Ryan Smithson Read online

  The drill sergeant asks us what went wrong. We sit in silence because we have no idea. The execution of war looks so easy in the movies. The reality of war, though, is much more complicated.

  If this were real I’d be dead, I think.

  I wasn’t even taken out by a soldier. It was one of the privates of my basic training company. Some GI Joe Schmo who’s not even a GI yet. The gas expelled from his blank round set a laser shooting from the OD green box on the end of his rifle. The blank ejected into the Missouri leaves, and the laser raced across the small valley toward me: the target. The laser landed in one of the receptors on my chest, helmet, or shoulders. And he killed me before I had a chance to shoot.

  We’re playing laser tag with blank rounds and cool army gear. If someone had told me this when I was six, I would have looked at them in marvel, wondering how I could possibly be so cool. I would have seen my future self as a hero. I would have thought of myself as one of those valiant, stone-jawed warriors in World War II and Vietnam flicks. Maybe Matt Damon or Mel Gibson. Maybe Willem Dafoe or Charlie Sheen.

  “What went wrong?” the drill sergeant asks me.

  “I got shot, Drill Sergeant,” I say.

  “No shit, Einstein,” he says. “But why?”

  “I kneeled.”

  “That wasn’t the problem,” he says. “You shouldn’t have bounced forward.”

  “It was only one guy.”

  “You should have bounced back, private,” he says. “You didn’t know if there were fifty guys lined up around the next curve. Your soldiers’ lives were more important than the mission.”

  I forgot all about the original mission. We weren’t supposed to be looking for and killing OPFOR. We were supposed to locate a nearby road. We were supposed to be doing reconnaissance so the army could move tanks. But finding the road was not important enough to die for.

  I got caught up in winning (The bad guys always lose). I got caught up in destroying him (gooks in Vietnam flicks), in being a soldier (No soldiers here, only lousy privates). I shouldn’t have bounced forward (Didn’t I see that in a movie once?). I got caught up in avenging 9/11 (That’s why I’m here), in being…

  “A hero,” says the drill sergeant. “You were trying to be a hero.”

  “Yes, Drill Sergeant,” I say.

  Think of the FTX as a breakdown: the final test before we can become soldiers.

  In Red Phase we’re screamed at, told we’re worthless. We learn hand-to-hand combat and marching basics. We learn how to eat a full meal in three minutes and how to ignore the stresses of having no self-expression. The lesson, really, is freedom.

  In White Phase we learn how to shoot an M16 and how to work as a team. We learn how to work under pressure and strive toward a goal. We learn to believe in ourselves and our abilities. The lesson, really, is faith.

  In Blue Phase we learn that no one is ever prepared for war. We learn that no matter how many drills you run or how many push-ups you do, you’re never good enough. There’s always someone better; there’s always another trick up a sleeve. The lesson, really, is humility.

  And then we graduate. We walk tall across the stage but not too tall. Our families come down to watch us, to say they’re proud. Us in our Class A uniforms, amazed at the nine-week journey we’ve taken. Proud of our accomplishment but not too proud. The best part is not when our families congratulate us or when we walk across the stage. The best part is after the ceremony when the drill sergeant shakes our hands.

  “Congratulations, soldier,” he says.

  I stay at Fort Leonard Wood for AIT where, for nine more weeks, I learn how to run heavy equipment. In March when I graduate, I finally return home to my family.

  After they graduate basic training new soldiers have an opportunity to do what’s called “hometown recruiting.” About 99 percent of all basic training grads are highly motivated to be a part of the American defense system. And hometown recruiting is the army’s chance to let these soldiers flaunt their spirit in hopes it will catch others in its wake.

  Plus, it’s a couple more weeks of active duty pay, and since I have nothing better to do, I figure why not?

  The recruiter with whom I work is a ranger. He’s a sergeant first class, and he is authorized to wear four different combat patches. He has been shot twice, once in each leg, and quite literally fits every stereotype associated with the American soldier.

  His uniform is decorated with medals I didn’t even know existed. His exterior, the way he carries himself, is hard and unforgiving. In fact, upon receiving his request for drill sergeant school, the army decided he’d make a better recruiter because, my hand to God, he “is too mean.”

  Despite how the army labels him, I find the ranger to be one of the most interesting and insightful people I’ve ever met.

  “I’ll tell you what, Smithson,” he says as he drives us to a local high school. “I would much rather be a drill sergeant. I hate this recruiting shit.”

  “This doesn’t seem so bad, Sergeant,” I say.

  He shakes his head.

  “These kids at these high schools,” he says. “These kids for whom you gave up your future and put on that uniform, they don’t even deserve it. They hardly respect you. They think you’re some brainwashed grunt who has nothing better to do than join the army.”

  “They’re just kids,” I say. “They can’t understand—”

  “You’re just a kid, Smithson,” he says. “You don’t understand what war is, do you?”

  “No, Sergeant.”

  “But you understand your freedom.”

  “Yes.”

  “And that’s what separates them from you,” he says. “They take their freedom for granted because it’s always been there.”

  “Yeah, but going through basic is what made me understand.”

  “You new recruits. You need to stop telling yourself that,” he says. “You can’t understand freedom until you give it up. And that’s just what you did down at the MEPS station, isn’t it?”

  “I guess so.”

  “No, it’s not a guessing game,” he says. “Before you ever set foot in basic training, you voluntarily gave up your freedom at the MEPS station.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And that was in high school, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “How many other kids in your class joined the military?”

  “A few.”

  “Exactly,” he says. “These kids we’re going to try to recruit today, they think recruiters lie and cheat and trick kids into joining. You just watch. Most of them won’t even look at us. And they think they’ve got it all figured out. They think they know what democracy is because they study it in history class. They think they know what a dictatorship means because they read the definition in a book.

  “But they don’t have a clue, Smithson. Because if they did, they’d look you straight in the eye and thank you for what you’re doing.”

  “Then what is a dictatorship, Sergeant?” I say.

  “You want to know what a dictatorship is?”

  “Yeah, why are we trying to overthrow the government in Iraq just because we don’t agree with it?”

  “You kids,” he says, shaking his head. “You think everything is about ideals and proving points. Iraq is about human suffering. War, it’s about human suffering.”

  He doesn’t say anything for a few moments. He stares ahead, the highway passing us on all sides. Finally, he takes a breath and tells me a story.

  “It was during the first Gulf War,” he says.

  Desert Storm in ’91. He was a kid like me, fresh out of ranger school and living in Iraq. The public didn’t even know about the mission he was running. To this day he can’t discuss details. But he can tell me that he witnessed some soldiers from the Iraqi army trying to take a boy away from his mother.

  The Iraqi army at that time was run by Saddam Hussein, the dictator of Iraq.

  It took place on the outskirts of a little village. They l
ived in a little mud hut, just the boy and his mother. They were sustenance farmers. The mother’s face was covered with a black cloth, as was required by law.

  The boy’s face was dirty since he hadn’t yet rinsed off in the nearby irrigation ditch. He was pulled by his arm away from his mother. The Iraqi army, this was how they did their recruiting.

  The soldiers threw the boy in the back of a pickup truck. The mother begged the soldiers to let her son go.

  “He’s only twelve years old!” she screamed in Arabic. “I need him on the farm!”

  Howling in sorrow, the mother ran after her child. The boy sat in the pickup truck, helpless, being held by his arm.

  One of the soldiers turned and shot the woman, point-blank, in the face. Her body fell limp to the ground, her face dismembered. The son watched it all happen, watched his mother die in a pool of her own blood. The truck took off, and the boy began his service in the Iraqi army.

  “We couldn’t reveal our position,” says the recruiter. “We had to sit there in the irrigation ditch and watch it all happen, just like that little boy.”

  I think of the students at the school to which we’re going. I think of their designer jeans and backward hats and iPod earphones. I think of them sitting at cafeteria tables in a high school paid for by the government, by their parents’ tax money. I think of how they complain about their mother’s brown sack lunches. How they complain that they didn’t get enough for Christmas.

  And then I think of that little boy, pulled by his arm away from the only person he had: his mother.

  We pull up to the school; some kids who are probably sneaking cigarettes look away and put their hands in their pockets. With their backs facing us they walk toward the main entrance.

  The recruiter shuts the car off and looks me straight in the eye.

  “Let me ask you something,” he says. “And be honest.”

  “Okay.”

  “Do you appreciate your freedom?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Do you appreciate your freedom so much that you’re willing to fight for it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay,” he says. “Do you appreciate your freedom so much that you’re willing to fight for the freedom of others?”

  I think for a moment, really trying to answer this question honestly.

  “Yeah, I think so,” I say. “Yes.”

  “That, Smithson,” he says, “is why you deserve to wear this uniform. And I’m telling you right now, if that’s really the way you feel, then the army needs more soldiers like you in Iraq.”

  “Why?” I ask.

  “Those people deserve to be free,” he says.

  He’s looking me straight in the eye, but his eyes are not even in the vehicle.

  BEST DAY SO FAR

  Dear Heather,

  Hey, babe, how are you? Hope everything is going well back home. We don’t have a date to come home yet, but it’s coming. God, I can’t wait….

  But guess what! I think I just had the best day so far since I’ve been stuck in this damn place. It doesn’t really make up for the two hundred bad days, but it’s something! I guess I’ll start from the top.

  My first task of the day was to go finish a job I was working on yesterday with a scoop loader. Yesterday I took the green military loader, because our Caterpillar loader was being serviced by the CAT guys. Today the CAT was finished, and I got to take it out. What a relief.

  See, the difference between military equipment and civilian equipment is that civilian equipment is designed with the operator in mind. Most military junk is built so it kind of runs okay, and then a sort of chair is just fastened on top of it all. The CAT is so smooth to operate, as opposed to the cruel rag-doll tossing that goes on in the green loader. Plus, the CAT is air-conditioned so I don’t have to perspire in places that haven’t been wet since childbirth. Sorry, that was gross.

  After my morning task I went to the really good chow hall for lunch. It’s on the air force side of camp and has just started using real plates and silverware. Since I usually walk to chow, I eat at the closer one, which uses plastic plates and forks. Our squad leader loaned a bunch of us a Humvee and we drove across base to feel human again. I ate with forks that don’t break when they try to stab carrots and off plates that don’t have compartments.

  It’s really odd what the army makes you appreciate: hot showers, dry feet, plates….

  In the afternoon I finished up a project we were also working on yesterday. We had to unload tents and tent poles from a storage container. After taking them out, we loaded them on pallets and then loaded the pallets onto three tractor trailers. There were a lot of tents and it was 115 degrees out, so that wasn’t great.

  But, get this, the reason we were loading them was to give them away to another unit. We no longer need them, and we were lightening our load for when we come home. Yes, I said HOME! There is a light at the end of the tunnel, and I saw it today. We are starting to conduct inventories and other stuff that will eventually lead to our departure from this place. It’s pretty exciting!

  After the tents there were cots that also had to be tossed. While we were behind our barracks loading the cots, the shower guy came over. I think I’ve told you about him, but I’ll clarify anyway. He’s the civilian who lives in a tent behind our shower and bathroom trailers and gets paid to keep them clean. He does an excellent job, and he’s very nice. I try to talk to him sometimes, but he is from India and doesn’t speak English very well. Nonetheless, he’s extremely friendly, and we all appreciate the work he does for us.

  Anyway, he came over and asked us to “make table” as he pointed to a stack of plywood lying on the ground. Carrion and I asked the supply sergeant for tools and we started building. We came to find out that he meant shelf rather than table, and after a very long, confusing discussion about dimensions and whatnot (damn language barriers) we got it built. It had sides, a back, and three shelves, and it fit perfectly in a little nook in his tent. He was very appreciative and thanked us a number of times. We figured it was the least we could do for what he does for us.

  After we brought the shower guy his shelf we were off duty, and I walked to the gym. I had a good workout, and I followed it up with a great dinner at the closest chow hall. I was by myself, since my usual workout partner is on a mission for a few days, so I sat at the end of an empty table.

  A civilian came and sat across from me. He spoke very good English, and I came to discover that he works as a translator for the military. I’ve tried talking to a handful of Iraqi civilians, but most are pretty limited in their English skills. It’s usually hard to have an in-depth conversation with them. I decided that this was a rare chance, so I took it. I asked the translator if he thought Iraq was better now than it was a few years ago.

  “The insurgents are getting worse, but the government, our freedoms, and way of life are much better,” he said. “Five years ago if I said ‘I don’t like Saddam,’ I would have been killed.”

  He said that now the people of Iraq have the freedom to do and say as they wish without fear, and that most are very grateful. He said the ones who don’t like the changes are those in the cities like Tikrit, Mosul, Baghdad, Samarra, Fallujah. (You know, the cities always in the news.) But the people in the little villages love our efforts. That explains why it feels like we’re in a parade when we convoy!

  I asked him why there was such a difference in opinion.

  “The people in the cities had money and power before the U.S. came here,” he said. “They didn’t need your help.”

  He also pointed out that most of the country is made up of small villages and towns. A small minority hold the entire country’s power, and it is they who oppose our cause.

  He mentioned that insurgents attacked a water tower with rockets a few days ago. I asked him why they would do that since it doesn’t hurt anyone but the locals who use the tower.

  “Because they’re crazy,” he said. “There were no Americans to kil
l, so they attacked their own people. They have to destroy something.”

  We talked a little more about what I do, and I finished my meal. I got up and he offered his hand. I shook it, and he thanked me for talking to him and for helping his country.

  Just thought I’d share that with you. I’ll send an e-mail to everyone, too, but I’m pretty tired right now. So good night, babe.

  Love You, Miss You,

  Ryan

  IRONY

  The soldiers from our replacement unit are staying in Tent City, the same tents where we stayed upon our arrival back in December. It’s now November. With the exception of a few guys on their second tour the replacements are brand-new to the war. And it’s our job to show them the ropes.

  It’s the last mission I conduct in Iraq. I am driving the last gun truck in a convoy of eleven vehicles. SSG Robert Gasparotto is my A-driver, and our gunner is Zerega. There are two guys from the replacement unit in the backseats among gear, water, and ammo cans.

  They didn’t convoy into Iraq like we did because they didn’t bring any of their own equipment. Our unit is handing all of our equipment over to them, which for us, is a good thing. This means when we fly back to Fort Bragg, we won’t have to stay and get all the equipment off the navy ships. We can simply out-process and go home.

  But right now we sit at the gate of Anaconda waiting to go on our last mission. I look back at the new guys. One is a bit older than the other, and he looks a little more calm. The other one, the kid, looks scared shitless.

  “So you guys just drive through an attack?” he asks.

  “Yep,” I say. “There’s not much else to do.”

  After a while in a combat zone you start to think of everything as fateful. Something blows up, and it’s fate. Get lucky when an IED is a dud, that’s fate, too. Jim Conklin dies while on a simple LOGPAC mission, you guessed it: fate. And if today’s the day, this last mission, well, then fuck it. At least we know God enjoys some good old-fashioned irony.

  I push the play button on my MP3 player that hangs from the windshield frame. Two speakers, strung up by 550 cord, start blasting Tool into our cramped Humvee.