Ryan Smithson Read online

  Whoosh; BOOM.

  He goes down. If I didn’t know better, I would reach for my field dressing or tourniquet. The timing for him to slip on the gravel couldn’t have been better. It’s almost comical the way it happens. The way he falls at the perfect moment, as though he’s slid into home plate just as the ball lands in the catcher’s mitt, just as the flying bomb lands in Abu Ghraib. It’s magical the way it happens.

  I catch up to him quickly.

  “You—”

  Whoosh; BOOM.

  “You okay?” I yell as I grab the handle on the back of his body armor.

  “Yeah,” he says as I help him to his feet. “Come on.”

  I follow him to a nearby enclosed stairwell. His quarters are at the top of the stairs. The standard waiting time after an attack is twenty minutes.

  Whoosh; BOOM.

  Twenty minutes.

  A handful of his friends are hanging out in the common area. We talk while we wait. They are Navy. Something to do with intelligence. The guy who led me here is a petty officer, the equivalent of a sergeant in the army. I ask him about the war and about his mission. He asks me about ours. We talk about the army and the navy and about Abu Ghraib. When things are safe, I thank him, shake his hand, and head back to my barracks.

  When I get back, I want to grab my friends and shake them into understanding the fear, the excitement, the high I am on. I want to share it.

  Todd Wegner, he’s from outside of Dallas. He smiles and nods. He asks me if I want to be dealt in. I say yes. And Josh Roman, who’s a damn Red Sox fan, wins another hand with a full house. Josh Miller, who grew up milking cows, is thankful he folded.

  I see the petty officer in the chow hall from time to time. We say hi, nothing too intimate. But that’s the way it is, the way it has to be. Like magic.

  When we leave Abu Ghraib and head back to Anaconda, he might have wondered, “What ever happened to that kid from the army?” Now you see me, now you don’t. He helped me when I needed to find cover, and I picked him up when he fell.

  We were even.

  A TASTE OF HOME

  Shortly after the ten of us get back from Abu Ghraib, Munoz gives me the best news he’s given me all tour.

  “Smithson, you got the May leave you wanted,” he says.

  If this wasn’t the army, I’d kiss him.

  See, the army is unfair and unreliable in a lot of ways. Think of the two months I waited to hear if I was being deployed. Think of a commander who cares more about his Humvee being clean than the guy who drives it. But the army is also, sometimes, very understanding and generous.

  During a combat tour the army lets us go home for a two-week “leave.” Since we have missions still going on in Iraq, the unit has to divide the leave slots over the course of about eight months. Every two weeks, a handful of soldiers from the company take their leave.

  To keep everything fair, the company has a lottery. The order in which we are picked is the order in which we choose the slot we want.

  I chose May for a couple reasons. It would probably be right in the middle of the tour. And May 19 is Heather and my unofficial anniversary. It was our first date: her junior prom.

  So when I get back from Abu Ghraib and Munoz gives me the good news, I call Heather and my parents. I tell them I’m coming home. My heart beats through my chest, and I ride on clouds for the next week as I wait for my date to fly out.

  Think of this two-week leave as a build-up. Think White Phase.

  Another great thing about going on leave is that, because I have to be at camp in order to fly out, Munoz and LT won’t be sending me on any missions. I do the normal PMCS, cleaning the barracks, busy work. But I don’t have any outside-the-wire missions during which something might go wrong or something might hold us up and cause me to miss my flight.

  The PAX (Passenger Terminal) is a series of tan tents where soldiers wait to fly out of Anaconda. The thing about moving soldiers is there are a lot of them. There are hundreds of soldiers waiting at the PAX terminal. The air force planes flying in and out of Anaconda are capable of fitting only so many people in addition to running other missions.

  We’re more or less hitching a ride. And the cargo, supplies, and personnel for the aircrafts’ missions take precedence over soldiers going on leave.

  Long story short, the PAX terminal works like this:

  We’re given an ETD (Estimated Time of Departure). The ETD approaches, but no one shows up to take us to our flight. A couple hours go by, and we’re given a new ETD. There is a mechanical problem or the aircraft was bumped to another mission or there’s cargo taking up space that they didn’t originally expect. So we have to wait for the next flight.

  I haven’t talked to a single soldier who’s flown out of the PAX terminal on their first ETD. Don’t get me wrong, though. I’d rather be killing time on the wooden floor of the PAX terminal than running around outside the wire any day. It’s not hard to keep life in perspective when you’re in a combat zone. All you have to do is bring a good book or a deck of cards and waiting at the PAX terminal is no big deal.

  After two and a half days of getting our ETD pushed back, we grab our stuff, throw it onto a large pallet, and pack onto a giant C130.

  This military cargo plane is designed so that supplies, equipment, and vehicles (including vehicles as large as tanks) can fit down the middle. And running along each side of the aircraft’s interior are fold-down seats for passengers. So when the air force has a logistics mission to fly cargo out of Iraq and to Kuwait, some soldiers and a couple pallets of their stuff can hitch a ride.

  We land in Camp Doha, Kuwait, where our vehicles and equipment came off the navy ships, and we spend the night in tents. In the tent it’s easy to spot the guys who are used to living out of their rucksacks. Certain soldiers, especially those with infantry unit patches, have bags and gear all covered in dirt and dust. They move through the cramped, efficiently packed bags like they’ve done it a thousand times. The same way you can tell new sneakers from old sneakers, you can tell the guys who’ve been traveling around Iraq.

  And there are other soldiers with squeaky clean Kevlars and body armor. The green straps on their rucksacks are still stiff and crimped from being adjusted recently. They’re usually officers. They’re finance workers, or mail clerks, or members of some battalion staff, planning team somewhere. They have very necessary jobs, I’m sure, just not very dangerous ones.

  I look around the tent, my hand fishing through my rucksack for my toothbrush, and I feel a sense of resentment toward these clean, inexperienced soldiers. I don’t know if it’s because I’m jealous or because I’m full of myself. Somehow, just knowing that there are soldiers in Iraq who don’t have to deal with death, who sit in offices and don’t worry about never returning to their families, I don’t know, it just makes me mad. It makes me feel like they don’t deserve to go on leave, like they should volunteer it for the soldiers who aren’t so lucky.

  But, really, I’m too tired to care. I’ve been napping in between reading and eating and waiting for the next ETD push-back. That kind of schedule is exhausting. I brush my teeth at the shower trailers and go to sleep.

  The next day we line up in formation, throw our stuff on pallets, hand in our body armor for until we return, and board a plane out of Kuwait. After fueling up in Germany, we take off for a hop over the Atlantic.

  When the pilot announces that you can see the coast of the United States, every window cover slides up, and this plane full of tired soldiers still wearing our DCUs (Desert Combat Uniforms), that wavy tan-and-brown camouflage, turns into a roomful of kids on Christmas morning.

  We land in Raleigh, North Carolina, and the pilot says, “Welcome home.”

  Everyone in the plane claps and cheers. For most of us North Carolina isn’t our home, but it’s a hell of a lot closer than Iraq. And being on American soil is like living a dream.

  The soldiers disperse in the large airport, and only one other soldier and I go to the
gate for the plane heading to Albany, New York. She sits down on the other side of the waiting area, and I realize that she’s from my old unit in Kingston.

  On the plane the pilot has open seats in first class, and since we’re in uniform, he lets us sit there. If it were up to me, I’d sit in the middle of the plane like everyone else. And people would treat me the way they’ve always treated me, like I’m just another passenger on the plane. When you’re traveling in uniform, especially a desert uniform, all you want is anonymity.

  But the pilot makes a big deal of it, and people stare at the wavy tan-and-brown clothes I’ve been wearing since November. I move to the front seat and find the soldier from my old unit sitting there. I’m glad to be flying next to her. Throughout this whole leave experience, I’ve been traveling with other soldiers. We’ve been jumping through military posts, and no one there looked at me twice.

  Now, back in the civilian world, the camouflage I’m wearing is anything but camouflage. I wish the army didn’t make us travel in uniform. I wish this plane was filled with people who actually understand the war, not people who think that, because I’m in uniform, I want to talk about it.

  Truth is I don’t. And these people staring, they make me feel a whole lot of resentment I didn’t know existed. I keep expecting the know-it-all who thinks I want to hear his opinion about the war. I keep expecting to hear those tired arguments, that “We don’t belong in Iraq” and “Nothing good is happening over there” and “Bush is a moron” and all the rest of it.

  I don’t even want to think about Iraq. All I want to do is go home. Yet I know that because I’m in uniform some opinionated jerk-off is going to bombard me with his views like I care—like I had anything to do with the invasion of Iraq.

  What would he want me to do, anyway? Say, “Yeah, I think you’re right. Let me go tell my commander-in-chief and see if I can turn this thing around.” Get real.

  But luckily I don’t meet this guy. In first class I sit with the only person on this plane who understands the war the same way I do: the soldier from my old unit.

  “Hey,” I say. “How have you been?”

  “Good, you?” she says.

  “Better now that I’m out of the desert. It’s so nice to see grass and trees again.”

  “I know,” she says. “Are you with an engineering unit?”

  “Yeah. Are you?”

  “No, I’m not an engineer. I was just in Kingston because that’s the closest unit that needed my MOS. I was cross-leveled to a postal unit.”

  “How is that?”

  “It’s really cool, actually,” she says. “Being able to give people their mail, it’s really rewarding. I guess that seems silly.”

  “Not at all. Mail is what keeps us going,” I say. “You ever have to go outside the wire?”

  “A couple times,” she says. “My commander needed me to go on a few runs. Just around Baghdad and stuff. You?”

  “Yeah, quite a bit,” I say. “It gets old, living out of a rucksack all the time. But you get used to it.”

  “Have you lost anyone?” she asks me.

  “No. Couple of close calls, little IEDs and stuff, but no casualties,” I say. I almost forget to add, “Knock on wood.”

  “You’re lucky,” she says. “We haven’t lost anyone from my unit, but I meet a lot of people at the post office, you know?”

  “Sure.”

  “I was pretty close to this one guy,” she says, her eyes getting distant. “He died two weeks ago. And another friend of mine died last month, right before he was supposed to go on leave. Can you believe it?”

  I shake my head.

  “He had a little girl,” she says. “She was born while he was deployed.”

  “He never got to see her.”

  She shakes her head.

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  “It’s hard,” she says. “It’s really hard.”

  There’s a pain in her voice I can’t relate to. She wipes a tear, and I wonder if she feels about me the way I felt about those sparkling clean officers and paperwork junkies in the tent in Kuwait. Maybe she feels like I don’t deserve to go on leave. Maybe she feels like I can’t understand her experiences the way I feel like the civilians on this plane can’t understand mine.

  When our plane lands in Albany International, the pilot lets us off first. The whole plane claps for us, and I shake the pilot’s hand.

  “Thank you,” I say.

  “No, thank you,” he says.

  The soldier and I walk down the tunnel together, out of the throat that swallowed us on our way to Iraq.

  Airport security allows our families to meet us at the gate. Heather and my parents are standing there.

  “See you in two weeks,” says the other soldier as we separate.

  She walks toward her husband and daughter.

  “You too,” I say. “Enjoy it.”

  I walk to Heather first, and kissing her, I realize I forgot how sweet her lips taste. We stand holding each other, and right now, nothing else matters. I am right where I need to be.

  “I missed you so much,” she whispers, laying her head on my shoulder.

  “I missed you, too,” I say.

  “Happy anniversary,” she says.

  I check my digital watch. She’s right. It’s the nineteenth.

  “Wow, I didn’t even realize,” I say, kissing her again. “Happy anniversary.”

  “Well, you did just fly through, what, eight time zones?”

  “Yeah. That tends to mess you up.”

  I let her go and hug my parents.

  “Oh, I missed you, Ryan,” says my mom.

  “Glad to see you, pal,” says my dad. “How was the flight?”

  “Long,” I say.

  We walk through the airport, and I tell them about the other soldier on the plane, how she is from my old unit. I don’t tell them about the fallen soldiers she knows.

  When we get to the security checkpoint, I see the rest of the family. Some of Heather’s family is there, including her sister’s daughter, my niece, who was born the day I flew to Fort Bragg. This is the first time I’ve seen her, and she is adorable.

  I look into her large blue eyes and say, “Hi, Sophia. I’m Uncle Ryan.”

  I think of the other soldier on the plane. I think of her friend who never got to see his baby. Almost without trying, I shut out the thought and give hugs to the rest of the family.

  My sister is graduating from high school this year, and my parents hold a party for her at their house. They plan it for the weekend I am home. I feel a little guilty taking the spotlight off my sister, but it’s nice to see all those aunts, uncles, and extended family.

  The weather the day of the party is warm and sunny. There are balloons tied to the edge of the patio and a grill cooking hot dogs. There are people throwing Frisbees and playing horseshoes. People eating, laughing, and spending time together. And my parents’ dog, a golden retriever named Haley, is begging the guests for food.

  She slipped a disk in her lower spine about a year ago, and her back half became paralyzed. But Haley is still her happy old self. She runs—well, stumbles—around the party looking for food and trying to chase the Frisbee.

  My dad recently finished the back room in his garage. It was a horse stable when we moved here in 1994. But he just finished making it a “man’s corner” for the party. It has a dartboard and a foosball table. It also has a poker table and a fridge for beer.

  I walk up the driveway toward the entrance to the garage. I plan on playing some darts.

  One thing that really sucks about being home on leave from Iraq is that you have to go back. No matter how hard you try, the thoughts of Iraq never wash out of your mind. I can leave Iraq, but Iraq can never leave me.

  As I near the entrance of the garage, I hear a gunshot.

  The way I stop moving every muscle of my body, it’s like Haley must have felt when she slipped that disk. I hunch down and tighten my fists. My forehead sweats, a
nd my eyes dart around. I look all over my parents’ backyard for the silhouette of a man running, or the muzzle flash of an AK-47, or a mushroom cloud. Adrenaline feels like needles when it pumps through your veins. It’s a feeling I’m so used to in Iraq that here it seems so far out of place it’s scary.

  This isn’t supposed to be scary. This is my parents’ house. This is safe.

  “What was that?” I ask anyone who can hear me. The closest person is my dad, twenty feet away, and he’s laughing.

  “Seriously, what was that?” I ask again.

  I hear anger in my voice. I hear all the people at the party. It’s the sound of an Iraqi village. I swear, somewhere in the clash of voices, somewhere among these party guests laughing and spending time together, I swear there’s someone speaking Arabic.

  “It was a balloon, Ryan. It popped,” my dad says, laughing some more. “You okay?”

  His voice is distant, like he’s speaking through a tunnel. Like he’s eight hours away.

  “Yeah, yeah,” I say, taking a deep breath. “I’m fine.”

  I walk into the garage, but before I get to the back room, I take a minute to calm down. The cool, still air of the garage is comforting. That smell of old oil and grass clippings, it assures me that I’m safe. The Peg-Board of tools on the back wall and the canoe hanging in the rafters, they remind me that I’m home. Safe.

  The back room is cramped with people. I don’t stay long. I don’t play darts. I grab a drink and go to the back corner of the yard.

  Heather and her sister are there watching Sophia roll around on a blanket. My sister, Regan, and her best friend are poking at the fire pit, talking about the upcoming summer. I kiss Heather on the forehead and take a seat in an open fold-out chair.

  “When are we going out of town?” I ask.

  “Two days,” Heather says. “You okay? You look upset.”

  “A balloon popped.”

  She nods her head. Her sister looks at me funny.

  “It’s okay,” says Heather. “Just a balloon.”

  “I know.”

  Two days later, she and I take a trip to Manchester, Vermont. It’s our special getaway for the two weeks. It’s our alone time, our anniversary. We book a nice dinner at a fine French restaurant. She wears a short black-and-white dress and I wear a three-piece suit. She straightens her brunette hair and I, well, I’m practically bald.