The Silence of War

by Terry McGowan

  Our stay at Manas was extremely brief. We’d all have loved to have stayed longer—especially because we were going home instead of into a war zone—but we flew out the next day. A large white commercial jetliner leased from some unheard-of airline whisked us up and away. This time Uncle Frank joined me in first-class seating.

  Our next stop was the tiny nation of Azerbaijan. Like Kyrgyzstan, I had never heard of the place before landing in it. I thought that Azerbaijan was a place where bad wizards were sent to keep them away from Harry Potter. Located on the shores of the Caspian Sea, it was one of the Soviet “republics” prior to the dissolution of the Communist empire. This time, however, we never got off the plane. We refueled and took off again. The trip home would not take nearly as long as the trip over.

  I slept like a baby in the spacious, leather-upholstered first-class seating. The next thing I knew, we were touching down at Shannon Airport, in Ireland. I hadn’t been to Ireland in decades, and I loved the very idea that we were there. I still have family in Ireland—distant cousins—although I would not get to see them on this trip.

  Happily, though, the entire plane—except for the rifle guards—debarked. The bad news is that virtually every soul lined up at the airport bar. It took nearly the whole time we were on the ground just to get served once. I think I ordered two pints of Guinness just for myself. Having studied some Irish Gaelic—known in Ireland as “Irish”—I reveled at the prospect of ordering my drinks in that language. Alas, Ireland is a member of the European Union, and the barmaid had no idea what I was saying. She was from somewhere in Eastern Europe.

  After that, I slept pretty much all the way across the Atlantic. We landed after dark, but not after closing time, at an airport in Maine. The Marines were forbidden to drink at that airport by Major Helton. I imagine it was his realization that the drinking age across the United States is twenty-one and most of our contingent was underage.

  I pulled my customary Lone Ranger routine and discovered a connection between the airport and a hotel. Since I was wearing “contractor casual” attire, I didn’t stand out, as I might otherwise have. I reveled in the company of American civilians at the hotel bar until I grew concerned that I might miss the plane. I got back just in time. I slept again until we touched down in California. It was not quite sunup, local time.

  I was feeling jet-lagged as we entered the same terminal we had left seven months earlier. As we stepped off the runway, we were met by an amazing assortment of people, young and old, who greeted each and every Marine as a hero. Some of them were relatives of returning Marines, most were ordinary citizens.

  Personally I felt embarrassed by the attention. I felt unworthy. I didn’t know what to say when people would reach for my hand and greet me with, “Thank you for your service.” I don’t know why I felt as I did, but I’m still not comfortable dealing with it.

  After a sleepy bus trip back to Marine Corps Base (MCB) Twenty-nine Palms, my thoughts turned to finding a place to stay. I knew I could crash in the barracks with any one of a hundred Marines—a lot had changed since I first arrived at 2/7; these guys were my buddies now. But I was hoping I could get a room at the Holiday Inn. Uncle Frank lived in California and was heading back to his wife. He offered to put me up, but I declined, of course—he was heading back to his wife after a very long absence.

  The sky was just beginning to lighten as our seabags were unloaded off trucks. As soon as I got my gear, Frank was going to give me a ride to the Holiday Inn. My car was parked in the driveway of a battalion staff lieutenant who was still deployed.

  Suddenly, I saw Boucher! I hadn’t seen him since the evening of August 1. He had been wounded the next day and shipped out. Yet here he was, unloading seabags! It was like spotting a long-lost brother. We made arrangements to go out for dinner and drinks—on me—as soon as possible.

  Frank and I turned in our rifles. He introduced me to his wife, and they dropped me off at the Holiday Inn as planned. I was optimistically counting on finding an available room. Actually, the place was pretty much full, but upon learning that I had only just returned from Afghanistan, the folks there were kind enough to squeeze me in. It dawned on me, as I sat on the edge of the bed, that this was the first time I had been ready to sleep under a roof in seven months. It was also the first time I had been alone in seven months—not counting my trip up the mountain. I relished the feelings. Then I slept.

  Although I was closer to some of those Marines than I was to my own family, I kept to myself a lot in the ensuing days. I cherished “alone” time. I just enjoyed being by myself. I ran the hills and mountains behind the inn, as I had done before shipping out. Only this time, my conscious mind had to override my feelings. Except for a little bit more vegetation than I was used to seeing, the landscape reminded me ominously of the desert of western Afghanistan. I had to consciously tell myself that there were no Taliban in those hills before I could force myself to go there. Gazing out on the sun-scorched brown mountains, I sorely missed my rifle.

  Prior to deploying, my eyes searched everywhere for rattlesnakes. I remembered all too vividly the two Marines who had died after being bitten back in 1977. This time I was watching intently for more than just snakes. I couldn’t stop myself from peering everywhere, looking for any sign of the enemy as I ran. My awareness had definitely heightened. And emotionally it was very uncomfortable running without my rifle.

  For the longest time, back home, I would find I couldn’t get comfortable at night unless I was on the couch with my hand on a gun. I didn’t really sleep. I just lay there with my eyes closed—listening. Once the sun came up, I would go to bed and sleep soundly. It was a reaction to the 1:00 a.m. attack, I suppose. Sometimes I still awaken in the middle of the night and find myself listening. The gun is no longer necessary, however.

  A steak dinner with drinks was high on my list of priorities. I rounded up Jeremy Boucher and Devin Bentz—both Bravo Squad guys—and Dave Demanske, who had been the driver into Baqua. Little Red Allman was sick and couldn’t make it. It was agreed that nobody would be driving back to base after drinks, so we all ate a great meal, then crashed at my room at the inn. The next day I took them back.

  Soon after, I flew home and kept my Thanksgiving promise to Mom.

  At about this time I received an email from a well-meaning person regarding civilian contractors with the military. It was a joke, the gist of which was that contractors are overpaid and can get away with anything. Reading it really pissed me off. I know the sender—a wonderful person and a terrific American—so I never let on as to what my reaction was. But I forwarded it to a couple of personal friends with the following rebuttal:

  I am a US MARINE Contractor. Once a Marine, ALWAYS a Marine is my code. I am a contractor because the dim bulbs inside the beltway believe I’m too old to do what I do for chump change and MRE’s and told me I couldn’t come back. But I’m not too old to do what I do for big bucks. I look out for ALL my Marines. I get out of the vehicles and check for IED’s on foot with my rifle partner.

  I check caves half way up a mountain by myself. I man a post like every other Marine when under attack. I jump in the back of a pickup truck to get to where my buddies are being ambushed. I give and take fire. I cry behind the shithouse when one of my buddies gets killed. I worry when they get wounded.

  I don’t even know how much money I’m making. I try and get outside the wire as often as I can, eat the same fly covered crappy food as everybody else. Although my contract states I’m entitled to a cost free vacation home, during the deployment, I don’t take it because I wouldn’t think of leaving my guys.

  When I get sick from eating local food and get sent to the rear to get well, I return to my unit as soon as I can. When we get back, I fly cross country for the memorial service. I’m going back on my own dime for the belated Marine Corps Ball. I love every one of those guys like brothers. I would’ve done it for free because I AM STILL A
MARINE.

  But if the morons inside the beltway want to pay me big bucks I’m happy to take it. It kept my mother out of a nursing home when she ran out of money. It’s still keeping her out of a nursing home. I can’t think of a single luxury I’ve spent the money on for myself. I can’t afford a boat. I’m keeping mom out of a nursing home.

  I turned 59 in a shithole. The guys gave me a rock for a birthday present. I loved it. I could have stayed in the rear with the gear and made the same money, slept in an air conditioned tent with mattress, ate great chow and had access to internet, a PX and a coffee shop, but I went forward to an under strength platoon because the intel said they were going to be overrun. I’m not entitled to so much as a fire watch ribbon or any VA benefits because I am a “civilian.” But that’s ok because:

  I am a US MARINE Contractor.

  Many contractors are just like the below [in the offensive email]. But damn sure not all. I served with two other guys who were just like me.

  22

  A Terrible Beauty Is Born

  After Thanksgiving I returned to Twenty-nine Palms. The remainder of the battalion was back by then, and in early December a memorial service was held for those killed in action (KIA). The sky was gloomy and overcast. A chill wind blew, kicking up dust and hurling it in our faces.

  The weather fit my mood. I was told the battalion had taken 20 percent casualties. That’s about two hundred Marines. I don’t think I had realized the magnitude of 2/7’s war until I heard the numbers—and knew that each one had a name.

  We had twenty KIAs. That number would have been much higher but for the heroism and dedication of men like Fighting Doc Hancock. Even so, many of the surviving wounded bore horrible scars. Amputated limbs, faces burned beyond recognition—it was a sobering sight. There were any number of badly burned Marines who wore pictures of how they used to look around their necks so their friends would recognize them.

  It’s an image of war that has to be felt to be understood. “There but for the grace of God go I” flashed through my mind.

  Death is not the worst thing that can happen to a man in war.

  And a funeral for twenty can be a bit overwhelming in and of itself. So can writing about it.

  Immediately prior to the service, a relative of one of the dead Marines—to whom I had written while in Afghanistan—sought me out and shook my hand. He and the rest of the family had really been hurting when their Marine was KIA.

  I knew the Marine personally, but I’m not going to name him here. I had written to them and comforted them as best I could at the time. I told them what had happened—how their loved one had died—and how much he was missed by his brother Marines. When the relative said, “Thank you for your service,” I looked at my shoes and shuffled the dirt.

  After he left I confessed to a lieutenant with whom I had been speaking of my extreme discomfort at hearing those words. He smiled a knowing smile and said, “Well, I just say—‘thank you for your support.’”

  That’s what I still say.

  I was beginning to realize how much the experience of war had changed me. Gone was the desire to don a uniform with the proud rank insignia of an officer of Marines. I’m sure I could have worn it—the Silver Star ceremony of predeployment days had established the precedent. The battalion executive officer and sergeant major were the same men. The battalion commander was the same man and surely would have given his permission. And it’s not that I had any less reverence for the uniform—I still considered myself to be a Marine, as I always will.

  I just didn’t want to stand out in any way. I wanted to blend in with the other anonymous “civilians” who were there in abundance.

  That day wasn’t about me. I was still alive. I wonder now if “survivor’s guilt” was at work. Why did I live when these fine young men died? I was fifty-nine. I had lived my life. Why them and not me?

  I wore a navy blue suit and stood off to the side of the bleachers by myself, watching as the ceremony unfolded. Watching and trying not to let the tears show, trying to set a good example for my young brothers as the closest friends of the fallen paid their respects to guys who had become closer to them than their own kin.

  It was a deeply moving ceremony. Twenty pairs of boots, twenty rifles with fixed bayonets planted upside down into the ground. Twenty helmets placed with the reverence of a crown atop the butt of each rifle. Twenty photographs of the dead. Twenty sets of dog tags hung from each rifle.

  And all of the above accomplished with the reverent formality that has long been a hallmark of the United States Marine Corps—by handpicked Marines who had some deep personal attachment to each and every one of the honored dead.

  I used to think that humility was a lack of self-esteem or something. It sounds an awful lot like “humiliated,” after all. I never really understood what humility—the virtue—was. I began to learn its meaning in Afghanistan.

  What I have learned of it came from watching, firsthand, the sacrifices made by eighteen-year-old to early-twentysomething Marines. It was the realization that—like their civilian contemporaries who did not serve—I could not have done what they did at their age.

  It was watching them do the impossible—endure the unendurable—routinely, without self-pity or complaint that planted the seeds of understanding.

  It was uplifting. It was life-changing. It was humbling.

  Humility came like the dawn. Slowly the darkness turned into gray light as the unknown became known. It crested the horizon of consciousness with the realization that at any moment any one of a thousand Marines might have to give up his young, promising life. It shone directly into my eyes like the fierce desert sun the instant that bright orb topped the eastern mountains.

  I knew on that bleak December day when I saw the excruciating sense of loss in the eyes of their brave friends that fate had left behind. I knew I had turned a corner. I was not the same man I had been before.

  I began to see. This was all another piece in the puzzle of life. As each piece fits into place the picture—the meaning of life—begins to be revealed.

  The sun of knowledge climbed higher into the morning sky as I realized that countless other—similarly young—Marines had done as much and more house-to-house in Fallujah, in the jungles of Vietnam, in the frozen wastelands of North Korea, in the sulfuric ash of Iwo Jima, or on the killing fields that was France in 1917–18.

  Humility—for me—came with the realization that every Marine anywhere, at any time in history, paid with blood for the reputation of the Corps. And I was granted the undeserved honor of calling myself one of them.

  Like grace, the honor was unearned. To truly earn it, one had to have made the ultimate sacrifice. I finally realized, in that moment, that I was a Marine by the grace of countless thousands of fine young men who had died on thousands of battlefields.

  The title is a gift.

  My long journey into the Corps and into war was finally over.

  Epilogue

  GOLESTAN

  Lieutenant Ben Brewster’s understrength platoon was replaced by a full company from 3rd Battalion, 8th Marines (that means three rifle platoons each with three rifle squads, and a weapons platoon). For as long as Marines were in that valley, the Taliban stayed away. Then all Marines were pulled out of western Afghanistan and sent south to Helmand Province to reinforce the “surge.”

  The tiny nation of Georgia garrisoned Golestan. The Taliban returned.

  The subgovernor, “Ibrahim Khan,” resigned in an attempt to keep his life.

  His comrade from the Soviet war “Hajji Mohammed” was shot dead by the Taliban as he walked the streets of Golestan.

  The girls’ school was forced to close under threat of murder.

  An elderly science teacher from the boys’ school was murdered, presumably because he taught science.

  A young, enterprising subcontractor who arranged with
us to hire dirt-poor laborers to work on the new FOB was murdered.

  I presume the purge didn’t stop there. The “powers that be” lost the counterinsurgency war in the Golestan valley that a young second lieutenant had won.

  THE MEN

  I have remained in touch, even if only slightly, with pretty much everyone I’ve written about. It’s a marvel of the modern age that I’m able to do so. The Internet is a wondrous thing to someone who was born before the Korean War and remembers fuzzy black-and-white TV.

  Ordinarily I would have written a nice, informative piece about those mentioned in the book, where they live, what they do for a living, the names of their wives and kids—all the good stuff that brings closure to a book about war and those who fought it. In this day and age, however, I will keep such detailed information to a bare-bones minimum. The wondrousness of the Internet comes with a price tag—it’s too easy to find people who may not want to be found.

  In the order in which they appear in the story:

  Zach Wolfe—went back to his home area, where he met and married his wife. They have a precocious daughter. They just had their second child, a baby boy. He is named in part for “Whit”—his middle name is Whitacre.

  Alex Allman—is an avid mixed martial arts enthusiast. He and his lady recently had their first child. He regularly drops out of sight, only to reemerge when he’s ready.

  Joe France—left the Marine Corps and became a security contractor in Afghanistan. After a full tour of duty he returned to the States. Currently he is back overseas doing what he does best—working with a gun in his hands.

  Mike Michalak—has been a police officer for the past two years. He’s married and has one child.