Beautifully Broken Read online

  7:14 am

  From Paige Alyce Wetzel:

  Wait. So you spoke to him? We have been told he has been unconscious since it happened.

  7:19 am

  From Doc:

  I had him under my care for the first 32 minutes after the injury. He was completely awake and having a convo with me the whole time. In fact, he was joking around and in good spirits the whole time. It was crazy to me.

  When they evaced him, they might have intubated him so he doesn’t feel the pain after his body comes out of shock. And that may be what they meant about him being unconscious since they received him—because of the drugs they gave him.

  7:19 am

  From Paige Alyce Wetzel:

  You do not know how much I needed to hear that. Thank you for that. I have been scared out of my mind over this because I was so afraid we would be dealing with a brain injury as well. Omg thank you so much. I owe you.

  7:20 am

  From Doc:

  I hope that eases your mind to know he was awake and completely alert.

  You don’t owe me anything. You deserve to know.

  I can tell you what he was saying to me if you’d like to know.

  7:21 am

  From Paige Alyce Wetzel:

  Please

  7:23 am

  From Doc:

  Well, when I got there, I asked if he knew who I was. And he said, “Yeah, Doc. Did you see the flip I did?” I said no, I didn’t. And he said, “It was a pretty sick flip.”

  He wasn’t screaming or complaining at all.

  He put his fist in the air, and when I asked what he was doing, he said it’s what athletes do when they get taken off the field after an injury.

  7:24 am

  From Paige Alyce Wetzel:

  Wow. Yep that’s him! Omg you are an angel. Thank you!

  7:24 am

  From Doc:

  Then I gave him a medical lollipop to help the pain. I had always told him it’s grape flavored because he was the only one in my platoon who I can’t give morphine to since he is allergic. I told him the lollipop is just for him, so when he put it in his mouth, he complained because it wasn’t grape and had no flavor.

  7:25 am

  From Doc:

  We talked a lot about the BBQ we want to have with you and my wife when I get home.

  He also said, “Doc, I know my legs are gone.” I said, “I’m not going to lie. They aren’t there.” And he said, “It’s okay. I’ll have a really cool wheelchair.”

  He made it really easy on me to do my job because he was helping me stay calm, too.

  No problem. If there’s anything else I can tell you, I will.

  I never thought about those missing legs again. I immediately showed Cathi the conversation between Doc and me. We were both laughing and crying at the level of inappropriate humor that only Josh Wetzel could think of on the brink of death. We talked until we were asked for the fifth time to turn off our phones on our connecting flight. Even though we were so desperate to take off to Birmingham, we were equally desperate to hug and smile and reread this report—a moment that could not be interrupted with airplane safety protocol. Cathi, not missing a beat, told the flight attendant, “Look, my son, her husband, was just injured in Afghanistan, and we are talking to the people who are taking care of him, so why don’t you go up there and do your little seat belt demonstration, and we will turn this off when we are ready!” We meant no disrespect to the flight attendant, who was just doing her job, but we were not in a mental state to handle any sort of rules. We’d thrown the rulebook out the window as soon as we’d received the call about Josh.

  Really, I had thrown the rulebook out after April 10, when I had received my first communication blackout email—an email notifying the families that there would be at least forty-eight hours of no contact with any of the soldiers. I wasn’t sure why we had been issued a communication blackout, but I honestly didn’t think too much about it. They had briefly talked about communication blackout at the Family Readiness Group (FRG) meetings, but it’s not like we were getting to hear from them every day anyway. Forty-eight hours without hearing from Josh was not abnormal, but I later learned that the banned contact time was so the family of an injured or a deceased soldier could be notified before they heard the bad news from somewhere else.

  On April 12, stateside spouses and families were notified of the first death of a Tomahawk Battalion soldier. Josh’s classification in the Army was 2nd ID, 1-23 Infantry (Tomahawk) Battalion, A Company, 2nd Platoon (the Earthpigs). When we received emails saying “Loss of a Tomahawk Soldier,” it meant someone in the 1-23 Battalion was killed. It could have been a different company (about 150 soldiers) or platoon (about 30 soldiers), but within the 800 people he deployed with.

  I remember feeling the color draining from my face when I read “Loss of a Tomahawk Soldier” in the subject line of the email. Loss? Meaning what? Someone… died? Already?

  I skimmed the email, half reading and half thinking about what might have happened. Was this an attack or the wrong place at the wrong time? Oh God, what is his family going through right now? Have I met his wife? What are the guys going through? I mean, it happened right there in front of them; how are they supposed to go on? Is there more to come? My mind was racing. Military spouses can’t help but wonder if there is more coming, either in a specific instance or in the near future. We don’t sit in the stands and watch this war take place; someone else has to fill us in. Are we winning or losing? Is the Taliban figuring us out, or are they just occasionally lucky? How do we know? The guys aren’t allowed to tell us anything. Things were going to happen, and we were not going to be given any details about it. No answers, no reassurance.

  I think many assume the spouses of deployed soldiers just read an email like that and think “Whew! It’s not my husband/wife.” I can’t speak for anyone else, but I only thought that the first two or three times. After that, I was constantly preparing myself to read about someone I knew. Someone Josh was close to—his friend. How far was a bullet or explosion away from someone we cared about? How much danger was Josh really in? Was this his friend? What do I do if I see his family on post? Did I need to start getting used to this? Did Josh know it was going to be like this?

  Now I was the spouse who’d received actual news while others were sent the blackout email. It wasn’t their first, and it wouldn’t be our last, but this time I was on the inside—I knew before the rest. Instead of the feeling of quick relief that I wasn’t receiving “the call,” I was now getting texts and letting calls go to voice mail. People were checking in on Josh. I did my best to keep my mind anchored to At least it wasn’t an officer at my door…, but there was only so much comfort that could provide until I could actually lay eyes on my husband. Finally done with flying, Cathi and I were picked up by our respective parents and began the drive to Josh’s former home in Glencoe. According to all the missed communication showing up on our phones, there was already a gathering at the house waiting for us. I knew it would be good for people to see me and at least hug me, but I hoped that no one would be asking questions or wanting to listen in on the scheduled phone calls.

  Cathi and I made it clear that we would be together so our informants could update us both by calling me. The Department of the Army agreed to call us every two hours with specific details (per Cathi’s instructions) of Josh’s condition. Not all the news was wonderful, but at the end of every message was the confirmation that he was stable and confirmed for transport out of Afghanistan to a halfway point in Germany. Josh’s aunt was looking up flights for us to meet Josh at Landstuhl Air Base while occasionally sticking food in my mouth so I wouldn’t starve. I did not have a current passport, so Cathi would be the only one who could go. Why, oh why, hadn’t I filled out the paperwork when we moved to Tacoma? I berated myself. I had so many chances to get my passport after learning of Josh’s deployment date. Why did I always put things off? Immediately, Cathi worried that Josh would be ma
d because she somehow made the trip but I couldn’t. While I wanted to be there more than anything, I didn’t care if Josh’s old tee ball coach was going; I just wanted to be able to talk to someone who could see and touch my husband; someone who could truly tell me if he was okay.

  The house was constantly buzzing with people. My family, Josh’s family, Josh’s extended family, and even people who had divorced out of Josh’s family along with high school friends, college friends, and members of the community were there. It’s funny what humans do when they don’t know what to do. Some people brought food; some people sat down and watched TV; some people started cutting the grass—all they knew to do was to gather. We outlawed crying almost immediately. Once we told everyone that Josh was alive, just as tactless as he had always been, we told everyone that no one was going to cry over missing limbs. It was only June 1.

  Fight, flight, and freeze all got their turn on day two of being back in Alabama. My life consisted of constant phone calls and note taking. When the phone rang from the 800 number that had been updating me about Josh, I would have fought my own grandmother to get in a private room so I could hear. Emerging from that room with the latest developments gave me the overwhelming desire to run. I just wanted to run away from the house, and I didn’t really care if anyone saw me. I just could not spend any energy on repeating information and answering questions. So, I froze. I literally pretended I couldn’t hear people, because my brain was processing the new information at two miles an hour. I wasn’t exactly sad or somber, just awkwardly stoic and focused on figuring out whatever was in arm’s reach. When the voices were too much and we couldn’t expedite getting me a passport and more cars started piling onto the street, I retreated to the porch, where I sat in the swing and wrote in my journal: Things I know: God has shown up every time. It is not time to break down. It is not time to lose hope. It is time to lean on resources. It is time to believe in the plan!

  The crowd started to die down once we announced that Cathi would be boarding a flight to Germany that night. Early that afternoon, we dropped her off at the Atlanta airport for her transatlantic flight. Cathi flew all night and touched down in Germany on June 3. She immediately headed to Josh’s hospital room, already preparing herself for nurse mode. When she got there, Josh was a little more than out-of-sorts. He was panicking, crying, and complaining owing to all the medication. Even as a grown man, Josh needs the pediatric dosage of any kind of pain medication. Cathi recalled flashbacks of the time he had his tonsils out in second grade, and he was crying because he thought the doctor was trying to kill him. In effort to make him feel better, she told Josh they could Skype with me. I could see Josh moaning and moving around in the bed. He complained that it was too hot, the lights were too bright, he was thirsty, he was itchy, all while I am gently trying to look into his eyes for the first time since he became an amputee. Finally, Cathi said, “Josh! Look in the phone! It’s Paige!”

  Josh notices the phone that has been five inches away from his face and says in a gravelly voice, “Paige?”

  “Hey, honey!! How are you?” I said with a big smile and tears. Instead of answering the question, Josh flung his big splinted arm over his face and said, “I don’t want her to see me like this” and punches his mother right in the forehead. It was obvious that Cathi was in for a long night. Josh was completely unhinged from all the drugs. His hot flashes, itching, and sensitivity to light and sound pulled him into a tornado of frustration and paranoia. Some parts of him were numb. The parts that weren’t still feeling the inconceivable pain from the improvised explosive device (IED) that detonated beneath his feet just three days before. Despite the agony, Josh revealed his most surface-level concern: He didn’t want me to think his injury was proof he had failed as a soldier. He retreated the only way he could—by flinging a nerve-blocked casted arm over his dirty, scratched-up face and subsequently clubbing his own mom in the head. I thanked her for the effort but told her video chatting would not be necessary while she was with him.

  An hour later, Cathi called me and told me that Josh was not going to make the flight manifest for the plane heading to the States the next morning unless he could clear his lungs of the debris he inhaled from the blast. If he couldn’t make the flight the next day, he could stay in Germany for another two days or up to another week. “Clear the debris? What does that mean?” I asked. Cathi explained that his lungs were full of dirt from the bomb literally going off underneath him. His lung capacity was terrible, and if he couldn’t take deeper breaths than he was taking now, the altitude of a flight could easily suffocate him. Cathi, being the nurse that she is and having thrown the rulebook out days ago, assured the doctors that Josh would be making it on the flight the next day—no matter what. And so began his breathing treatments every thirty minutes for the next fourteen hours. Josh was given a device that has three chambers with a ball in each chamber. The chambers are connected to a tube that goes into the patient’s mouth. A patient with average lung capacity can put the mouthpiece in and, with one deep breath, push every ball to the top of its chamber. When Josh tried for the first time, he could not move the first ball, which is the lung capacity needed to blow out a candle. He inhaled as much as he could and when he exhaled, a fit of loud, crude coughing and wheezing would begin. Cathi reported that the worst smoker on earth could not compete with this cough. He coughed up masses and masses of a mud-like substance. Cathi would make Josh do ten inhales every treatment, knowing that every deep breath would result in two to three minutes of nonstop coughing, spitting up crud, and gasping for air. By the time he was to the fifth try, he was almost ready to pass out. He begged his mom to let him stop. Cathi just reminded him that this was the only way he was going home the next day. The doctors were not going to let Josh on a plane at that altitude with his breathing that bad. So, they pressed on every thirty minutes for fourteen hours straight.

  Back in Alabama, I did my best to stay awake while I knew Cathi was working on Josh. I would slip in and out of consciousness, while Josh’s aunt Christie continued to do tireless research on ways to get me a passport in twenty-four hours in case I needed to go to Germany. I spent the day waiting around, trying not to let my thoughts get the best of me.

  My mind wandered to the days leading up to Josh’s incident. I remember sitting at our kitchen table in Tacoma and crossing off the sixtieth day of deployment from my calendar. Only seven more months to go, I cringed, wishing this deployment would stop being so “exciting.” I had been constantly looking out for blackout emails or messages from Josh, where I only had mere seconds to respond before he would go offline again. My only hope was the growing list of events I was adding to my schedule. I planned to volunteer, run 5Ks, spend extra time at work, read a ton of books, and find a church whenever I had a day off. Finding items for Josh’s care package was the weekly mission. I made a newsletter for Josh with updates on our family, pictures of Washington in the seasons he was missing, and updates on the Red Sox. Snacks were also a must: Teddy Grahams, Jolly Ranchers, beef jerky, and any other novelty that could potentially fit in his pocket made it in the box. Knowing that other guys were not getting packages every week, I often added items that other people needed.

  I was happy to be able to communicate in any form with Josh while he was deployed; we were able to share Facebook messages at times. There were only three computers that could be used to talk to family, but if the guys had their phones, they could message us through Facebook without needing cell service.

  May 29, 2012 10:41 am

  From Josh Wetzel:

  I want you to know that you are my everything. You have been the best wife ever. I couldn’t have asked for better. I don’t know if I ever told you why I fight so hard here… I fight hard so that I can bring our family honor. And so that you know your husband gave everything he had to bring all of his men home. I love you angel. I have to go to sleep. Remember I will be gone for like 5 days. You are my everything. G night.

  May 29, 2012 10:45am:r />
  From Paige Alyce Wetzel

  Oh honey. I love you too. You’re my everything. I stay strong bc I want you to be proud of me when you come back. You make me so happy and you are the poster of honor and integrity. I miss you so much. I love you please stay safe.

  Knowing I was somewhat helping Josh pass the time made me feel good, but those highs vanished in seconds. No matter what, I was still alone 90 percent of the time. Thinking about Josh too much made me upset. Even the most pleasant thoughts would round the corner and arrive at I wonder what he’s doing right now. Then, my imagination would spiral out of control. With my eyes squeezed shut, I demanded that my mind resurface to reality. I battled internally—the dialogue went something like this:

  Just because I’m not thinking about it doesn’t mean it’s not happening.

  He could be over there fighting for his life right now.

  Yeah, but what’s the point in stressing about it right now?

  I am not stressing about it. I’m trying to just accept the truth.

  If I can at least imagine what he’s going through, maybe he won’t hide it from me later.

  Well, that’s later anyway, so why ruin your day?

  I finally concluded that the best thing to do was Let the nightmare come to you. Don’t go looking for it.

  My prayer life had morphed from dead to angry. The anger stemmed from not being able to talk to anyone about anything ever. I couldn’t even talk to Josh about it. My demons were outgrowing me. When I prayed, I did everything short of cursing. I didn’t know this at the time, but David often cried out to God in angry ways accusing God of betraying and abandoning him. God didn’t rebuke David much for this; in fact, he softened him up as his prayers went on. I might have been able to experience a softening in my prayers too if I had opened my Bible more, but honestly, I was too afraid that I would invest the time and emotions and I wouldn’t hear from God. I prayed from an honest place, like David, but I hardly expressed gratitude for all the times God had allowed Josh to live. Never thanking God kept me angry.