Ryan Smithson Read online

  We stay in a bed-and-breakfast just outside of town and go shopping during the day. It’s the middle of the week so there are no crowds. Perfect for me.

  “How are you doing?” asks Heather as we watch the fake fireplace in our room.

  “I’m all right,” I say.

  “You sure? You don’t really seem yourself.”

  “Yeah, I’m fine.”

  “It’s not me, is it?”

  “No, babe. Not at all,” I say, pulling her close. “It’s just weird to be home.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “I mean, just a couple weeks ago, I was in Abu Ghraib.”

  “Yeah,” she says. “That mission went okay though, right?”

  “It went fine, it’s just…” I say.

  “Just what?”

  She doesn’t need to know about the mortars. Or the kids in Samarra. It will just worry her.

  “It’s just,” I say, “I worry. You know, about the other guys. I feel like I should be there with them.”

  “Yeah,” she says. “But I like you here with me.”

  “Me too.”

  We kiss, and I try so hard to keep this moment forever.

  “Plus,” she says, climbing on top of me, “the other guys can’t give you this.”

  Fifteen days go way too fast. No matter how hard I try to hold on to the moment, it comes and goes.

  The day before I leave we move from our little apartment in Troy to a large apartment in West Sand Lake. It’s a quaint little town between the suburbs and the country. It has a little corner grocery store and gas station, an elementary school the size of an ice rink, and a barbershop with a sign that says, no appointment needed.

  On the way to the airport the ride is silent. My parents drive their car, and Heather and I drive in hers.

  We pull into a parking spot, and Heather turns the car off. Me in my desert camouflage, and all our stuff left packed in boxes at the new apartment. Boxes she’ll have to unpack herself. I’m abandoning her again.

  “Sorry I can’t help you unpack,” I say.

  “You helped,” she says. “We got everything moved in.”

  “I know. I just feel like…like I’m leaving you behind with all this work. And I’m not going to be here to help you. I feel like—”

  “Ryan,” she says, taking my hand, “I want you to know how proud I am of you. It means so much to me that you’re strong enough to defend your country. I couldn’t ask for a better husband.”

  I don’t say anything. I pull her close and kiss her. With our eyes closed the feeling of our lips together is deeper than ever. We stay connected, touching each other, just hoping it will last a little longer.

  I feel her chin start to quiver against mine. I keep kissing her, trying so hard to stay strong, trying so hard to hold on to this moment.

  Of all the good-byes the army has made me say, this is the hardest. I’ve made it for six months in a combat zone. I’ve gotten a little taste of home: Heather’s sweet lips. And I keep denying that this may be our last good-bye.

  “I love you so much,” she says, pulling back. She looks into my eyes like no one else ever could. I wipe the tears off her cheek.

  “I love you, too,” I say.

  “Only a few more months.”

  “Stay strong, honey.”

  “You too.”

  We get out of the car and walk to the airport. As we make our way through the security check, there’s a TV showing the weather and news. There’s a story about Iraq. I don’t pay attention, but I see the brown desert. I see the soldiers walking through it. I remember my brothers and one sister still over there, still running missions and waiting for me to come back.

  At the gate I see the soldier I flew home with. As if looking into a mirror, I can see on her face that desperation of trying to stop time. On the wall a digital clock marks the seconds going by. People sit all around us, other passengers waiting to go on vacation or business trips. People going to visit family—using the same plane I’m using to leave my family behind.

  There’s such a look of pity on these people’s faces when they see my desert uniform, when they see my family’s tears. I can see it on their faces, that apologetic look wishing they could do something. But they can’t. And neither can I.

  And there’s the last call to board.

  I hug my parents and kiss them good-bye. They tell me they love me and that they’re proud of me. I get to kiss Heather one last time and then walk away, abandoning her.

  Unpacked boxes. Unfinished business.

  The soldier from Kingston, she sits in the window seat. I sit in the aisle. First class, like it matters. Most of the ride back to Iraq is silent.

  SATAN’S CLOTHES DRYER

  When I return, it’s the beginning of June. The Iraqi summer is in full swing. Coming back isn’t so bad. Getting on the plane in Albany was the hardest part. In Kuwait when I was given back my body armor, I almost welcomed the transition to something familiar.

  I’m on a lumber hauling mission up to Bravo Company at Q-West. SFC Morrow is my assistant driver (A-driver) in an M916 tractor trailer. Hauling supplies and equipment, the army calls this logistics. When we convoy for a logistics mission, it’s called a Logistics Package, or LOGPAC.

  A LOGPAC is one of the many single-day missions we conduct as Headquarters Company. Sometimes things go wrong and we don’t get out in one day. Sometimes we have to stay for a couple days. This is why we always pack extra socks and a toothbrush. This is why we’re so used to living out of our rucksacks.

  The full name of Q-West is Qayyarah West. It’s a town outside of Mosul, near the border of Turkey. Soldiers call it Q-West because it sounds like Key West, the coastal paradise in Florida. It’s this sarcasm that really keeps us going. It’s the little things. Like zombie Whisler. Or sugar-free dentist candy for poker chips. It’s a two-week taste of home.

  In Q-West there’s an army camp where B Company stays. It’s called FOB (Forward Operating Base) Endurance, and it usually takes five solid hours to get there. Five hours of bone-dry desert, no scenery whatsoever. The earth is monotonous brown. The sky is tinted tan. The buildings are few and far between, and even they are the crumbly brown of dried mud. Any plants, which are also few and far between, are the pathetic shade of a dead lawn after the spring thaw.

  The road to Q-West is usually very long and very uninspiring. But not today. Today we’re witnessing a new variation of the only color in Iraq. It’s a living, breathing, translucent brown.

  In Iraq, especially in the northern region during summer, dust devils are rampant. On a camp like Anaconda where there are buildings and mortar barriers that block the wind, the dust devils are tiny. The dirt gets caught in the corner of a building, and it turns into a little devil, dancing around like a child until the breeze stops blowing for a second. Then it fizzles out.

  But today, out in the open desert, the dust devils resemble skyscrapers. They stand hundreds of feet in the air and are as wide as a city block.

  Really, it’s funny how much there is to a country that you can’t see while standing right in it. I’ve never seen more than one of these giant dust devils at a time before. But today the sand gray horizon resembles the final scene in the movie Twister. The dust devils are enormous and everywhere. No less than four at any given time.

  Even when they rise and fall, like a changeover between movie scenes, the dust devils are never gone.

  The dust is in my boots and on my eyelashes. It sticks to my sweat and soaks up my urine. It’s in the food I eat, the letters I write, and the dreams I have. But the collections of the dust, the true devils, they eventually dissolve.

  One of the many grand beasts flies sideways across the open desert. It comes from the right toward the road. The M916 ahead of us, which is about one hundred and fifty meters away, narrowly avoids it. The mischievous devil runs across the road just after the tractor trailer passes. The giant wall of dirt blocks the entire road, and I can no longer see the first half
of the convoy.

  “Whoa, ho-ho!” I say. “Hold on!”

  “Smithson,” says Morrow.

  He sounds like he’s warning me. He doesn’t know whether to be scared or excited. This unsure apprehension, it’s the one constant in Iraq. A constant inconsistency: it’s part of the combat experience. It’s never really a “fight or flight” dilemma. This is a war, after all. There’s no point in running. Face the truth. Face the devil.

  Overcoming the fear of the unknown is the ultimate rush. I grip the wheel and hold on with white knuckles. We are only hauling lumber, so the load isn’t very heavy. We’re traveling about sixty miles per hour and mistakes are lethal at that speed.

  We blast through the first wall of dark dirt. Our small, dictionary-sized armored windows are open to allow for ventilation. Ventilation is more than what we get. The dust swirls around inside the cab. Little pieces of rock hit my face and bounce off my Kevlar. Morrow grips the “oh shit” handle in front of him and doesn’t say a word.

  All I see is brown dirt. All I see is Iraq. A massive circle surrounds us and slowly rotates. We are inside Satan’s clothes dryer. We’re in the middle of Iraq on Highway 1, the main service route that runs up the middle of the country. It’s also called MSR (Main Service Route) Tampa. But what we call it doesn’t matter, because right now it doesn’t exist. We’re in the middle of nowhere in a swirling cloud of dirt. And all we can see is the cab of this 916 and each other.

  This devil surrounds us. Like a front sight post set in the middle of a rear aperture, we’re surrounded on all sides by this out-of-focus delirium that is war. We learn how impossibly big the world is and how impossibly small we are. We learn that situations, our reactions to them, and the results that follow are all just micro-level nonsense. We are so insignificant. This country engulfs us. It’s so beyond what we can see.

  We think of safety and comfort. Because nothing can reach us here. We think of fear and death. Because we can reach nothing from here. We have lustful thoughts of what we’ll do to our wives when we return home. Regretful thoughts of what we’ve done to our wives, who now sleep alone. Hearts are beating and sweat pores leaking.

  Morrow grips his M203. I grip the steering wheel. I’m checking my mirrors. He’s checking his faith. My eyes blink and my tongue wets my lips.

  I notice the lack of pull on the vehicle. Apparently, appearances are deceiving. The giant devil was no more a threat to us than the wind through which we drive every day. I begin laughing as the second wall of dark dirt comes at us—or we come at it. Dust and small rocks invade our small cabin space once again. The dust sticks to the sweat on my face, the moisture on my lips, and my laughter increases.

  We emerge from the dust devil, and the rest of the convoy comes back into focus. The rest of Iraq is visible. We are freed, temporarily unfettered, I tip my head back and laugh toward the ceiling. It’s a laugh of relief, the laugh that conquers the devil. He is behind us, and all I want to do is fall down laughing.

  I look to Morrow, who seems less amused at our successful run with the devil. I think he may have squirted a small amount of butt chocolate, and I laugh harder.

  “Oh my God,” I say. “Did you see that?”

  “Jesus,” he says, and shakes his head.

  “Did you see that?” I laugh harder. “That was fuckin’ awesome!”

  “Yeah,” he says. “Jesus.”

  Photographic Insert

  9/29/04

  Heather and I looking fantastic on our wedding night at Buca Di Beppo restaurant.

  12/24/04

  SPC Austin Rhodes and I at Camp Scania during the three-day push from Kuwait to Iraq.

  1/1/05

  Members of EQ platoon celebrate the New Year by squatting in a mortar bunker for an hour. I am second from right.

  1/18/05

  SPC Justin Greene poses with an Iraqi boy on the bridge/farmland restoration mission.

  2/25/05

  Many units paint murals on the concrete barriers scattered throughout Camp Anaconda. These two provide both protection for the Air Force chow hall and the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to catch the three superheroes of Iraq in one photograph.

  4/05

  Driving a dump truck in Abu Ghraib while wearing, of course, aviator sunglasses.

  5/05

  Jerkface perches on my finger…and totally hogs the camera.

  9/29/04

  SPC Scott Moore thinks that just because it’s 0445 and all he has to do is man a MK-19 automatic grenade launcher on the convoy, he’s allowed to steal a couple minutes of sleep…so we wake him up with the flash of a camera.

  9/05

  1LT Andrew Zeltwanger receives his own pair of aviator sunglasses in the mail…and then goes around intimidating everyone.

  10/24/05

  Almost near the end of the tour and more than ready to go home, members of EQ platoon pose on a Humvee in FOB Wilson. From left to right: SPC Todd Wegner, SSG Robert Gasparotto, SPC Austin Rhodes, SPC Steven Hirth, SPC Jesse Smith, myself, SGT Marc Zerega, SPC Justin Greene, SGT Chris Dreager.

  HARD CANVAS

  “What do we got today?” asks Ryan Ludwin.

  He’s poking around inside two Styrofoam to-go plates from the chow hall. They’re full of oranges, apples, and grapes. They’re full of silver-dollar pancakes and small packets of syrup. They’re full of bite-sized breakfast sandwiches and bacon and sausage. They sit beside boxes of orange juice, grapefruit juice, and fruit punch, which are all covered in Arabic writing.

  It’s 5:45 A.M., and the to-go plates sit on the hood of our Humvee. We’re all half asleep, sipping coffee and munching breakfast. Tom Skavenski, our gunner, walks across the motor pool with his M60 machine gun. Ken Renninger, my A-driver, comes by, a Marlboro Red in his hand. He takes a drag, pats me on the back, and thanks me for grabbing breakfast.

  “How are we this morning, Smitty?” he asks.

  “Pretty good, Sarge,” I say. “Ready for another day?”

  “Yep,” he says as he grabs a sausage-egg-and-cheese on an English muffin.

  I’m the driver of this Humvee, bumper number H-105, and only I have the keys. So early in the morning, shortly after the chow hall opens, I drive down, pick up breakfast for my crew, and bring it back to the barracks. It isn’t really one of my duties, but I feel it’s important to have a full stomach before we head out.

  In the middle of the day, no matter how hungry we are, it’s hard to eat. It usually hovers around 125 degrees in this part of Iraq, and when it’s that hot, your stomach wants only water. Anything else feels sickening.

  There are three other Humvees in this convoy and an M916 hauling concrete supplies. They’re parked throughout the front of the barracks. Their drivers, gunners, and A-drivers are loading gear, water, and ammo. I follow Skavenski to the ammo shed, where he pulls out four OD green boxes and gives me two of them. When we get back to the Humvee, I hand them up to him as he stands on our armored roof.

  “So what did you get me for breakfast?” he asks.

  “Spinach quiche and a Bloody Mary,” I say.

  “Nice,” he says, laughing. “Remind me to pick you up a filet mignon later.”

  LT Zeltwanger rallies the briefing. We form up in a circle around him. It’s still dark out, so he holds a flashlight up to the strip map of the route we’ll be working on today. We’ve been doing this mission for over a month, so we pretty much have it down to a science. Nonetheless, outside the wire is outside the wire, and the enemy no doubt despises this mission.

  The ground in Iraq is extremely hard. Not made for digging or planting; it’s a landscaper’s worst nightmare. IEDs work best when they’re buried, so that convoys can’t see them. But because of the hard earth, most IEDs are set on top of the ground.

  As one goes off, it creates a small crater. As the insurgents set IEDs in the same craters over and over, the holes become bigger and bigger. Some of the holes are so big we can stand in them like we’re inside a foxhole. The problem with c
raters this large is that convoys passing by them can’t see the bombs until it’s too late.

  Our mission is to pour concrete into holes created by IEDs. Turks are helping us, and the insurgents hate this even more. American soldiers are one thing, but Muslim “traitors” are another. The Turks are the ones on post who mix and pour concrete for barriers, bunkers, landing pads, sidewalks, and buildings. They come out with us every day with two concrete mixing trucks.

  We go outside the wire wearing full battle rattle. That’s a full combat load, about fifty pounds. It’s 125 degrees out, and we shovel debris out of the holes, pound rebar into the ground, rake the concrete even, and pull security.

  In some spots whole sections of road are blown apart and degraded. A sister engineer company helps us with this. They use dozers, loaders, and graders to rip up the road, exposing the dirt underneath. This hard dirt becomes our canvas. We come in behind the sister company and pour a new concrete road.

  We work in shifts. Ryan Ludwin is on the first team. I, the driver, am on the second. Tom Skavenski, the M60 gunner, is on the third. Ken Renninger, my A-driver, supervises. We take turns forming the concrete, manning the M60, and sitting in the Humvee cooling off in the heaven-sent air-conditioning system we’ve hooked up.

  Two large tubes run from the trunk to the two front seats. They blow refreshing, cold air down the back of the necks of the driver and A-driver. We have a cooler with ice and water and we drink no less than four two-liter bottles of water every day.

  When the two concrete mixers run out, two of the Humvees escort them back to the base for a refill, and everyone takes an MRE lunch. Afterward comes round two. We usually get back into base around three o’clock.

  The schedule is never the same. For security, it can’t be. Moving steadily down the road from nine to five on Monday through Friday would create a pattern. We work one day on/two days off, three days on/one day off, two days on/two days off. And we jump around the route like crack-addicted rabbits.