I glanced upward and saw two silent birds circling in the pale, arid sky; then I closed my eyes and thought again of my family back home. My eyes snapped open when one of my Rangers stumbled to the ground next to me and cried out. He picked himself up, dusted off his precious weapon, and continued to move forward with his platoon. I followed close behind. What happened in the hours that ensued has remained a blur, but the result began a metamorphosis that has redefined my life.
I was commanding Bravo Company of the 1st Ranger Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, and we were in Jordan training Jordanian Rangers—probably to kill Israelis. Of course nobody would ever admit to that, but who else would we be training Jordanians to fight?
I vividly remember the night before I started my transformation. I remember it as though I were supposed to remember it, as though it was the beginning of something that had been set aside for me since the beginning of time. I had marched for an hour or so with my company to a scorched spot on the floor of the valley called Baten el Ghoul, the Belly of the Beast. The Jordanians considered it a haunted valley, where the demons came out at night to murder people. It was not unusual to have one’s sleep interrupted by the screams and howls of frightened Jordanian soldiers who swore in the light of day that they had seen a demon. My men and I nervously wrote it all off as superstition, much to the chagrin of our Jordanian counterparts, who repeatedly made every effort to convince us that this was a bad place. We joked about the hauntings at night as we sipped tea around the campfires, but we put no stock in them. From our perspective, if it couldn’t be killed it didn’t exist.
Baten el Ghoul was a desolate and jagged valley carved out of the desert that spilled over from Saudi Arabia. It looked like the surface of the moon. There was no life there, except for the wide variety of arachnids that crawled out of their hiding places onto the cooling sand at night. If I were God, and wanted to set aside a place where the souls of the living were taken from them as they made their way to Mecca, this would be it. The valley had a kind of energy that made your thoughts drift toward it unconsciously. After a few days of living in it you became comfortable, and as time passed you reluctantly saw some forbidden beauty in it. Still, it was an unclean place. There was something evil here, something I recognized the moment I set foot in it. I wasn’t the only one to think so, and yet none of us could ever put a finger on it.
On this evening I was going to hear a Jordanian colonel, the commander of the Jordanian Ranger battalion, speak to my soldiers about the valley, his faith, and his hatred for the Israelis. The colonel was our host, and while I can’t remember his name, I can remember everything else about him. He was a short, stout man, filled with pride for his country and even more contented to be its only Ranger battalion commander. He hated the Israelis and showed no compunction when it came to talk of killing them. His passion for soldiering was the equal of any of ours—and that is rare, to find someone who loves being a soldier as much as an army Ranger does.
We gathered, 260 men, on a barren piece of high ground, a natural amphitheater. The colonel’s stage was a section of railroad track half buried in the sand, abandoned decades ago. It was the same track that Lawrence of Arabia’s infamous bedouin guerrillas used to blow up, built by the Germans under contract by the Turks. This forgotten section of track surfaced just long enough to take a breath and intersect the ancient road to the holy city of Mecca—the hajj road.
As the sun passed beyond sight, a stunning red glow swallowed the valley and everyone in it. For several hours after sunset, the colonel lectured our group of dirty-faced and hardened men on the finer points of the Muslim faith. He spoke on the life of the prophet Muhammad, of the Quran, of the nature of the one true God he called Allah. He told us of the five pillars of Islam: the repetition of the creed, or shahadah; of daily prayer, or salah; of the sharing of possessions with the poor, or zakah; of fasting, or swam; and of pilgrimage, or hajj. The faces of my men remained phlegmatic as the colonel spoke of the variations of the Muslim faith, of its Sunnis and Shi’ites. He beamed as he spoke of the spread of Islam and grew angry again as he told why his people felt Palestine was their birthright. But his most expressive moment came when he spoke of Allah, how blessed he was to know Him and how certain he was that He watched over him and protected him in peace and in combat. That comment made some heads nod in the group, which was a standing ovation from a Ranger’s perspective. And so it was at this historic but forbidding site that I spent my final hours in the world I had known.
The next morning, after the usual business gatherings of officers and noncommissioned officers had broken up, I had joined my battalion commander, Colonel Keith Nightingale, for a canteen cup of tea. Tea was not our usual drink but something we had picked up being with the Jordanians. For them it was a holdover from British colonial rule, something they hadn’t rid themselves of since the last British flag left their soil decades ago. For us it was just good, much better than the instant coffee we had in our packaged rations. Tea, like everything else in this country, sort of grew on you.
Colonel Nightingale was a tall, gangly man with a brilliance I’ve yet to see matched. You might out-soldier him in some way but you damned sure weren’t as ingenious. He was a Mensa man, proud of it and as resourceful as they come. He was an excellent teacher and never missed an opportunity to pass on a lesson in military history. Like most well-read military leaders, he had an anecdote for every possible tactical situation. There were plenty of opportunities for instruction, and if his Rangers were too busy to listen, he could always venture over to the Jordanians for a quick lecture or two.
We drank our tea and walked the mile and a half to the training site. The platoon leader, First Lieutenant Kevin Owens, and his men had just completed the finishing touches on the four enemy bunkers that made up the objective. In a few hours a Ranger platoon reinforced with two squads of Jordanian Rangers would attack it with every weapon in their arsenal. They would be evaluated on their tenacity, accuracy, and ability to systematically destroy the objective with indirect and direct fires. Specially designed targets representing enemy soldiers would fall if struck with a potentially lethal shot, or remain in position if only wounded or missed. The attacking leadership would have to orchestrate the entire operation unrehearsed, adapting to each tactical situation as it confronted them.
Colonel Nightingale and I stood there, our thumbs laced into our web belts.
“It looks good, Kevin.” I grinned from under my helmet. “It looks real good.” And it did. His platoon had built an objective consisting of five bunkers, complete with automatic weapons, trenches, concertina wire, and booby traps. It would be difficult to take down correctly and safely.
“Let’s get up there to watch this mortar registration,” Nightingale said, pointing toward a small rise about fifty meters away from the objective.
The mortar platoon was registering—that is, they were dropping rounds onto the target to make sure that they would hit it and not friendly troops as they maneuvered toward the bunkers. Suddenly, thwack! a mortar round landed well off its mark, sending buzzing shrapnel past our heads. Nightingale and I looked nervously at each other and shrugged. We felt strange, and very foolish. It had happened so fast there wasn’t time to react, but shouldn’t we have run for cover, or ducked, or something? Instead we just stood there trying not to look shaken. Perhaps it was an omen.
Several hours later a young Ranger platoon leader received the order to attack; he crossed the line of departure with sixty men, and I followed. The sun was high, baking the valley and everything in it. Heavy, salty sweat stung my eyes while small black flies pestered every orifice. Despite the weight of weapons, ammunition, and radios, it was almost a pleasure to move and try to outrun those goddamned flies.
The platoon leader moved cautiously, picking routes that covered and concealed his men from the enemy. Mortar shells slammed into the objective, sending smoke and shrapnel and pieces of the bunkers high into the air. As he drew closer, the platoon leade
r screamed into the radio for his support position to open fire. Six medium machine guns ripped the air with their fires, hammering with such volume that several bunkers’ wooden beams collapsed under the pressure, crushing the “occupants.” Tracers spun off rocks and bunkers in every direction, dissolving in the smoke that filled the sky around the objective. The air rang with the songs of the weapons and the smell of cordite. To a warrior’s eye, it was great!
I moved behind the platoon leader, watching him closely as he made contact with the left flank of the objective. His intent was to take out the flank bunker and roll up the rest of them one by one, using his machine guns to cover his movement. It was a standard technique, one he had used many times before in the mountains of Washington State and the jungles of Central America. He gave the signal for the guns to shift their fires away from him, to leave the first bunker alone and concentrate on those remaining. This would allow his men to clear each bunker in turn, the fires shifting in front of them bunker to bunker until there were no more. He threw a yellow smoke canister behind him to signal a second time for the guns to shift, and they did—all but one.
A rogue Jordanian gun shifted in the wrong direction, into the assault element, kicking up rock and dust as the Rangers dove for cover and hugged the ground. Men scrambled for shelter. The last thing I saw was the platoon leader screaming into the radio for the guns to lift, and then the world turned black.
As if it were another day, another year, another place, this darkness slowly dissolved into a white mist. I distinctly recall not knowing what I had been doing up to that instant. It was as if a channel had been changed and suddenly there I was standing in this endless white mist. I couldn’t feel my body or my arms or legs; I couldn’t feel anything. But I sensed I was upright. I tried to walk, but nothing happened. I just stood there, paralyzed and confused.
In what seemed only seconds the mist around me began breaking up, slowly revealing my surroundings. I was standing at the base of a grass-covered hill, and I felt the warmth of the sun on my shoulders. I looked down at myself and saw that I was completely naked, but it didn’t seem to matter. A gentle breeze brushed my face. At the top of the hill stood a small gathering of people, perhaps eight or twelve. They were dressed alike, in white, long, flowing clothing. I stood there unable to move, but watched as one of them turned to look down the hill at me. His face was kind, expressionless, and he almost immediately turned away. Then he turned to face me again, this time motioning for me to approach the gathering. For the first time I could feel my limbs as I moved in some strange way to the top of the hill. As I approached, the circle parted and I was ushered into it by the being who had beckoned me. As I entered, the circle closed behind me and I stood alone and naked in its center for what seemed an eternity. Finally, a kind but powerful voice came from behind me; turning, I saw that it was, again, the one who had beckoned.
“Welcome, David. We have been waiting for you.”
“What’s going on?” I said in a trembling voice. “Where am I?”
No one answered.
“Didn’t you hear me?” I asked. “Why am I here?”
“We called you to give you instructions.”
“instructions? Instructions about what? Who the hell are you guys?”
“Who we are is unimportant. What we have called you here for is this: you are to know from this point forward that what you have chosen to do in the world is wrong.”
“Wrong? What’s wrong?” I was confused and indignant—and scared to death. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Your choice is wrong. Pursue peace. Teach peace, and the path to it will be made known to you. You have tasted death … now bring life. We will be with you, always.”
A piercing sound filled my head, a ringing that made me clasp my hands against my ears. My eyes stung and my knees buckled. Opening my eyes briefly, I was aware of the absence of the sun and the wind as the strange mist encircled me once again. The mist remained unaffected by the wind, yet encircled me and the hill, as if we were in the eye of a hurricane. The air was thick as death and heavy. I tried to speak, to cry out, but nothing came from my mouth. All I could do was lie there with the pain, alone and frightened beyond description. The mist crept back around me, masking the hill from my view, and in a few moments it was completely black.
When my eyes opened, they revealed the sweat-smeared face of Private First Class Sheridan, the platoon leader’s radio operator.
“Jesus Christ, sir,” he said, squinting at me from four inches away. “Are you all right? You have a bullet in your head.”
“Shit!” I cried, instinctively reaching to search for the hole. I patted my head and face several times, expecting to see my hands wet with my blood. When there wasn’t any, I melted into the ground as the tension drained from my body. Glancing into the sunlight I saw that there were several new faces inspecting me.
“What the hell do you mean, I have a bullet in my head?”
“Well, not in your head, in your helmet,” he replied apologetically. “It hit you in the helmet, see?” The private handed my Kevlar helmet to me and grinned sheepishly, pointing to a large tear in the camouflage cover. I snatched it from him and stared into the hole. Sure enough, a bullet had struck an inch above my right eye, and it lay lodged deep in the helmet.
“Must have been a ricochet,” said the platoon leader.
“Yeah,” volunteered one of the others. “A direct hit would have gone clean through … wouldn’t it?” He looked around for supporters, most of whom only shrugged.
In minutes, the rumor of a bullet in the head of the company commander had permeated the platoon. It seemed every man there was surprised to see I was still alive, and as usual with soldiers, Rangers in particular, the jokes soon followed. Not twenty minutes after I staggered to my feet, one of the sergeants chastised a sniper for missing a perfect head shot.
“Let’s see if it was a direct hit or not,” said Platoon Sergeant Ricketts, an amiable, grinning old country boy who had been in the Rangers forever. He politely took the helmet from me and gouged at the bullet with his bayonet until it fell into his palm. After carefully inspecting it in the sunlight, he held it up for all to see.
“This wasn’t a ricochet. Look, it doesn’t have a mark on it. This was a direct hit from one of those guns in the support position.” He tossed the helmet back to me and passed the bullet around for the men to inspect. “You’re fucking lucky to be here, sir,” he said in as serious a tone as he could muster. “Real lucky!”
For the rest of the day we pummeled that objective with platoon after platoon until there was nothing left to attack. I grew a red knot on my head as big as a half grapefruit, and a headache that Motrin just wouldn’t make go away. As darkness crept across the Belly of the Beast, the last platoon marched back to the bivouac site. I followed, lagging some distance behind, alone and reflecting on what had happened.
That evening we dined on lamb and rice, courtesy of our hosts. My officers and I stood with our counterparts in a lonely tent surrounding a table laden with the traditional mansif. In what had become a weekly custom and a welcome break from the bagged ready-to-eat rations we came to Jordan with, we conversed over a tray of rice laced with nuts and vegetables and adorned with the head of a goat boiled in yogurt. In the months that had passed we had learned to dine like natives, grabbing handfuls of rice and crushing the moisture from them, rolling the mixture between palm and fingers until it formed a bite-sized ball to be launched into the mouth with a flick of the thumb.
This time away from our traditional surroundings proved great therapy for us. To lose ourselves in the ways and stories of these men, so closely tied to two millennia of desert warriors, was enchanting. Even this gnarled and forbidden valley came to life in the evening hours, under the glow of brilliant stars and a welcome moon. It wasn’t until the moon set and true darkness fell that the alleged demons came, and it was in this darkness that the Jordanians who believed in the spirits—in the jinn
—would gather close and frightened in their tents.
We finished the meal and retired to our respective camps for tea and more conversation. My officers and I listened to the BBC on shortwave radio, trying to capture news of world events and maybe a story or two of home. At the end of the broadcast each man disappeared into the night, headed for his own platoon and tent. I gazed across the valley, contemplating my brush with death, laboring over my vision of the mist, and the hill, and the strange beings who stood atop it. Their message—what the hell could it have been? What did that mean, “Teach peace”? Had it been a dream, or some random image generated by my mind?
I gingerly touched the tender spot on my head and found that the knot had receded. With a last look across the valley I crawled into the command post tent and found the opening between bodies that would be my spot to sleep. It had been forty-seven days since we’d last bathed, and the tent reeked of bodies and methane. I laid my head on a rolled poncho, closed my eyes, and thought of home and Debbie and the children.
Sometime in the night my eyes opened to a surreal light outside the tent. I figured one of the cooks was lighting the gas stove for breakfast and morning tea. Rising, I crawled over the sleeping bodies of my soldiers and into the fresh air of the night. The light—it was like the light of an eclipsed sun—wasn’t coming from any stove. It filled the night sky. The entire Baten el Ghoul and the hills beyond were painted in the strange bluish gray light; I walked to the edge of the bluff and stared into the valley. Dark figures moved effortlessly across its floor, like apparitions. They poured from the rocks in various heaps and shapes and moved about the clusters of tents. I could hear muffled cries from the Jordanian encampment, and momentarily I thought we were being overrun by thieves or maybe even Israelis.
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