Tough as They Come

by Travis Mills

  —

  For a soldier, garrison life stateside is just like any other nine-to-five job, except the hours are longer. At the start of a day at the base, I woke up at five, threw on my PT uniform (shorts and a T-shirt), and drove to the base to get there by six. They played reveille, and we’d do PT for an hour and a half. Most days that meant we took a run, anywhere from two to ten miles. Other days we did wind sprints that lasted forever. We did push-ups, sit-ups, calisthenics—whatever the PT leader wanted us to do.

  I was too big of a guy to be much of a long-distance runner, so although I could hold my own, I was often back of the pack. Weights were my big thing. I had a home gym and could bench 250 to 265 for multiple sets and squat 315. In the army, your job is to be in shape. I lifted on my own time, usually after work.

  After PT, we showered, dressed in uniforms, had breakfast, and were ready for the rest of the day’s work by nine. Each day’s work was different. We kept our skills sharp—marksmanship, combat lifesaving training, weapons detail, whatever it took. We might do more training. We might take inventory somewhere. We finished our day anywhere from 4:30 to 6 p.m., depending on what was going on.

  After I drove home, Kelsey would have dinner ready for me. I’d play fetch with our Lab Buddy, and Kelsey and I would talk about our days. We were homebodies mostly, and for the first six months or so after my deployment was over, we mostly just hung out and had fun. On weekends we went to movies and out to eat. We had friends over to play cards or board games, and we had lots of laughs over our favorites: Cranium, Apples to Apples, and Catch Phrase. We barbecued steaks, hamburgers, bratwurst, or chicken. Sometimes, I’d have a rum and Coke after the day was done.

  Fortunately, after I got home, I didn’t struggle with any past memories of combat, although I know any number of soldiers who do. I told a few stories to Kelsey about our unit’s time in Robat and BMG, about going without a shower for so long, and about some of the firefights we got into around Impala and Corvette, but she didn’t like to talk about those things much—and I understood that. I found I could shut off the memories pretty easily. My logic was straightforward: I was a combat soldier. That’s what I did. I told my mind to go to certain places, and I refused to allow it to go to other places. I found that I could reconnect with my family best that way, although I knew other guys handled things differently with equal success.

  In December, we traveled up to Michigan for two weeks to visit my folks. Kelsey wasn’t feeling well. Like a dope, I didn’t clue in at first to what might be making her feel that way. After we went home, Kelsey went into the bathroom, took the test, and came out, her brow furrowed, and asked me to drive to the nearest Walgreens to get another test.

  Sure enough, the Walgreens test confirmed her hunch. We didn’t know what to do first. A bunch of emotions swirled together. We called my parents. We called Kelsey’s parents. They were all excited for us. All I could think was, Oh my gosh, this is real—

  I was gonna be a daddy.

  —

  Once the shock wore off, my main concern was trying to save money. I started looking at car seats, cribs, a stroller, a bassinet, a bigger car. Braces. Summer camp. College. Kids sure can be expensive. Officially, we decided not to tell anyone else we were pregnant until after twelve weeks, just until we were sure everything would be okay. But I was so excited I kept telling people left and right at work. It was so awesome. I’d be like, “Okay, I just told you that, but you can’t tell Kelsey I told you. Okay?!”

  I went to all the doctor’s appointments along with Kelsey. I was there when we first heard the heartbeat. I was there at twenty weeks when we had the ultrasound and first found out our baby was a girl.

  A baby girl.

  I couldn’t imagine anything more incredible.

  Kelsey began to “nest” at home, like pregnant women often do. We bought a crib and a changing table and a dresser and a bunch of baby stuff, and I got busy with wrenches and instructions, assembling it all. Kelsey brought home color swatches of paint and asked me what I thought. “Whatever you want is fine by me,” I said. (That’s a phrase wise husbands know is best to say.) I laughed when I took a look at myself one day—me, the tough combat warrior, painting one of our bedrooms the girliest shade of pink you’ve ever seen.

  Kelsey drove a sporty 2010 Mazda3 at the time, and she loved the car, but the car seat wouldn’t fit. I hemmed and hawed and cursed and shoved and finally managed to install it, just to show Kelsey that the front seats would hardly go back, and she was like, “Okay, just sell it.” I nodded.

  Kelsey hates going to car dealerships, so without her along, I traded in her Mazda for a Ford Freestyle, a station-wagon crossover type thing, and brought it home, but Kelsey opened the driver’s door and shook her head.

  “It smells like a cat,” she said.

  She was right. So I took the Freestyle back, played hardball with the car dealer and got my money back, then went and bought a Ford Sport Trac, basically an Explorer pickup truck. It was bigger than the Mazda, my payments were good, and when I brought it home, Kelsey jumped in and took off for a drive right away. So that was her car.

  One day I looked at a calendar and squinted. It seemed like our kid was never actually going to arrive. But before I knew it the due date was three months away, then two months, then four weeks. Then two weeks. Then it was only a matter of days. Kelsey’s mom flew into town to help out. With two days to go, Kelsey went in for a checkup. The doctor said, “Okay, she’s ready. That baby needs to come out now!”

  We went into the hospital on September 26. They induced labor. Kelsey was a real trouper. She got an epidural, but it only worked on half of her body, so it was really rough. Her mom and I sat with her. My job was to keep calm and keep a cool washcloth on Kelsey’s forehead. I didn’t joke around at all then. I just wanted labor to be over for Kelsey as quickly as possible. Fourteen hours of pain later, at four in the morning on September 27, 2011, our daughter was born.

  Wow. I made some weird noises in the back of my throat. There our kid was, with goo all over her, and she was wrinkly and scrunched up, and all I could think was that she was the most beautiful thing in the world.

  “It’s okay to cry,” the nurse said.

  I didn’t know how to cry. So I just kept making my weird noises.

  I cut the cord and helped with her first bath. We had planned that her name was going to be Madison Avery. But when she arrived, she didn’t look like a Madison Avery. She looked more like a Chloe Lynn. So that’s what we named her.

  I thought back to that housewarming party where everything seemed perfect, but still one thing had been missing. Chloe Lynn was that one thing. With her in our lives, nothing felt missing anymore. A feeling of totality came over me. Of completeness. We were no longer alone. We had a child. Our family was now three.

  As I cuddled Chloe beside Kelsey’s hospital bed, I couldn’t wait for us to take our daughter home. I promised Chloe that I would show her around to everybody we knew. I would build her a swing set in our backyard soon. A good sidewalk ran outside our house, and she would love to go for stroller rides with me whenever I took Buddy for a walk. Already I loved this child with a love that went beyond words. I would provide for her and play with her and teach her how to do things and show her the way forward. I would defend her and fight for her, and in that long moment of wonder and joy in the hospital room, I held her and looked at her and marveled at the mystery of life, of things too great and powerful for words.

  —

  Somewhere during that first full day of being in the hospital with our newborn—I think it was only an hour or so after Chloe was born—a nurse came and got the baby and took her to the nursery for a while so Kelsey could get some sleep. We’d both been up for a long time—something like twenty-seven hours by then, and our emotions had ridden a roller coaster. Kelsey hadn’t eaten fast food in nine months, and right before she dozed off she murmured that she was totally craving some Chick-fil-A. So I headed out to get he
r a chicken sandwich and some French fries. But before I left the hospital, I swung past the nursery to check on Chloe.

  They call it the father bear instinct.

  Two morons in scrubs were standing in front of the nursery jabbering away about Belgian beer. Chloe was inside the nursery. I could see her through the glass. She was screaming her head off. And she was unattended!

  I found a nurse and said, “I’m Travis Mills. What’s going on with my baby’s doctor?”

  She motioned toward the two Belgian beer dudes and said, “Oh, the doctor for the Mills baby is right over there.”

  One of the dudes heard her, shrugged nonchalantly, and said, “I don’t have a baby in there.”

  And the nurse said, “Yeah, you do. The Mills baby.”

  “Oh,” he said. “That baby.”

  So—ahem. Let’s just say Father Bear growled. This was a military hospital, I might add, and this was my first experience standing up for my kid. I got in the guy’s face and politely explained—as only an infantryman can—that he needed to quit talking about Belgian beer and tend to my crying baby daughter, and if he didn’t do so immediately, then I’d rip off his head and spit down his throat.

  After that, he hustled.

  I went and got the Chick-fil-A for Kelsey, and when I got back I asked if the doctor had been in to see her.

  “Yeah,” Kelsey said drowsily. “And he was super nice too. Kinda overly nice. Like he really wanted to reassure us that everything was going to be okay.”

  I just smiled.

  —

  Having a new baby is a bit like going to boot camp. You do things you aren’t used to doing. You don’t eat on the same schedule. You don’t sleep. You’re exhausted. You’re confused. And in that crazy state of confused exhaustion, you can find yourself on edge, the same slippery slope where you don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

  I received ten days of leave, so I stayed home those first days after Chloe came home. Having a new baby in the house was awesome and exhilarating and exhausting all at once. Being a new dad was also scary. It was scarier than anything I’d ever done, scarier than combat. Scarier than the fish in Higgins Lake. When I held Chloe, it felt like I was holding the most delicate thing in the world. Like a fresh egg you take out of the fridge. You’re scared you’ll drop and crack it.

  Kelsey was sore from the delivery and was nursing for the first time, which I learned isn’t the easiest thing to do. The lovely Miss Chloe liked to be held pretty much nonstop—and insisted we do things her way. It’s tough for new mothers to find time to sleep. I took Chloe as much as I could. Once, I fell asleep on the couch while holding Chloe and I rolled over. Kelsey saw it and was afraid I’d crush Chloe, so after that I was banished to sleeping with her in the recliner, where I couldn’t roll. When she wasn’t sleeping in my arms, Chloe slept in a little bassinet in our bedroom. Kelsey and I both slept so lightly that we heard her and woke up anytime she turned over. I’d get up and change her, and pass her to Kelsey to nurse. Before long, I found that I could get up and change the baby without ever really waking up.

  A week or two passed in a sleepless fog, but soon we became a well-oiled pit crew. I needed to go back to work on the base, and I found that life at home was just like being overseas. When you’re in an FOB or a security post, you never sleep more than four hours a night. So I was used to it. I wanted Kelsey to get more sleep, and I wanted to make sure she was taken care of. So I slept the first shift from 8 p.m. to midnight. Then Kelsey would sleep uninterrupted, and I’d take over from midnight to 5 a.m. If Chloe slept during my shift too, then we’d have no problem. But if Chloe was up, then I was up too, and it was a rougher night. But I’d rather be the one with the rough night than Kelsey.

  In the early mornings, we enjoyed watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse together. I’d set Chloe down in her bouncy chair and I’d sit in my recliner and move her chair up and down for her with one hand.

  Days turned into weeks, and weeks turned into months. The older Chloe got, the more she could do.

  One day while lying on her stomach, she held her head up. We all cheered.

  Not long after that she rolled over by herself. We all cheered again.

  In no time, she was scooting around. It was an exciting and mega-proud time as a family, and Kelsey and I were both amazed at the things our absolutely brilliant and beautiful daughter could do.

  —

  My military career was going forward too. I went to college for six months, then took another course in advanced leadership, then attended jumpmaster school. Jumpmasters are expert parachutists who train other soldiers how to become paratroopers. When a group of paratroopers jumps out of a plane, the jumpmaster leads all aspects of their jump. So I was in charge of checking people’s equipment and throwing them out of an airplane. If there are any rigging problems, it’s the jumpmaster’s fault.

  At first, I felt thrown to the wolves at jumpmaster school. The highly rigorous training takes about a month, and involves passing six intense exams. Almost everyone fails at his first jumpmaster school and I proved no exception. I retook the school, anxious that I needed to get everything down perfectly. My dog Buddy turned into a first-rate study partner. His faithful sitting beside me encouraged me that I could do this.

  On my final test, I had fifteen jumpers, and I was responsible for making sure they all came down alive. I came in confident and was determined not to show any nerves. I checked all their riggings, we all went up in the air, we did more checks, and everybody went out the door. Everybody landed safely. On the ground I asked, “Hey, how many people think this was my first jumpmaster duty?”

  No one raised his hand.

  Fine by me. They couldn’t believe it was my first time. That’s what coming in confident can do. To become a jumpmaster in the 82nd Airborne was no small accomplishment. I was really proud of that designation, and I loved the actual work.

  After I became a jumpmaster, I regularly taught soldiers how to become parachutists. On one jump, I had a kid who froze and wouldn’t go out the door of the plane. The army gives you three chances to jump on your own, but his three chances came and went and he still didn’t go. He was a good soldier, and I knew he’d make a good paratrooper if given the right incentive. So I picked the kid up by his shirt and pants and threw him out of the plane. He thanked me later.

  On another jump, another kid didn’t want to go. He was also a good soldier, and I knew he could do the job, but his nerves were getting in the way. I gave him a little kick in his back, and out he went. He also thanked me later. Once a soldier makes their first jump, they almost never have trouble again.

  I ended up staying stateside longer than originally planned. I had a job offer to become a squad leader in a different unit, but then a new spot opened up in my same unit, and I took that instead. In early 2012 I was promoted to the rank of E6, staff sergeant. I was the youngest E6 in my unit, and I was put in the senior E6 spot as a weapons squad leader. This meant I’d be in charge of two teams of soldiers, each of which worked with a big 240 machine gun. From a weapons perspective, the heavy guns are the most crucial part of any dismounted patrol (a patrol that’s on foot, not in vehicles). Without the two 240s rocking, the rest of your platoon doesn’t have much protection at all. So my job was to lead my two machine gun teams to either kill the enemies first, or to keep the enemies’ heads down while our other guys maneuvered up to kill them. This new position is exactly what I wanted—a frontline leadership role. I thrived under pressure, and I wanted the stress of it, the challenge of it.

  A third deployment was coming up, beginning in February 2012, and I didn’t need to go on that deployment if I wanted to opt out. You can’t actually “decline” a position in the army, but since I’d been on two deployments already, this one was optional for me. Kelsey didn’t want me to go overseas again. Chloe was going to be just under five months old at the start of my third deployment, and Kelsey loved having me at home. I loved being at home too. But I also knew I
was needed elsewhere.

  That’s a hard feeling to describe unless you’ve been there yourself. By then, I wasn’t working with the guys from my second deployment, even though many of them were still in the 82nd. But even my new guys already seemed like brothers. As an E6, I’d handpicked all the privates for my squad, and I’d helped train them and worked with them for nearly a year already, basically ever since my second deployment ended. A bond forms quickly under these conditions. As an NCO, your job is to lead, protect, and inspire your guys. If they were going overseas, then there was no way I’d let them go alone.

  The guys in my squad were Sergeant Cobia Farr, my assistant gunner from Tennessee. PFC Eric Hunter, a great soldier who was always joking around, always in trouble. PFC Jon Harmon, who carried the most rounds of anybody and never said no to a fight. PFC Armando Plascencia, the squad designated marksman who could spot targets and take out threats like nobody’s business. PFC Ryan “The Riot” Theriot, my assistant gunner—I always had a lot of confidence in him. PFC James Neff, who was like a little brother to me. And PFC Brandon Fessey, a big strong kid and our quiet ammo bearer.

  Nobody was going to mess with my squad. These young men were headed for war, because that’s what their country asked of them. And they were all going to come home alive, because it was my job to make sure that happened.

  Sometimes on a training exercise, I might sing and tell jokes and be goofy and have a good time, but when it came down to a mission, I was all business. I drew out plans. I made sure everybody knew what to do and where to go. I made sure things got done right. I would never leave my guys stranded. It was a pride issue. I had a duty to them, and as a leader I was their best option for success.

  That way of thinking takes some getting used to. When it comes to fighting a war, the officers and the politicians have the big plans in mind. They can tell you why you’re fighting and what needs to get done on a large-scale level. But as an infantryman in charge of a squad, my main concern is my guys.