by yet another dust storm. The beard I’ve grown and the cloth across my face protects me somewhat, but that shit gets into everything.

  “Hey, No-Heart!” comes a call from a ditch on the other side of the hillside where we’re camped out for the foreseeable future.

  “The fuck you want?” I answer through a smile.

  Scott Greene was attached to our unit with the local group of Marines. And his name suited him in every way because he’s fresh out of boot camp. It always surprises me to see kids barely out of high school out here. I’d saved his ass on more than one occasion yet the younger guys had taken to calling me No-Heart because of my so-called “ruthless nature.”

  “Got anything left in that MRE?” Greene asks.

  I smile and wave a packet at him. “Sure do. I got some crackers if you want ‘em.”

  The other guys start smirking and laughing, but Greene is too busy belly-crawling up the hill. “Fuck, I’m hungry. Toss ‘em up, would ya?”

  “Sure,” I tell him and pretend to toss the packet before stopping. “But, you can only have them under one condition.”

  One of the guys next to me starts laughing and Greene starts to look unsure. “What is it?”

  “I dare you to eat them without drinking from your canteen.”

  He smiles. “You’re so fucking stupid. Toss ‘em up.”

  The guys next to me are out and out laughing now, but Greene has gained back his confidence. He opens the packet and takes out the two freeze-dried crackers. Laughter rises in my chest, but I manage to keep it contained.

  “Remember,” I tell him, “no water.”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  He takes one of the crackers and stuffs it in his mouth so sure that he’s got this. It only takes a few seconds for his face to register that those fucking things are basically like eating dust. He tries to play it off and chews, his jaw working furiously against a mouthful of cracker. My stomach is aching with the effort not to lose my shit. When he manages to down that bite, he looks at the cracker and takes another, smaller, bite. When that one proves to be even more difficult than the first, he spits it out.

  “You’re a fucking dick,” he says to me.

  “Hey, you should know better by now.”

  He downs a few gulps from his canteen. “What the fuck is in that shit?”

  “I’m pretty hurt that you don’t like my cooking, Greene. I thought we were friends.”

  He starts to reply, but his answer is cut off by the short, staccato bursts of gunfire coming from the squat little houses across from the ditches we’d carved into the hillside. Houses that had been empty when we scouted the location hours earlier. Scott dives back down to his ditch. Our gunner, Jim, takes aim as spotters cover the area. Unfortunately, until we actually spot someone with a gun aiming at us, the ROE, or rules of engagement, don’t allow us to return fire. The higher ups are more concerned about earning their chest candy than actually winning the war. No matter how much they try to change things, each of my deployments have been like Groundhog Day—the same thing on repeat.

  It is complete bullshit and costs precious lives, but hey, at least we’re being politically correct.

  I pop a piece of gum in my mouth to keep my face from going numb with cold. My fingers are clumsy and feel twice their normal size, but I manage to pull up the screens to check our locations. As the Joint Terminal Attack Controller, or JTAC, on shift I am in control of air firepower in the field for precision air strikes. The lives of our enemies and the lives of my fellow Marines are in the palm of my hands.

  No matter how bitter I’d become about my role in this war, no matter how useless I sometimes felt in the big picture, it paid to remember that there were people that depended on me. People who had families that needed them to return safely. In the end, I have a job to do and I’ve trained for a lifetime to do it right.

  “Greene, you alright?”

  “No the fuck I’m not. Still choking on that shit.”

  I smile, rubbing my eyes as I settle back down to wait the next move. Should all hell break loose there are a couple of A-10s around for the next few hours that I can divert in our direction for cover. The A-10 (aka the Warthog) is my favorite aircraft; the only one built specifically to carry the 30mm Avenger Gatling Gun. There aren’t any fast movers in the vicinity, so the A-10 is the only thing covering our asses.

  Our objective is to obtain intel from the next village, but in order to do so we have to make our way down an alley lined with abandoned homes. Essentially a death trap if we get pinned on either side.

  Surprisingly, whoever is keeping watch in the house stays quiet for the rest of the afternoon. I come back a few hours later after some much needed shut-eye and about a gallon of coffee.

  Command sends a group of our guys into the city to engage with snipers over top and me in the wings in case shit goes down. The moment they enter the far end of the alley, however, all hell breaks loose and fire starts coming in from a dozen different directions.

  I call in air support, double and triple checking my maps and calculations. The telltale sound of the A-10 drones in the background and despite all my training, my stomach drops at the devastation it’s about to wreak.

  I don’t focus on the loss of life or the casualties. I do my job.

  Later that night as I rest on my cot, still fully clothed all the way down to my boots, the ramifications of what I’ve done weigh heavy on my mind. When I joined the military, it was about being a part of something bigger than me. Fighting for my country. Doing the right thing.

  As I fall into a fitful sleep, I can only wonder if I still am.

  I wake to chaos. My teammates are arguing loudly outside of the tent. I jump from the cot and head outside to find dozens of wounded and as many dead being loaded into the massive Chinook a field away. I can hear the buzz of several helos in the distance.

  “What happened?” I ask my team leader.

  “Ambushed. I need every man we’ve got. We’re going back out.�
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  I ready my gear and watch from a distance as the Chinook lifts and flies away. I follow the team to the trucks and we head out.

  We don’t make it a mile outside the gate before the first truck in the line explodes in a belch of fire and black smoke. My ears pop from what must be a concussive rocket, which are a bitch to be around as they hit, explode, implode and then explode all the fuck over again. The truck is blown off the road and onto the shoulder, flipping twice before landing belly up. My ears pop from the resulting change in pressure.

  Those of us in the following vehicles bail out, guns at the ready and eyes on the horizon. A group of us makes it to the heaping mass of metal and flames. I can hear the high-pitched screams from the men inside and my adrenaline shoots off the charts. I go to the other side, where the frame hasn’t collapsed and see Greene pinned with one leg under a thick piece of metal.

  One of the other guys covers my back as I drop to my haunches to leverage the weight off of his pinned limb. The blast or the pain has knocked him unconscious—which is no doubt a good thing, considering the shape of his limb. I block that out and manage to get some breathing room.

  “Hey, grab him,” I tell the guy behind me as I reach with my free hand to unbuckle the lap belt. The guy reaches up and manages to catch Greene as he falls. Even though he’s passed out his body jerks and his face contorts in pain.

  I experience a rush of relief, my body going hot and cold with it, as we pull him free of the truck. I back up, lifting his limp body in my arms. The other guy brings his weapon up for cover, but it doesn’t matter.

  The second RPG hits the convoy, but this time, it doesn’t just flip over one of the trucks. It explodes with deadly force. I’m thrown back against the first downed truck, my head striking against the metal. I manage to hold onto Greene by sheer will alone and we both crumple.

  I glance up, my vision going dark, and the last image I see is a fiery inferno where my team used to be. There is barely anything left of the men I’ve spent the last few years with. What I can see, I wish I hadn’t.

  As I lose consciousness myself, my last thought is that I don’t hear the other men inside the truck screaming anymore.

  I hear the faint echo of a scream and my entire body jerks on the bed. The T.V. show I’d been attempting to watch mocks me from across the room. I glare at it ineffectively. Even though I can only hear a ghost of the sound, the sound of screams still sends a chill right through me. They remind me too much of the nightmares I can’t shake. I look around for a remote and then remember the room I’m in doesn’t even have one so I can’t chuck it at the screen.

  I press the button for the nurse and throw myself back on the bed, grunting as the pain in my head makes itself known. Not that it’s dwindled any in the two days since I regained consciousness in a German hospital.

  It’s not even the constant ringing or the never-ending headache that pisses me off. It’s the realization that this is one time they won’t be able to patch me up and send me back—if there is even anything to send me back to. My entire team is gone. Just…gone. And for what, I wonder.

  I hear a hollow knock coming from the door and I sit up, scrubbing a hand over my face. “Yeah?”

  A nurse peeks her head in the door and says something that I don’t quite catch. I try to focus on her mouth to figure out her words, but fuck, I haven’t learned to read lips yet and she’s talking to me while she’s looking backwards at someone in the hallway.

  “What?” I ask, probably too loud, but I don’t care. The new ones sometimes forget they have to talk to my good side.

  The nurse moves to my left side and says, “Sorry, sweetie. I asked what you needed.”

  “Can you turn down the volume?” I nod at the T.V.

  Her response is a little muffled, like she’s speaking through cotton. “Sure thing. Let me know if you—” and then she turns again, forgetting that the single-sided deafness I now have as a result of the blast makes it harder for me to hear when people are facing away from me.

  I fucking give up.

  “…said she was your mother. Did you want us to get her on the phone for you?”

  I sigh. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that. What did you say?”

  She gives me a pitying smile that I want to rip off her face. “A woman by the name of Sheila Hart called, said she was your mother. Did you want us to get her back on the phone for you?”

  The sound of her name causes my hands to tremble underneath the stiff white bedsheets. I clench them against my legs and ignore the pulsing behind my eyes. “No, that’s okay. I’ve already spoken to her,” I lie. “Thanks.”

  She takes a couple steps toward the door and then hesitates. “Are you sure there isn’t someone I can call for you? We have computers where you can video chat with your family or maybe a friend. I know they’ve got you on a flight home soon, but I figured I’d check.”

  “I think I’m going to try and get some sleep.”

  The nurse smiles again, checks the machines for what-the-fuck-ever and leaves. Finally.

  I should have known better than to try and sleep in a hospital because it feels like no time at all has passed when another knock comes at my door and the doctor steps in.

  “How are we doing today?” he asks as he looks at his clipboard.

  “Fine,” I answer. “What’s the verdict?”

  “I’m afraid the single-sided deafness is permanent. When you get back stateside the doctors there will fit you with an appropriate hearing device. Depending on the one you choose an outpatient surgery may be required. Keep in mind there are several options. Like I said, the doctor will go over them with you.”

  It takes a few minutes for me to compose my response. My thoughts aren’t as ordered and clear as they used to be. “And the memory loss? The seizures?”

  “Most cases of mild TBI persist for a year or more. Each case is unique, like each person. They can persist for a time and heal or they may go on longer.”

  Even though I already knew the answer, to hear it confirmed is still devastating. It could be worse, I admit, much worse. A thousand different kinds of hell worse. I almost wish it was. I wish I’d died with them. Gone down in the blaze of glory that I’m owed for my sacrifice.

  Instead, I’m sitting on a hospital bed. Alive. Down half a sense and can’t trust my own goddamned brain.

  The doctor explains the symptoms of a mild traumatic brain injury but all I hear is that I shouldn’t be alive. I shouldn’t be this lucky. I don’t deserve it. I don’t deserve it half as much as some of the men that died that day, or the innocent men and women that have been slaughtered for a war they can’t control.

  He finishes and I mumble some kind of response that enables him to leave. The next round of nurses come in for the evening shift and with them the medication for pain, both physical…and emotional.

  I check my phone again, only to realize that I’d checked it minutes before. Along with the hearing loss, the traumatic brain injury guarantees that I’d never return to Afghanistan again. I’d never see the conclusion of the war I fought so hard to win. I’d spend the next year med-boarding out of the Marines and riding a desk at my new duty station.

  That reality is a hard one to swallow. Even though I’d been considering leaving the Marines after my time was up, I hate having it taken away from me against my will.

  To pass the time, I check my email and surf the Internet. My heart damn near stops in my chest when I see a new email from Olivia in my notifications. I glance at the photo of her I have on my side table and hesitate, one finger hovering over the little envelope.

  I take a deep breath and click.

  Dear Ben, it starts. I was thinking about you today and I thought I’d give emailing you another try. It’s okay if you don’t respond. I just miss talking to you. There are so many things I wish I could say. I was hoping we could meet when you get back. Maybe grab a cup of coffee? I could really use one of your smiles right now. Missing you, Olivia.

>   I click back and see dozens of previous emails she’d sent over the months I’d been deployed. My hand aches to move the mouse and devour her words. I nearly do it, but I’m distracted by the ringing in my ears—tinnitus, the doctors call it. It’s another one of the things I’ll have to deal with for the rest of my life.

  I thought I was broken before? That is nothing compared to the desolation I feel now. Now I’m a warrior put to pasture and forced to rejoin the world with death and destruction on my conscience.

  My lips firm into a line and I select all emails—from Olivia, from family members, guys attached to my unit—and I bulk delete them.

  That was my old life. Who knows what the hell my future will hold for me, but the least I can do is save Olivia from the shell of a man I’ve become.

  THE DATE TO the echocardiogram rolls around, no matter how much I try to distract myself with work and finishing up the renovations on my house. Despite how much they wanted to come, Dad has a fishing trip that he’s been planning for months and that I refused to let him bail on. Jack has some kind of promotional thing at the gym that he couldn’t get anyone to cover for him. I promise them I’ll call them with the results and ensure them that Sofie volunteered to come.

  The hospital is a modern-looking building, all smooth white stucco and glass. The cardiology unit, especially, is clean and high-tech. I appreciate all the gadgets that we pass and my reverence for doctors and all their hard work grows a million-fold.

  “You sure you don’t want me to go in the room with you?” Sofie asks.

  I shake my head. “Yeah, I’m sure. They said this exam could take a while and I’ll just be laying there. Feel free to take a nap or something.” I laugh, but the sound is breathless and lacks conviction.

  “I’ll be here if you need me.” She pulls me into a quick, hard hug.