by Sean Parnell
And then the men with masks come for me.
With a shudder, I awoke with racing heart and sheets soaked with sweat, the stillness of the bedroom a stark contrast to the battlefield painted in my mind.
I lay and listened to my breathing, almost missing the background noises that accompanied nighttime at FOB Bermel. The quiet of this rented condo seemed unnerving.
Where’s the roar of the diesel generators? The rumble of Humvees returning from patrol? The echo of distant gunfire?
I rose from the bed and went to the open window. My family had rented a place on the Maryland shore in honor of my temporary homecoming. We’d be here for a week; then I would return to the war.
The salt air smelled divine. I closed my eyes and filled my lungs. With each exhale, I tried to purge my mind of the foul odors I had stowed away with every Afghan breath: burned flesh, white phosphorous, and steaming bodies rent asunder. Filth, sewage, mold, and decay.
I pulled a chair to the window. In the distance, a dog barked. My watch read three in the morning. The tourists of Ocean City had long since retired to tranquil sleep.
My heart rate slowly returned to normal. It didn’t help. The nightmare had left me unsettled. My mind raced. There’d be no return to slumber for me.
Something’s wrong.
Maybe it was the dream. Maybe it was something more profound and less explicable. Whatever it was, I felt disquiet rippling across my psyche. I sat in the dark, probing my mind in the hope of finding its source.
In their most naked moments, veterans tell stories of the unseen bond, founded on love, that unites us psychologically to those who matter most to us. In times of hardship or disaster, wives have risen from half-empty beds, knowing that their warrior husbands have suffered harm. The morning arrival of the contact teams on their doorsteps is no surprise but rather a confirmation of what their hearts already understand.
Those were the wires humming inside me that morning.
I felt disconnected, unplugged from my hive at Bermel. Now all my instincts telegraphed that something had gone terribly wrong, and I wasn’t there to help out.
We’d been lucky so far.
Lucky?
How ridiculous would that sound if I said it out loud back here within the insulated confines of my former life?
Mom, Dad? We’ve been lucky. Only about half my men have been wounded. Only three seriously. Hey, Baldwin’s home with his family! So is Garvin. And my machine gunners—they’ve only taken six head shots among them.
The very framework of my thinking had been recast.
The scary thing was, it was true. We had been lucky. How many times could we have lost someone? Luck, the hand of God, fate—whatever it was had kept us all alive. But every gambler knows when you roll the bones, the winning streaks never last.
Fuck it. I was probably just being paranoid. Distance and lack of communication had created a void in which the darkest elements of my imagination flourished. When you’re in the relative safety of the United States and know the evils that lurk beyond our borders, how can you be anything but paranoid?
I tried to shut it off, but the wires kept humming.
I sat by the window, watching dawn break over the serenity of home.
Would Brown be dancing on the back of his Humvee? Who would Cowan have in a headlock? Was Greeson already knocking back near beers as he trooped the line to ensure that all our rigs were squared away and ready to roll?
Then I remembered that they were eleven hours ahead. They’d be done for the day before mine had even begun.
Somewhere on the far side of the planet, I imagined the platoon cleaning weapons and getting ready for chow.
Had Pinholt finally finished Atlas Shrugged?
I loved being home.
I hated being home.
At seven thirty, I wandered downstairs and over to my parents’ rented condo next door. From the kitchen, my grandmother welcomed me. “Sean, would you like some French toast?”
“Thank you,” I replied. She’d gotten up early just to do this for me, knowing that I hadn’t been able to sleep in all during my leave. I was touched by her gesture.
A moment later, I balanced a plate and a glass of milk in my hands and sat down in front of the television. My grandmother had turned on Fox News. I took a bite and said, “Grandma, this tastes great!”
“Glad you like it, Sean. There’s plenty more if you want it.”
I turned away from the television to see her regarding me with a look of pure love. I wanted to tell her about the St. Christopher medal, of how Grandpap had roused me from unconsciousness on the hilltop during the June 10 fight. I wanted to tell her that the spiritual connection she’d assured me I’d have with him had saved my life more than once.
But all I could do was smile back. The words remained unformed, burdened with regret that I could not find a way to let them out.
My folks appeared in the kitchen, and my grandmother wished them good morning. I went back to watching Fox News, savoring every bite of my home-cooked breakfast. The little things matter most after combat.
The news anchor began talking about two Fox reporters who had been kidnapped at gunpoint the day before in Gaza.
Then the news ticker at the bottom of the screen caught my attention.
AMERICAN SOLDIER KILLED BY ENEMY MINE STRIKE IN EASTERN AFGHANISTAN . . .
My fork hovered midway between plate and mouth.
I need Net access.
My laptop was over in my condo, but we had no Internet hookup here.
Stay calm. Don’t alarm your family.
The wires inside my head were screaming now. I stared at the screen and listed all the reasons why this couldn’t have happened to anyone I knew. The Outlaws were a tiny unit, just a platoon. There were thousands of U.S. troops fighting in eastern Afghanistan. The chances that it was one of my men were astronomically small.
I tried to find comfort in the math, but my heart rejected it as a false hope. I couldn’t eat. The sweet smell of maple syrup drizzled over the French toast, so appealing a moment ago, made my stomach churn.
I stood up and left the condo. Up the street was a coffee shop that probably had Internet access, so I grabbed my laptop and hurried over to it.
The place was deserted when I walked in. Quickly, I sat down and started my laptop. As soon as I logged into Yahoo! Instant Messenger, a conversation box popped up. It was Rowley.
Hey Sir.
Rowley, everything okay?
Actually, no.
What’s wrong?
I received no immediate reply. I waited in dreadful suspense.
Cole is dead.
Twenty-four
We Stumble Through
August 16, 2006
Ocean City, Maryland
My fingers hovered over the keyboard, not knowing what letters to press. A few tourists, dressed in T-shirts, shorts, and sneakers, wandered inside to order their morning lattes. They gave only passing attention to the platoon leader at his laptop, twelve thousand miles from his men, whose composure was on the verge of collapsing at the thought of an infant boy who’d never know his father, Big Bird shoes, broad smiles, and those final words so casually spoken as the Chinook waited to take him home: “I’ll see you when I get back.”
Rowley sent a file. The download took forever. When it finally finished, I opened it and saw a photograph of one of our Humvees blown to broken junk.
With me back home on midtour leave, Greeson was taking the platoon out on our assigned patrols. For the past two days, while I’d been lounging around the Maryland coast, the Outlaws had been under mortar and sniper fire southeast of FOB Bermel. The platoon had spent the previous night on a hilltop overlooking a village. Come morning, Greeson had decided to head back to Bermel for chow and a quick refit. Through thick fog, they had driven
home, where Greeson had met with Captain Dye to discuss the plan for the rest of the day.
They’d decided to return to the hilltop, establish an observation post, and see if the platoon could root out any of the mortar or sniper teams.
The platoon had gotten back into position later that day. The villagers had come outside to observe the platoon as the men held their hilltop perimeter. Nothing like that had ever happened before. Being gawked at had made the platoon nervous. Hours later, with no sign of the enemy, Greeson had called it a day and ordered the platoon home.
While driving off the hill, the third Humvee in the column rolled over an Italian-made antitank mine. The explosion ejected Doc Pantoja from the rear of the truck and flung him seventy feet down the side of the hill. Greeson was knocked unconscious, as was Colt Wallace, who was driving. Echavez in the turret, manning the Mark 19, was also wounded.
Doc somehow found the strength to get to his feet and run back up the hill, where he found Cole grievously wounded, still inside the mangled Humvee. Greeson regained consciousness and pulled him clear. Doc flung himself behind Cole’s limp body and began to treat him. Cole’s heart stopped. Doc started CPR, and the men heard him begging Cole to stay alive. Meanwhile, Wallace regained consciousness as the rest of the platoon dismounted to protect the shattered rig.
Five minutes later, Cole slipped away. Doc refused to give up. Frantically, he kept working, praying that he could restart Cole’s heart. But the blast had done too much damage. Even if he’d been in the best trauma center on the planet, his life would not have been saved.
Finally, Greeson touched Pantoja’s shoulder and told him to stop. Even then, it took a direct order for him to give up. Doc stood up, walked a short distance away, and let out a primal scream. Rage, despair, and helplessness poured out of him.
The villagers watched the entire event. In his turret, Chris Brown saw Cole die and unleashed a barrage of obscenities at the villagers. They knew the bomb had been planted; that’s why they’d come outside. They’d wanted to see what would happen. Nobody had warned our platoon, despite the fact that we’d been bringing aid supplies to the village all summer long.
Brown racked the bolt on his 240 and swung it around, wailing with grief. It would have been easy to touch the trigger and walk that machine gun back and forth until those Afghans were nothing but bloody chunks. A less disciplined man in a less disciplined unit would have done it. The same sort of thing had triggered the My Lai massacre of Vietnam infamy.
Those villagers who had viewed our men die and suffer wounds as though it were a soccer spectacle owed their lives to Chris Brown’s sense of duty. Instead of killing them all, he tipped the barrel up and strafed an empty hillside as he vented his anguish.
Doc Pantoja returned to the demolished Humvee, where he treated Greeson, Colt Wallace, and Echavez. He ignored his own wounds again.
The quick reaction force, Delta Platoon, arrived on scene. A short time later, so did Second Platoon. Both platoons faced the same dilemma: should they proceed to the battered Humvee to help my platoon and risk triggering another bomb or mine? Was risking the lives of more men worth coming to the aid of Third Platoon?
Big Red never hesitated. He drove straight up to the Outlaws and his men went right to work. That gesture, though it might not have been the militarily correct one, fostered the bond between the platoons.
Burley made the opposite decision. Considering it too risky to take his rigs up the hill, he parked about a kilometer away. His medic, Doc Campbell, erupted at the decision. Burley would not budge. Ignoring his superior rank, Campbell unleashed on Burley and told him to get his ass on the hill to help out. When he refused, Campbell dismounted, said, “To hell with this shit,” and ran the kilometer to the blast site to treat the Outlaws’ wounded.
It was a tough call to make. There are moments in combat where our moral obligation to our comrades conflicts with the tactically correct decision on the ground. While Burley protected his men—with the exception of Campbell—Burley lost an opportunity to heal the divide between our platoons. Had he driven up the hill to assist, all that had passed between us would have been water under the bridge. Instead, the rift between the platoons became almost open warfare later that day when the Outlaws returned to Bermel. Their morale broken and Greeson at the aid station awaiting evacuation, Cowan’s squad filed into the chow hall. If nothing else, a bite of warm food couldn’t hurt. They found Second Platoon inside. They’d come home before Delta and had taken every seat in the place. Cowan’s men stood to one side, waiting for them to finish eating so they could have a turn. Second Platoon ignored or didn’t notice them. Their men seemed oblivious to the effect the day had on my stricken soldiers. After about ten minutes, the Outlaws couldn’t endure it any longer and left the chow hall. As they left, Chris Cowan stalked over to Burley’s men and said, “I hope you are fucking proud of yourselves.”
All that had gone down without me there to fight for them. At the moment they needed me the most, I was on the other side of the planet, spending a leisurely day on a family beach vacation.
Through circumstance, I had failed them. Now, in the café, as Rowley signed off with me on IM, I realized that I would not be able to get back in time for the memorial service. They’d have to go through that without me as well.
I returned to the condo and tucked my laptop away.
Thank God Lieutenant Colonel Toner let Cole stay back for the birth of his son.
Somewhere a woman’s world had just come apart. Was Andrea holding baby Nicholas in her arms when she answered the knock on her door?
You cannot think about that.
Over the Atlantic, air force F-15 fighter jets engaged in practice maneuvers. A pair thundered across the horizon, their sonic boom rattling the condo like rocket fire.
Pinned against the Hesco-bag wall at the Alamo, we lay helpless in the enemy’s sights as they fired at us from our ally’s trenches.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I whispered, feeling ready to explode.
Hey, sir, don’t I always take care of ya?
Leave is not optional. I’d had no choice but to take it.
Tell that to my heart.
The inner circle was the only place where such a wound could be shared. I was an outsider to this moment, sifted by time and space, and I would have to grieve alone. At least until I was able to get home.
And by home I meant Bermel.
I thought about telling my family. The elation they’d felt at my return had triggered an outpouring of love and affection. It had drawn us closer than we’d been in years. Here at the beach, we’d been riding that high and living in the moment, trying to forget that in a week it would come to an end.
I could not wreck this for them.
I considered pulling my dad aside and sharing it with him. One night, my mom had told me how my e-mails were affecting him. Though he stood strong for me—had been my rock in the crisis moments of my deployment—my mom explained the consequences. He bore the burden of knowledge. He knew the enemy we faced. He knew how close to death I’d come. Every patrol left him a slave to his computer, counting the seconds as he waited for news that I was home safe. He kept Yahoo! Instant Messenger running from the second he set foot in the door to the point exhaustion overtook him and he fell asleep in a chair beside the computer. The IM’s chime became his angel’s bell, and when its ring awoke him, his fears melted away in a flood of relief. It was the sound of my safety.
Until the next patrol began. Our cycle outside the wire became his prison; the unknown his affliction. To get through it, he leaned on my mother, completing the circle of hardship that combat wreaks on families back home.
I could not do that to my father anymore. I resolved to keep Cole’s death to myself. But I was a bad actor, and before the day was out, everyone sensed that something was wrong. We all pretended to have fun, to share light and bonding
moments, but beneath the facade, my anguish sucked the vibrancy out of our reunion.
That night, we went to play miniature golf. I piled into a car with my sister and brothers and rolled through Ocean City with country music blasting on the radio.
In the backseat, I existed in two worlds. I had to be tough for my men, always. Now I had to do it for my family.
Brad Paisley’s song “When I Get Where I’m Going” flowed through the car’s speakers. Around me, my siblings laughed and teased each other.
When I get where I’m going
on the far side of the sky.
Cole, always so gentle-hearted. He was a good man whose devotion to Andrea had shone through in every conversation we’d had about her and Nicholas. He loved Outlaw Platoon almost as much as he loved her and his little boy. It had killed him to not patrol with us, and he had virtually lived in the gym during his off-duty hours as he worked to drop the weight First Sergeant Christopher had demanded he lose.
We drove through the streets of Ocean City. Carefree vacationers crowded the sidewalks, window shopping and eating ice cream in the summer heat. The sight of their insulated happiness made my burden seem stark. I was not one of them anymore, and I could never be that person again.
Cole had dropped twenty pounds. He’d been cleared to patrol only a few weeks before. After working so hard to rejoin the platoon, he had been killed on one of his first missions. If he hadn’t cared and had kept the weight, he’d still be alive.
My composure slipped. I turned my head to the window so my siblings did not see.
Part IV
Indomitable Moments
Twenty-five
Crosses to Bear
Late August 2006
Bermel
Hey, sir, I need to talk to you,” Greeson said to me as I entered our hooch. His room was across the hall from mine. He was supposed to get evacuated back to Bagram so his head wound could be treated. Instead, he refused to leave the men and continued to lead them after the aid station at FOB Salerno had patched him up as best they could.
