by Travis Mills
People were all around us, going every which way, most heading inside. I noticed a man in the crowd who seemed to move a hair quicker than everybody else. Maybe it was nothing. He just looked like any other Afghan dude—dark hair, bearded, wearing manjams, the pants that look like loose-fitting hospital scrubs. He reached the security personnel around the door and seemed to be arguing with them. From where I was positioned, it was hard to tell. My eyes stayed on the crowd. My finger remained motionless on the trigger of my machine gun.
I heard yelling inside. Some sort of scuffle. My orders were not to leave my post, and due to the rules of engagement I was not permitted to fire unless fired upon. I kept my eyes constantly scanning the terrain ahead of me. A minuscule tremor moved the air. Then without warning…
Ka-BOOM!
Behind me roared a huge explosion. People screamed and yelled. Dust flew everywhere. I stayed on the gun, my eyes frantically searching through the crowd. Everyone scattered. Rocks and rubble fell from the sky. Small chunks of the Afghan’s body landed on the roof and hood of the Humvee.
No other shots were fired. What had happened, I learned later, was that the guy had walked nonchalantly up to the door into the courtyard, where he’d had a scuffle with one of the ANA soldiers. Then an American stopped the guy, and the guy grabbed the American’s gun. The American grabbed it back and kicked the guy over backward, which is when the guy pulled out his detonator and blew himself up. It was a smaller bomb with probably a five-meter kill radius and a twenty-five-meter wound radius, similar to the blast of a grenade.
My team leader was right there and saw it happen. He had pieces of the guy’s skin on his helmet, little bits of charred hair and skin on his uniform. My LT’s hand got hit with shrapnel, and he needed surgery on it. A few other people were hurt, but nobody died except the suicide bomber. The colonel was safe.
I stayed outside the compound manning my gun during the entire incident, like I’d been ordered to do. My first thought was Oh wow, this stuff is really real. It’s not training anymore. I wasn’t scared. I didn’t crap my pants or shake in my boots or anything like that—that’s not the kind of guy I am. It was just a reminder to be ready to go at all times.
—
Other than that incident, my entire first deployment was pretty relaxed in tone, although busy in pace, and plenty of days contained tense moments. I didn’t fire my weapon once the entire first fifteen months I was in-country. I received my combat infantry badge for my role in the action with the suicide bomber. I couldn’t believe it. I hadn’t done anything except stay on my gun. Of course, I made up for it in subsequent deployments. Basically, that bit of staying put was my first official introduction to war.
As a gunner, I was always up, always scanning my sector, always making sure we were seen and being vigilant. All the other gunners were this way too. The 82nd came in strong, and we weren’t messed with much because of that strength. If somebody wanted to fight, we were ready. And sometimes a show of force can be just as effective as actual force.
I know now that the Taliban is an extremely patient pack of wolves. If a unit such as the 82nd comes in, they can tell the unit is tough, so what they’ll do is maybe test them a few times to confirm their hunches, then simply wait for the unit to leave and for the next one to arrive, hoping the next unit will be softer.
In spite of our toughness as a unit, we had our tender moments too, if that’s what you’d call them. One day we were out doing a humanitarian aid drop where we took bags of rice and beans to the civilians in the area around Khost. When the food was distributed to the adults, a few of us started handing out school supplies, pencils and notebooks, to the children.
A little group gathered around me. The boys shoved their way to the front, while the girls stood near the back. The girls wore head coverings, but their faces were open, and they were smiley and cute. The boys were mostly all smiles too, but they were tougher, meaner. If ever I gave a girl something nice, a boy would take it from her. I did this a couple of times with the same results, then called over an interpreter and told him to tell the boys to let the girls have nice things too.
It couldn’t have been more than two minutes after that, I gave a little girl a nice booklet and a pencil set, and a boy ran up to her, socked her in the jaw, and took away all her things. So I ran after the boy, picked him up and swung him over my head, then set him down and took the stuff he’d just stolen, and gave it back to the girl. The interpreter ran up to the boy and kicked him in the butt. I told the interpreter to tell the children that we’d be coming back the next day, and if the girls didn’t have their stuff then, there’d be hell to pay. We weren’t coming back the next day, but the kids didn’t know that.
Working with the local children came with its own share of problems. One of the neighborhood boys who lived near the base always threw rocks at the colonel’s Humvee whenever we left the FOB. I got smart and bought a little slingshot off another kid for a buck, and the next time the rock-throwing kid went into action I jumped out and pegged him in the butt with a pebble as he ran away. You’d undoubtedly get in trouble for doing that in America, but as I’d already seen, the culture was different in Afghanistan. If a kid mouthed off at us, the Afghan interpreters we worked with would have no problem slapping a kid in the face. I’m not saying that was right. I’m just saying that’s how it went down.
After six months in Afghanistan, I was promoted to the rank of E4 (specialist) and was moved to the “truck commander” position in the security detail. I loved this. It meant I was off the top of the vehicle now and inside the truck in the “shotgun” seat. In this position I was put in control of the Humvee. I was the one on the radio, and whenever we pulled into an area, I gave the orders for how the truck should be set up. If we got into combat, I was in charge about when to shoot or not.
One night back on base I was walking around camp in the pitch dark, heading over to the phones to call my parents. I stepped off a wooden walkway, tripped and fell, and my head butted a concrete wall. My nose and chin were scraped up, and I had a cut on my forehead that oozed a bit of blood, but nothing major. I went and called my parents, then took a clean T-shirt and held it to my face to staunch the bleeding. As the youngest guy in my billeting, I didn’t want to make a big deal about the fall, because I knew the other guys were sure to give me a hard time about it. It was my only injury during my first deployment.
The next morning, when I went to pull the T-shirt off my face, the blood had dried and the shirt was stuck fast. Hoo boy, I was sure to never hear the end of this. Josh eased the T-shirt off my face and cleaned away the gravel and cement that were still there from the night before. He bandaged it up the best he could. Then he laughed at me.
I would have thought less of him if he didn’t. From then on, I was known as the guy who walked into a wall. A little joke like that can go a long way in the army, particularly if there’s nothing better to do than pick on a guy. I heard it all. I was called a moron and an idiot and plenty of other things that aren’t friendly enough to print. They joked that walking into a wall caused an improvement to my face. They speculated that I shouldn’t go out at night without my mama holding my hand. Height-wise, I towered over the guys I billeted with, and I could have beaten them all up if I’d wanted. But sometimes you just need to take the crap that comes your way to show it doesn’t bother you.
Besides, I had far better things to think about besides taking insults. Christmas 2007 was coming up, and I was set to rotate home to the States for two weeks for some R&R. After that, I’d come back to Afghanistan for three more months and then come home to the States for good along with my unit when our deployment was finished.
During my two weeks of R&R at Christmas, I was set to meet somebody, and I was looking forward to that meeting a lot. Her name was Kelsey Buck, and she wanted to meet me too. We’d been talking by Skype for some time already, and it felt like I already knew her. But I couldn’t wait to meet her in person. I felt like one lucky
man for sure.
It started when Josh Buck went back to the States in September 2007 to be there for the birth of his daughter, Reagan. While Josh was home, his eighteen-year-old sister, Kelsey, started looking at his MySpace page on his computer. (Yep, that was back when MySpace was cool.) Kelsey informed Josh that she’d contacted one of the guys in his unit back in Afghanistan, and that she’d received a reply.
“Which one?” Josh asked Kelsey. He wasn’t smiling.
“The one with the blue eyes and the huge arms,” Kelsey said. (Yep, that’s word for word what she told him.)
“I still don’t know who you’re talking about,” Josh said.
“You know him. His name is Travis. Travis Mills.”
“Travis Mills?” Josh couldn’t believe it. “Of all the guys you could have picked to talk to. That guy’s an idiot. He tripped over his own feet while walking to the phone.”
Kelsey wasn’t deterred. Neither was I. This girl was the real deal—I could see that right away. Kelsey was very good-looking. She smiled a lot, and I loved talking with her. I didn’t meet any women in person where I was in Afghanistan, so the opportunity for female contact, even by Skype, was always welcome. Kelsey and I weren’t romantic at first or anything like that. Our talks just felt fun, like the start of a new relationship. When Josh came back to Afghanistan and rejoined the unit he wasn’t happy with me at all.
“Hey—you didn’t ask my permission to talk to my sister,” he said to me, eyeball to eyeball.
“I didn’t know I needed to,” I answered, my glance never wavering.
I thought he was about ready to explode. “Look—if you treat my sister wrong, then we’re going to need to fight.”
“Okay,” I said. I could’ve killed him in a fight, but I knew he was just being protective of his sister. “I won’t treat her wrong. You’ve got my word on that.”
Kelsey and I kept talking, and talking, and talking, and it got to be that whenever I wasn’t on patrol, I was talking to her. Conversations with Kelsey made me feel the happiest I’d ever felt in Afghanistan. We talked about everything and nothing and anything in between. Movies. Favorite foods. What my day was like. What her day was like. Pretty soon, I knew there was something special about her. Something lasting.
The time for my leave home arrived. I’ve always been a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants type of guy, and although I was looking forward to seeing my parents and brother and sister when I came home, I also felt like going on a real vacation, preferably to somewhere warm and near the ocean. Michigan in December wasn’t going to cut it. When I was seventeen, I’d been to Mexico for spring break with some friends and loved it there, so I found some plane tickets and a hotel at a resort—then, on a whim, I Skyped Kelsey and asked her to go with me. And to my surprise, Kelsey said sure, why not.
I mean, you might be looking for something deep and romantic here, like I’d met my soulmate and I sensed our destinies and was already planning our futures together, but nope, my request wasn’t deep. Going to Mexico was all about being crazy and wild and impulsive, and her enthusiasm for the adventure only made me like her all the more. We hadn’t even met in person yet, and here we were planning a weeklong vacation together. Her saying yes meant she was fun-loving and spontaneous just like me, and I knew we were going to have a great time. If she would have turned cold and said, “Nah, a trip to Mexico doesn’t sound like a very good time to me,” then who knows what would have ever happened between us. Girls of the world, take heed: if a soldier you like invites you to Mexico on a whim, you should go. Actually, that’s not true. Not all soldiers out there are the cream of the crop like this guy.
—
I flew home to spend Christmas with my parents. They were both happy to see me, and Mom was teary eyed when she met me at the airport. My grandparents were with us for Christmas. My sister had brought home her boyfriend, so they and my little brother and I all hung out together. We had a party on Christmas Eve, and all my friends from high school days came over. I missed my buddies from the unit, but it felt so good again to be near family and my hometown friends.
Then the time came for me to fly to Texas to meet Kelsey. The day before I left, I realized I didn’t have a passport, which I’d need to get into Mexico. Dad drove me over to Chicago, and the passport folks were kind enough to fast-track it for me in one day. Neither of my parents was exactly happy about me going to Mexico with a girl I’d never met in person, but they figured I was an adult and could make my own decisions.
There was an additional problem. I knew I should have asked Kelsey’s parents first if it was okay for her to go, and I knew that would never be easy to do—not earlier and certainly not now that we’d already made plans. Put yourself in my situation talking to her father. “Uh, sir, I realize you don’t know me and all. And, uh, I realize your daughter doesn’t really know me yet either. But I promise I’m not a serial killer. Really. Cross my heart.”
I flew into Dallas. Kelsey told me later she was pretty nervous to meet me for the first time. She got to the airport a couple hours early and paced around, wondering what she had gotten herself into.
We met at the baggage claim area. She remembers exactly what I wore: Doc Martens, jeans, a blue striped shirt, my Detroit hat on backward, and earrings in both ears. I also wore a bunch of cologne, which I thought was impressive. Kelsey didn’t. She picked me right out of the crowd. We gave each other a big hug and I cracked a few jokes, and it felt right away like we’d known each other forever.
I can’t remember exactly what she wore that day, but I remember specifically thinking she was beautiful. I think it was jeans and boots and some great-looking sweater-shirt thing. We kissed each other at the airport too, and it didn’t feel awkward at all, then we hopped in her dad’s truck, went to the mall for a bit, then to meet her parents, Craig and Tammy, for dinner.
Kelsey told me all this stuff on the way over about how her dad was a vicious hockey player known for beating guys up, but it wasn’t like that at all. We met them at a Mexican restaurant—La Hacienda was the name. Josh had phoned in the meantime and told Craig and Tammy that I was actually an okay guy, despite how he’d warned Kelsey earlier about me, and that had helped win them over. It was a bit awkward meeting them at first, but not bad. We talked sports and stuff, and everything was smooth.
I met Kelsey’s sister, Kaitlin, and thought she was cool. And after, we went to Kelsey’s parents’ house, and a bunch of her friends came over and met me.
The next morning Kelsey and I flew onto the island of Cozumel in Mexico. Everywhere we looked we saw palm trees and white sandy beaches and resorts lining the ocean. The sun was out. A breeze from off the ocean kept everything cool and bright, and it didn’t feel weird being together so quickly. We just hit it off right away.
The next few days were solid fun. We swam with dolphins and went snorkeling and souvenir shopping and cliff jumping. We went zip-lining through Mayan ruins and dancing at night. We went out for lunch each day, and met another couple and had dinner together in a group. The legal drinking age is eighteen in Mexico, so with Kelsey being that age and me being twenty, we could both order drinks with dinner and feel okay about it. Neither of us is a big drinker, but we ordered the type of silly fruity cocktails that you can only get away with ordering when you’re on vacation, like Bahama Mamas and Miami Vices. We were soon both sunburned, but neither of us minded. It felt great to be with her. We laughed the whole time we were together.
I can be super outgoing, and I soon saw that Kelsey was more introverted. She might speak ten words where I’d speak fifty. But opposites are known to sometimes attract. I got a little worried when she told me once that she could sometimes get annoyed with people if she spent too much time with them, but I grinned with relief when she added that she didn’t feel that way with me. I wasn’t looking to rush into anything serious or get married, but Kelsey was exactly what I was looking for, even without me knowing I was looking for anything. She was kind and caring and spon
taneous and fun. She had a lot of trust in me, and I loved being with her. Somewhere during that trip—and I couldn’t even tell you when—I knew I was falling in love with her.
We spent New Year’s Eve in Mexico at this great little restaurant that looked more like a house someone had fixed up really nice. Kelsey and I ordered rich red wine and charbroiled steaks. That steak was the best I’d ever eaten, or maybe the company I was with made it taste so good. Kelsey and I sat outside the restaurant in the warm evening air, and there were manicured gardens as far as we could see, a really well-kept landscape. As the last moments of the old year ebbed away and the new year took its place, restaurant staff lit fireworks in the courtyard. Kelsey and I looked up into the nighttime sky with the colors exploding high over our heads, and I knew she was the one. It wasn’t even an aha moment. I just knew.
When our time in Mexico was over, we flew back to Texas for a day to hang out with her family some more, then flew to Michigan so she could meet my family. It was a two-leg flight from Dallas to Atlanta to Michigan, and we’d forgotten about the time change and hadn’t reset our watches, so we missed the second leg of our flight and were stranded in Atlanta for twelve hours. We just chuckled and took a train downtown and went shopping together, then caught the next flight out late that night.
We spent a week in Michigan together. My parents loved her right away. Kelsey and I went skiing—she’s a great skier, better than I was, and afterward we both got tattoos. I got one on my back that said “Mills,” and she got a Celtic tree of life design on her ribs. All my friends from home met her and liked her right away.
The time came for us to leave each other. Kelsey was headed back to Texas to finish up the year at community college, and I was headed back to Afghanistan. We said our goodbyes and I told her, “I love you.” Almost at the same time, she said, “I love you” back. For a moment we just stopped right there and smiled at each other. Then we were talking about our future together. Things were getting serious, really serious, and I liked that a lot. Kelsey said she did too.
