Ryan Smithson Read online

  The unit cross levels soldiers until it is at full strength and can therefore accomplish whatever mission it needs to do in Iraq. The unit ships off all its personnel and equipment to Fort Bragg, North Carolina. This first stage of a combat tour is “mobilization training,” and I’m sure there’s an acronym for it.

  So when I receive the call in September that I’m being deployed to Iraq, I don’t enroll in college. I don’t call my buddies for one last night on the town. I don’t find some sleaze in a bar and take her home. I get on one knee and ask Heather to be my wife.

  People ask me why I got married at nineteen. They think I must have knocked up some girlfriend. “Any kids?” is always their second question. People assume I’m just naïve. Or that my decision has something to do with money or car insurance, maybe tax breaks.

  Really, the answer is none of the above.

  See, a girlfriend means nothing to the army. Neither does a fiancée. Anyone other than your spouse or legal guardian may as well be your pet goldfish.

  If anything happens to me while I’m deployed, unless that box for “next of kin” reads “Heather Smithson/Spouse,” Heather won’t get the phone call. She won’t get the folded American flag. If I die in the next year, Heather would live her life saying she once had a boyfriend who died in the war.

  Within two weeks we throw together a civil ceremony with a judge, a gown, two rings, flowers, a limo, cake, thirty friends and family members, and a reception at Buca di Beppo.

  The future is unknown. And during the ceremony at Frear Park in Troy the fear of the unknown pervades. The wedding march playing on the portable radio is a rapid heartbeat. The roots of the flowers in the park are trembling. The warm September wind is icy mist on my neck. The pagoda overhead looms threateningly. Our families, frozen in this moment, are realizing that the promise being made today, this hello to our union, is in so many ways an elaborate good-bye. The whole situation, the way it’s so sure of itself yet so unsure of everything else, is just a lavish ceremony to say, “I promise to be here if you come home.”

  EQ PLATOON

  For two months I sit at home waiting for orders. I try calling. But when I’m told I’m calling too much, I stop calling. I’m given orders, but I’m not notified. And then I’m reported AWOL for not following them. It’s all about bureaucracy.

  I call the UA in West Virginia, and finally everything gets sorted out. My unit in Kingston promotes me from private to specialist before I leave to join my new unit at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, where they have started mobilization training.

  Saying good-bye for basic training at Fort Leonard Wood was nerve-wracking. “Good luck, Ryan!” and “Do your best, pal!” Relatives smiling like I was about to be in a performance. Think of “Jingle Bells” at a fifth grade concert.

  Saying good-bye for mobilization training at Fort Bragg is sickening. “I love you so much, Ryan” and “I’m so proud of you, pal.” Relatives crying like I’m about to be in a war. Think of watching your own funeral.

  My mom, dad, Regan, and Heather all cry like it’s the last time they’ll see me. “We’ll see you when you get home,” they say. The “when” for hope. No one says “if.” But we’re all thinking it.

  I give Heather a final kiss and turn toward the gate. The tunnel is a throat, and it’s swallowing me. I wave once more to my family. They hold each other, and I feel detached. They say they’re proud, but I feel like I’m abandoning them. I walk down the tunnel, not looking back, and wipe my tears on my sleeve.

  We land in Raleigh, North Carolina. I hate it already. My commander and the command sergeant major pick me up. The commander plans everything, and the sergeant major carries the plans out.

  They make conversation with me in the car. I answer their questions but try to ignore them. The commander asks me if I’m hungry.

  “No, sir,” I lie.

  Once we get to Fort Bragg, the sergeant major drives us to Old Division Area: hundreds of identical, two-story buildings “dress, right, dressed” like soldiers standing in formation. These buildings were built during World War II for the soldiers being deployed then. I’m lonely but I feel a sense of loyalty to them, those old soldiers who’d gone through what I am going through now.

  “You’ll be part of equipment platoon,” says the commander.

  I get out of the backseat, grab my green duffel bag out of the trunk, and start toward the brown metal door. Nobody’s around.

  The rest of equipment platoon is out on an FTX (Field Training Exercise). A field training exercise is a war game. A unit stays in tents, observes noise and light discipline, and pulls security shifts all night long.

  I dump off my stuff on an open bunk and take a self-guided tour. This barracks is two open bays stacked on top of each other. Each bay holds about two dozen metal bunk beds with a standing wall locker for each mattress. Everything’s lined up (dress, right, dress) next to one another down either wall.

  As I walk around, I think of the thousands of soldiers who have stayed here. Average GIs just like me, just waiting to go to war. None of them knew at the time whether or not their war meant anything. Vietnam, Korea, World War II. I wonder how many felt detached, scared. I haven’t even been away from home for a whole day, and I already feel like the end of this combat tour will never come. I wonder about the soldiers who came before me.

  Young soldiers like me. Boys getting yelled at for stubble on their chins, for not tucking in the laces of their boots. They smoke cigarettes the same way, for the same reasons. They talk about “back home” the same way, spit the same way when they recall a fistfight in high school. They puff their chests the same way when they talk about ex-girlfriends, laugh the same way when they brag about taking advantage of them.

  And I feel connected with these anonymous soldiers, people I may have passed on the street a hundred times back home. Old men with scruffy beards who may have once slept in Old Division Area. People who may have felt the very same uneasiness as they dumped their belongings on an empty mattress.

  I enter the bathroom and lean over the sink. In the mirror my eyes are desperate. There’s a longing to be understood and accepted. To be strong and brave like I should be.

  Soldiers seem so durable, so resilient, and so heroic in war novels. On the television screen they’re afraid of nothing. I wonder if I have that same courage. Basic training is supposed to teach us bravery and fortitude. It’s why, I suppose, I was able to maintain my composure while boarding the plane for Bragg.

  But courage also means being afraid, accepting a fear of the unknown. Anyone who claims to be unafraid as they sit in a barracks in-processing for war is either lying or crazy. And being crazy is not the same as being brave.

  Bravery is being afraid of something but facing it anyway.

  Life as I know it is over. For the next year or longer (my orders say eighteen months, but this is an intentional overestimate) my life is on hold. It’s time to do my duty, to live up to my promise of service. It’s time to abandon my family in the name of my country. Because that’s what young men and women do when their country is attacked.

  Suck it up, I tell my mirror self like a drill sergeant. I’m not doing this for you.

  At dinner I have fried chicken and corn. I have powdered mashed potatoes and a hard roll. Then I walk home. The barracks. I’m already calling it home.

  The platoon is back for the night, out of the field and eager for hot showers. Fifty kids from all over the U.S. Not all of them are kids, but most are under twenty-five. None of them have been to Iraq. They wash up, joke with one another, and introduce themselves to me.

  The platoon sergeant—a short, stocky guy with a good sense of humor—finds me and shakes my hand.

  “I’m Sergeant Munoz,” he says.

  Actually he’s a sergeant first class. In the army we pretty much call every NCO (Noncommissioned Officer) “sergeant.” To distinguish a newer NCO from an experienced one, we might say he’s a “buck sergeant.” This means he has three
chevrons (pointy spikes on top of one another) and no rockers (the curved lines underneath).

  A sergeant first class like Neil Munoz has three chevrons and two rockers.

  Munoz recognizes the unit patch on my left shoulder. Turns out, Munoz and Struber, my squad leader back in Kingston, “went through the ranks together.” In army lingo this means they were privates together, privates first class, specialists, and eventually sergeants. They grew up together.

  A tall, clean-shaven man walks by. He looks young, maybe twenty-five, and seems to be in a hurry. I can see by the golden bar on his collar that he’s an officer. This “butter bar,” as the slang goes, means that he’s a second lieutenant, the lowest rank of commissioned officers.

  “I’m Lieutenant Zeltwanger, your platoon leader,” he says, pronouncing the name written over his right breast pocket like “Zelt-wong-er.” “Feel free to call me LT or LTZ. And of course, there’s always the default….”

  “Yes, sir,” I say.

  He has a hearty laugh, this lieutenant.

  “EQ platoon is a tight group. We take care of each other, even when this command doesn’t.”

  He looks to the platoon sergeant, who’s still standing next to me. Munoz smiles and nods.

  “All right, sir,” I say. “Thank you.”

  The lieutenant continues on.

  The command sent EQ platoon out for an FTX with no tents or supplies. They promised to send out supplies, but after the platoon sat for hours in a rainstorm with nothing more than sleeping bags, the FTX was canceled.

  I get down to Bragg, and the first thing my platoon leader tells me is that this command doesn’t take care of us. This is only mobilization training. How will our unit get in and out of Iraq safely? Already, though, I am thankful to a part of EQ platoon. Already I am thanking God for Andy Zeltwanger and Neil Munoz.

  There are four squads in the platoon. First and second are equipment operators. Third is the concrete squad. And fourth is the truck drivers. I’m one of the operators, and Sergeant First Class Renninger is my squad leader.

  Munoz directs me out the side door of the barracks where Renninger’s standing. At night any army post looks like this: identical buildings—each with one orange light in the exact same spot—old pine trees and about a million boot prints.

  When I meet him, Renninger is standing outside the side door, taking in the scenery, smoking a Marlboro red. For the next year, when I need to find Renninger, he’ll be standing outside a side door taking in the scenery, smoking a Marlboro red. Picture the rough guy in an old western movie only wearing desert camouflage and rubbing the stubble on his chin.

  “I gotta shave,” he says. “You meet the lieutenant yet, kid?”

  “Yes, sergeant,” I say.

  “Great guy. Welcome to the family, kid. And don’t you worry,” he says, taking a final drag. “We’ll take care of you.”

  He excuses himself and steps inside.

  For the next couple of weeks I in-process for Iraq. Paperwork. Anxiety. It reminds me of enlisting: fill out this form, initial here, cover your right eye and read line three, sign here, dot this I cross this T…. Next.

  The unit gives me an option of either rushing through in-processing or taking my time and meeting up with the unit overseas. Without question I tell them to rush me through. I already feel a connection with the platoon, and I don’t need any more uncertainty.

  After only a few weeks I see that EQ platoon is something you’d find only in the army. During wartime. With the exception of the four squad leaders, platoon sergeant, and lieutenant, we’re fifty kids. We’re sitting in this barracks swapping stories and getting to know one another. We’re ignoring the fact that any one of us might not return home with the rest. We’re acting as though nothing serious is on our minds, as if fear doesn’t grip us every time the barracks’ lights go out. As if we’re not terrified every time we’re left alone with our thoughts.

  GI JOE SCHMO

  We’re a platoon full of simple GIs. We’re not airborne Rangers or Special Forces or even Infantry. Hell, we’re not even marines. We’re army reservist engineers, and we have more invested in our lives outside than inside the military.

  I am only one of these simple GIs, and I am nothing special. I am a copy of a copy of a copy. I’m that vague, illegible, pink sheet on the very bottom of carbon paper stacks. They will not make movies about me. There will be no video games revolving around my involvement in the war. When people write nonfiction books about the Iraq war, about the various battles and changes of command, I will not be in them. My unit will not be mentioned. We are not going to be part of any significant turning point in the war.

  We’re not going to bust down doors and search for weapons caches. We’re construction. We’re going to build crap. We’re not going to hunt for insurgents. Our job is to stay away from the enemy. Our job is small, a minute part of the larger picture.

  And I’m not even sure what this “larger picture” means. I’m not sure why we invaded Iraq.

  I am just a GI. Nothing special. A kid doing my job. A veritable Joe Schmo of the masses, of my generation.

  I am GI Joe Schmo.

  I am one soldier, and I stand in one squad in one platoon in one company during the battalion formation. A squad is about twelve soldiers.

  My squad, we’re equipment operators. My platoon, we’re equipment platoon. My company, we’re headquarters company. The three other companies in the battalion—A (Alpha), B (Bravo), and C (Charlie)—are called “line companies.” As headquarters company, we run the show. In Iraq we’ll support the line companies. Plus, the commander tells us, we’ll have our own missions.

  EQ platoon is four twelve-soldier teams full of GI Joe Schmos. And we’re in this together. Our wives and girlfriends are home. Our moms and dads and siblings left behind. All they have is one another.

  All we have is one another.

  And we’re going to do whatever it takes to come home alive.

  On December 1, 2004, the entire battalion packs into one giant plane. Our next stop is our refueling point in Germany.

  I am flying over the Atlantic at night for the first time. No clouds, only light coming from the moon. A billion stars and moonlight dancing off waves that are thirty-seven thousand feet below me. There are no city lights. No streaks of red-and-white highway. There’s no relation to anything in space, and zero relativity feels like zero gravity.

  As I skip through time zones, I wonder how Heather’s doing. She doesn’t even know we’re flying out today. Before we left the commander told us not to e-mail or call our families with information about dates and times. This is called OPSEC (Operational Security) and it’s something the army takes very seriously. And for good reason.

  In Iraq operational security matters more than anything, because any one intercepted message can jeopardize an entire mission and the lives of soldiers.

  In all honesty this plane trip to Germany isn’t that big of a deal as far as OPSEC is concerned, but I have to get used to it. And so does my family. So when I called them for the last time before we left the States, I told them, “Soon. We’re leaving soon.”

  OPSEC is for the better, but I still feel as if I’m abandoning my family.

  After refueling in Germany we take off for our last stop: Kuwait. On a map of the world if the Persian Gulf is a mouth, Kuwait is the back of the throat. And when we’re done in Kuwait, she’ll swallow us, push us into the stomach. That violent, churning stomach.

  We land near Kuwait City, the capital, and hop on a convoy of buses. Kuwait City is beautiful in a windy, flat, desert kind of way. I wish we were going there and not to some army camp in the middle of nowhere.

  I am anxious, even though I’m not in a combat zone. Iraq is the dangerous country, the one that’s always in the news, but I’m still anxious. Because the bus is bringing us into the unknown.

  On the way to reception in basic training all I knew of it was the media image of loud, belittling drill sergeants. So
that’s what I expected.

  On the way to some army camp in Kuwait all I know of the Middle East is the media image of car bombs and people rioting in the streets. So that’s what I expect.

  Looking out my window, I see a car passing our bus. A woman in the passenger seat holds up a thumb and smiles. Kids in the backseat see my uniform and wave. I don’t wave back. I smile uncertainly.

  It’s nighttime, and there’s not much of anything to look at once we get past the unique architecture of Kuwait City. Nothing to look at except for tough desert plants and trees that line parts of the edge of the road. I watch the empty desert go by, glad to see that it’s filled with darkness and not car bombs or people rioting in the streets.

  Munoz is sitting in front of me.

  “It wasn’t like this in the first Gulf War,” he says.

  “How was it?” I ask.

  He pauses. “Different.”

  He tells me, “The Kuwaitis love the Americans now because we liberated their country in Operation Desert Storm in ’Ninety-one. But they weren’t always so friendly. During the first Gulf War they were like the Iraqis are today. In another decade hopefully the Iraqis will appreciate us the way the Kuwaitis do.”

  Another car passes. The passengers wave to me. This time I wave back.

  Munoz was an engineer in Desert Storm. Most of the time he ran a bulldozer. Twelve-hour shifts building long, large piles of dirt called berms to catch bullets.

  My platoon sergeant had been a specialist like myself. He was a dozer operator, a GI Joe Schmo just doing his part. But it was a part of something bigger.

  Maybe I’ll be a part of an operation that changes an entire country. Kuwait is our stepping stone to Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom for the country of Iraq.

  How many people have an opportunity to change an entire country? How many people can find such a sense of purpose? How many people can say they did their small little part and the result was a whole country full of happier, free people?