Lindsey spent the rest of the day in dreamland, alternating between smiles and fighting off heavy eyelids. When they could finally break away from the children, she and Courtney ran off and spoke in excited whispers like two grade-school girls.
“Okay, I’ve been dying to hear it,” Courtney said, “and I want details.”
Still aglow, Lindsey’s eyes grew distant. “It was the best night ever.”
“What did you guys do? Where did he take you?”
“We went down to the beach, sat on a park bench and talked all night.”
Courtney was getting frustrated. “And…”
Lindsey smiled. “And then we talked some more until the sun came up and he had to go.”
Courtney shook her head. “I don’t get it.”
Lindsey’s smile vanished, and she shook her head. “There is one problem, though.”
“And what’s that?”
“He’s flying out tonight to fight in Afghanistan.” She inhaled deeply. “And he’ll be gone for a year.”
“You’re kidding me, right?”
“I wish I was,” Lindsey said and, to the surprise of both of them, her eyes filled. “I wish I was.”
¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
Seven hours later—on a black-tarred runway in Fort Benning, Georgia—David turned to face the C-130 military aircraft and took a deep breath. Time to go to work, he told himself. As he got closer, he spotted a fellow soldier saying goodbye to his small daughter. The man was on both knees, trying desperately to comfort the young girl and explain things she could never understand. “I’ll be home soon, baby,” he said, his voice shaky.
“Daddy, don’t go! Please…PLEASE!” she screamed, as though he were heading off to the lethal injection room. “PLEASE…”
The man pulled her into his embrace.
“I want you to stay here with me and Mommy,” she pleaded. “It’ll be fun if you stay. PLEASE! PLEASE! I’ll miss you too much.” She began to cry uncontrollably. “And what if you die…” Her sobs made her entire body tremble and convulse.
The man pulled her in to him until she was flush with his heaving chest. “Oh baby,” he whispered, struggling to be strong for her. “I’ll come home. I promise.”
Tough promise to keep, David thought, and then pictured both Lindsey’s and Craig’s worried faces. David glanced again at the soldier and his baby girl and could feel his heart start to tear from his chest. He turned away and quickly boarded the windowless plane.
As he made his way toward the canvas sling that he’d be sitting in for nearly sixteen hours, he questioned his own mettle. Then it dawned on him, I’ll be carrying my own weight over there, but at least I don’t have to carry that. He pictured the little girl’s tormented eyes one last time, her desperate cries still fresh in his mind. I’m not sure I could shoulder it, he thought before tucking it away behind a door in his mind that he had no intentions of ever opening.
¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
One-by-one, David’s ranger team took their respective canvas seats within the belly of the giant steel beast.
Lieutenant Kevin Menker,the team’s smart, quick-witted leader, sat beside David. “You good to go, McClain?” he asked.
“Hoo-ah,” David replied.
Kevin nodded and conducted a final inventory of his own gear.
Corporal Billy Brodeur, the team’s baby, entered next. He was a Boston-based kid, who had grown up on the streets. David exchanged nods with him and smiled. There’s tough and then there’s trained, David thought. When Billy was growing up, I have no doubt he was the toughest kid on his block, and then the Army was crazy enough to train him.
Corporal Nathan Michaels filed in right behind Billy. Physically, Nate was the runt of the ranger litter. He was a quiet, unassuming guy who could have just as easily passed for a grade-school teacher—as long as his death-inspired tattoos remained concealed. But he has a heart the size of his head, David thought. Nate had two sons, so he had more to lose than any of them. David watched Nate take one last look at a family photo before he kissed it and tucked it back into his camouflaged cap.
Sergeant Max Essington, David’s best friend in the Army, lugged his gear onboard and grabbed the sling on the other side of David. “You ready for this, brother?” the single father asked, smiling.
David nodded. “Hoo-ah!”
“Hoo-ah,” Max repeated.
Tall and lanky, Max was a well-trained medic.
I’m glad he’s with us, David thought.
Staff Sergeant Allen Correiro, a mountain of a man from Texas, was the last to board. He busted balls harder than any of them, but he was their weapons expert—who will probably be faster to the trigger than any of us, David thought.
“I hope we didn’t interrupt anything important, Big Al,” Lieutenant Menker yelled to him.
Al grinned. “Actually, it’s called my life, but I’ll get over it.”
Everyone laughed—before confident nods were exchanged all around. The C-130’s motors fired up and screamed out a terrifying warning. David took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Time to go to work, he repeated in his head. A moment later, they were speeding down the runway toward the fight in Afghanistan.
¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
In flight, amid the loud whine of the plane’s motors, the same questions kept repeating in David’s head. Am I ready for this? He then remembered experiencing the same doubts on his first plane ride to Georgia. That’s when the real question arose: Do I have it in me?
Keeping his eyes closed, the answer came to him in fragmented memories.
For the first week of training, everywhere David and his fellow recruits went, they ran. Monsters wearing drill instructor hats frothed at the mouth, while the boys did enough push-ups to move the state of Georgia right off the map. The camouflaged demons screamed orders that were never understood, though it never mattered anyway. Their game was all about creating chaos and pushing limits.
Private David McClain easily endured the sixteen weeks of torment hosted by Harmony Church, Fort Benning, Georgia and graduated a soldier—an infantryman. Undaunted by the sweltering heat, he stood rigid at attention, while the company commander spoke of “duty, honor and courage.” Throughout the speech, David pictured his father’s face and thought, I wish the old man was here to see this.
When the commander stepped up to him and slipped the light blue infantry cord over his shoulder, David could almost feel the discipline, independence and strong sense of duty that came along with it. His mind continued to churn with thoughts of his dad. He’d choke on his words for sure. David expected orders to a regular Army duty station but was surprised to discover that Uncle Sam had other plans. After graduating in the top five percent of his class and making the commander’s list, the options for further training remained open. Why not? he thought. Jump school is only three weeks long. How hard can it be?
Satan himself barked orders, while David and his comrades ran a marathon straight through hell’s kitchen. David never minded. In fact, he enjoyed most of it. There were constant opportunities for an eighteen-year-old man to test his mettle and David never let himself down. Some called it heart. David laughed. It was more of an attitude. He refused to quit and would rather have curled up and died on the side of a road than be sent home to Gooseberry Island a failure. Stubbornness played a much bigger part than heart.
As required, David made the five jumps but figured each one took two solid years off his life. The whole experience was a rush, combining raw excitement with paralyzing fear.
The night jump was a hairy one. No one could tell how fast the ground was coming or when it was time to tuck and roll. A few of the boys miscalculated and were forced to trade in their parachutes for crutches. Still, that fear didn’t compare to the first time David tested the Earth’s gravity by stepping out onto a cloud. The first time was definitely the most terrifying, he thought.
Thousands of feet above a checkerboard of green and brown, the jump master’s mouth snapped open and shut, while
his words were stolen by the C-130’s whining engines. It didn’t matter. They’d gone over each detail a thousand times on the ground. That was one of the joys of being in the Army. Everything was done with relentless repetition, leaving little need for the human thought process. As practiced, everybody stood, hooked their chutes to the static line and shuffled one step closer toward the door. “The first step is the hardest,” the jump master joked. David quickly discovered he wasn’t kidding.
Some guys needed a size twelve right in the backside to help them along, but David was determined to see himself out. When his turn came, he hung his toes over the lip and anxiously awaited the green light. The few seconds it took to get the signal was just enough time to pick out one of the million thoughts that raced through his mind.
Ironically, he pictured one of those infamous Army commercials where decorated veterans marched in a patriotic parade. It was the one where older men from earlier wars stood and saluted from the sidelines, while small children by their sides waved the red, white and blue. “Courage is simply a matter of placing fear aside to get the job done!” claimed the narrator. Unfortunately, he never went on to define the intensity of such fears.
With that last thought, David became a screaming eagle and, with only one step, found more freedom than anyone could ever want.
Not five months from entering America’s Big Green Machine, David graduated a second time. This time brought even more pride, along with the same picture of his negative father. As the commander pinned wings onto the line of graduates, David awaited his turn. Finally, the stern commander stood squared before him and pinned the wings above his left breast pocket. David tried not to smile. I’m airborne now, he thought, “Death From Above” as they called them, and the commander had sealed it with a firm handshake. I can’t wait to show Dad, he thought. Those in the Airborne Infantry were an elite breed of soldiers and Private David McClain was now one of them. Hoo-ah!
A few years rolled by when the 101st came in from two months of field-training exercises. They showered, grabbed some hot chow and headed out to drink every beer ever brewed. On the way to the Enlisted Men’s Club, Corporal David McClain halted his pack to make way for a more lethal band of soldiers—the Rangers.
A battalion of Airborne Rangers was on the last leg of a death march and stumbled past them, a convoy of ambulances following in their wake. Out of sheer respect and sincere pity, David and the boys applauded. The death marches were legendary within the ranger units. They were the ultimate gut check. Lasting countless hours, men marched under the weight of full packs until eventually collapsing from total body shutdown. It was considered shameful to drop out. Though rare, there were commanders who showed mercy on their troops. This march didn’t appear to be one of those. Their commander looked tougher than any one of them. David cheered the last of them on. I wish I were right there with them, walking in their footsteps, he thought, and leaked his wish to one of his buddies.
“McClain, you’re as crazy as a Billy goat,” the southerner commented. “Do you realize what those guys have to go through?”
David’s eyes lit up. “I do.”
¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
David emerged from his daydream, thinking, Of course I have it in me. He snickered. I actually asked for this.
A moment later, he wasn’t surprised when his thoughts landed on Lindsey Wood again. My God, what is it with this girl? he thought. It was only one night. He thought about it some more and smiled. But what a perfect night.
For the next few hours, he ignored his exhaustion and allowed himself to bask in every last detail he could recall.
3
David and his team were assigned to Camp Phoenix in the Kabul Province. Camp Phoenix…rising from the ashes, David thought, reading the sign at the heavily fortified entrance. As their convoy sped into the barbed-wire complex, they zigzagged past one cement Jersey barrier after the next. Big-time security, he thought. This place must be surrounded by unfriendlies. With one quick scan, David took it all in—there was a makeshift memorial to a fallen brother; a tattered Afghan flag that had been claimed by someone along the way; laundry hanging outside long concrete bunkers that clearly served as housing. Well, at least we’re not in tents, he thought.
After the first formation and roll call, David located his assigned billets. Inside the concrete shelter, small rooms were divided by thin sheets of graffiti-laden plywood. This could be a long twelve months, he thought and shook his head. He threw his gear onto his bunk and headed out to find a phone or a PC where he could email Lindsey.
The communications building was packed with soldiers seated around two dozen tables containing three computers on each. David stepped through the heavy scent of mildew, locating an unoccupied PC in the back corner. After logging into his email account, he wrote:
Hi Lindsey,
Miss me yet? I hope so because I don’t mean to scare you away, but I can’t get you out of my head. And trust me, I’m not complaining. Anyway, I wanted to let you know that we landed safely. The flight attendant wore a five o’clock shadow, and it would have been better had they fed us bags of peanuts for the entire flight. But we made it. And you’ll be happy to know that I didn’t even have to jump out of this plane. They were good enough to land it for us.
I’ll be getting my living quarters set up and learning my way around the camp for the next few days. At that point, I imagine that they’ll put me to work. I’ll contact you again just as soon as I get my bearings.
Lindsey, thank you for giving me something so amazing to think about on that long flight and for the days ahead.
It feels strange that fewer than twenty-four hours ago, I was sitting on a park bench with you, trying to picture what the inside of a lighthouse looks like. And now I’m in Afghanistan, where there appears to be nothing but rugged mountains and goat villages. Bizarre!
Anyway, please think of me, and trust that I’ll be thinking of you over here. We’ll have to sync up our schedules soon so we can Skype. Let me know what times work for you. And please keep me updated on how the Red Sox are doing.
Talk soon.
David
Wearing his finest smile, he logged off and headed to the chow hall to recharge his batteries.
Two plates of tasteless chicken cacciatore later, he hurried back to the communications building, hoping Lindsey’s response might be waiting. When he logged back into his account, he was so thrilled that he had to pretend an excited squeal was nothing but a strange-sounding cough. Three fake coughs later, he read:
Hi handsome,
Yes, I do miss you. And I can’t believe I’m telling you this, but I’ve missed you from the moment we left that park bench. (It’s much easier to be brave over email, isn’t it?) Although it was much too brief, I really enjoyed our night together. I loved being with you and can’t begin to explain how incredible your lips felt on mine and how awesome it was to be in your arms.
Thank you for the flowers you sent before you left. They’re still making me smile.
I’m so happy to hear that you arrived safely. See, my first prayer for you has already been answered!
There’s not a whole lot to report on your Red Sox, as you’ve only been gone a day. But I’ll keep you updated.
David, although I’ll definitely miss you, I want you to know that what you’re doing over there is incredibly selfless and I’m very proud of you. You have ALL my support, respect and admiration for doing what you do. Please stay strong and stay focused.
Can’t wait to Skype with you! I’m sure my schedule is a lot more flexible than yours. Any night from 5:00 p.m. on (my time) will work for me. I hope it works for you. I can’t wait to see your face again and hear your voice.
That’s about it for now. Please be safe and remember, life is better than good.
Lindsey
David left the rancid-smelling building and had to be careful not to skip across the camp back to his billets. No matter how happy or excited, he thought, Army Rangers don’t ski
p.
¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
At Camp Phoenix, David and his team spent the first few days trying to establish a routine: breakfast at the mess tent, followed by a morning debrief in the headquarters or HQ tent. This was when they received an account of the previous night’s events. At that point, missions were assigned by the command staff. It was all standard protocol. What surprised David, however, was the number of men who volunteered for the dangerous missions. Some of those raised hands belonged to soldiers who wanted to play the cowboy and exact justice; others were attached to wanna-be heroes, who enjoyed kicking in doors in order to kick asses. And then there were those who volunteered just to break up the boredom.
Without an assigned mission, morning briefings were followed by physical training, lunch, laundry and letters, dinner, hygiene and a long night of nothingness.
David and his team weren’t in-country for a full week—barely settled in—and they were already anxious to get into the action. Besides writing letters home to Coley, Craig, Captain Eli, Aunt Jeanne and his mom, David had been staring up at the bunker’s corrugated steel ceiling and couldn’t bear it a minute longer.
On the upside, thanks to Skype, communication with Lindsey was turned up a notch.
¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
When David’s baby face first appeared on her computer screen, Lindsey lost her breath. He smiled and, if she didn’t know better, his eyes misted over with raw emotion.
“Hi beautiful,” he said, excitement oozing from his voice. “It’s so good to see you. How are you?”
A moment passed before she replied. Between his voice and face, she was taking it all in.
“I’m great now,” she said honestly—and feeling just as courageous over Skype. “More importantly, how’s it going over there?”
“Truthfully?”
“Ummm, yeah. You wouldn’t lie to me, would you?”
He laughed. “It’s been unbelievably boring. I’ve heard a few horror stories from some of the guys who’ve seen action, but I haven’t seen a whole lot worth reporting myself.”
“That’s a good thing, right?”
Gooseberry Island Page 4
