August—Then
I fold the letter and tuck it into the pocket of my fatigues. We’ve had no more than an hour’s rest. We’re the only dog team here, so we’re out on back-to-back shifts with only an hour or two to rest my dog in the meantime. You know when you sign up that it’s a job that doesn’t end. The men and I could keep going for hours, but Havoc is the one with his nose to the ground, he’s the one doing all the work, and if he’s tired and overworked he’s going to miss things.
So far, we’ve brought every Marine back from patrol. Every pair of boots that marched through that gate have returned again under my watch, but I wonder how long that can last when so many of our brothers are losing their lives on patrols beyond the wire. It’s never far from my mind that I could miss something, that Havoc could miss something. That it could all go to hell in a handbasket, and I could lose my men, or worse, my dog.
“Cotton!” Rodriguez shouts, and I glare at him, wondering how long he’s been standing there. He’s suited up, helmet and all, which means I’m fucked because I should have been ready with Havoc at the gate ten minutes ago. “Aww, you cryin’ over letters from your mamacita? Get your fucking shit together, hombre. You ain’t even got your dog suited up and the sergeant is gonna kick your ass for making his platoon late.”
“Fuck!” I jump out of my cot. My muscles and bones drag, as if the weight of the dry heat and thick dusty air around us was pressing down on me like a lead jacket, pulling me back toward the bed. It’s like moving through soup; you think you’ll acclimatize but I’m not sure that’s ever really the case. I don’t know how Havoc is able to cope hour after hour out here in the baking heat with all that fur, but everything I ask of him he handles with grace and nails it. I throw on my helmet. My boots are already on—ain’t no point in taking them off—and I grab my gear and head for the kennels.
Havoc wags his tail when I round the corner of his den. His A/C is on, but he’s not in it. He knew I was coming and is waiting patiently in the fenced in part of the house. He whines, and I make a show of being excited to see him. I’m excited to see him anyway, but the high-pitched timbre I take with him is deliberate. The stupider you sound with your dog, the more excited they are to do a good job. He’s always ready to work, and pride swells within me when I remember that. He gives me strength, and I have to remember to put my own shit aside, because emotions run down leash just as much as they run up.
When I head around the back and open the kennel, he jumps up and whines. He knows there’s something off and pushes his big skull into my leg. I crouch down to his level and scratch him behind the ears.
“I’m alright, buddy.” Even as I say it, a lump forms in my throat, and I wipe moisture from off my cheek. Sweat, I tell myself, but even Havoc knows that ain’t true. He licks at the saltwater, and for a minute I bury my face in the thick fur of his neck and just breathe. I haven’t told a single soul about Jude’s letter, about the fact that my fiancée is dead. I haven’t told them, because they’d send me on bereavement leave, and I’m needed here. We’re needed here. There’s nothing to be done about her now, nothing I can do for a corpse in the ground, so I take a deep breath. I dry my cheeks and switch the tone. “Come on, buddy. You ready to work?”
For a beat, Havoc just stares at me, tilting his head from side to side. He’s confused. I shouldn’t come here like this, but I have no choice. I grab his vest and show him his favorite KONG. He watches me as I put it in my pocket and his ears go up. He knows we’re on duty. Once he’s leashed and suited up we head out of the kennel and toward the front gates. I know we’re in deep shit when our platoon is standing there waiting for us, and the sergeant’s face is fifty shades of pissed off.
“What the fuck time do you call this, Marine?”
“Sir, sorry, sir.”
“Sorry? You’re fucking sorry? I got ISIS motherfuckers planting IEDs, civilians, little kids dying outside these walls, stepping on bombs while you take a fucking nap, and you’re fucking sorry?”
“It won’t happen again, sir.”
“You bet your goddamn ass it won’t happen again. Now get the fuck out there and give these tea towel-headed motherfuckers hell. And Marine? You report your sorry ass to my office when you get back. You’re on shit stick duty.”
“Sir, yes, sir.”
“Get the fuck outta here,” he says with a final exasperated cry and indicates for the Marines to open the gate. We file out one by one, scanning the vast, dry terrain with its rudimentary mud walls and sand and dust, always with the dust. We’re not even going that far today, just a few miles around the city, and our mission is simple—clear a back alley the supply truck plans on using for its delivery route early tomorrow morning before first light. Of course, a mission like this should be done at night so that the Taliban don’t come in after us and plant several more IEDs, but then where’s the sense in only doing a job once? Havoc and I will likely be sent out early before the sun rises with yet another platoon to sweep the area again.
I show Havoc the KONG and then place it back in the pocket of my fatigues. The message is clear. Find the bomb, and I’ll give you the KONG.
“Go to work, Havoc. Seek it.” He wags his tail, and puts his nose to the ground, inhaling dust from the hard sandy soil beneath us, eager to do his job and be rewarded with his favorite toy and dad’s love. His lead is clipped to my belt; that way my hands are free to carry my rifle. I let the lead slacken. It’s designed so that he can be several feet in front of me and work unhindered. He snuffles as dust collects in his super sensitive nose, and within minutes he’s panting from the heat, but he doesn’t pause in his efforts. No matter what I ask of him, he never falters. He never misses.
We’re not quiet as we walk through the labyrinth of alleyways made from mud walls that have baked in the burning Afghani sun for years. We can’t see over them, can’t see around them until we’re right on top of friend or foe, and that’s the problem. For as many innocent civilians as there are here dwelling in Afghanistan’s most violent territory, there are just as many Taliban. There are just as many insurgents hiding in plain sight, and the real challenge is knowing who to question, and who to let go. The truth is you never really know. As Marines, we’re taught to follow orders, to trust our gut unless it goes against orders. For me? I trust my dog. I trust his nose, and my ability to read him. That’s why, when he halts and begins scouring a spot of rocky ground at the east entrance to a compound with his ears up, tail down, and shoulders hunched, I know he’s hitting on a scent. He sits at source and I tell him he’s a good boy, and then I’m about to call in the explosives team to do a finger sweep over where I suspect the IED is when a man steps out from a door in the compound wall two hundred yards away. He just stands there staring at us. A chill runs down the length of my spine, despite the one hundred and five degree heat. My gut tells me it isn’t right, that this whole situation is about to get fucked up every which way from Sunday.
“Havoc, here,” I command, at the same time as the man pulls out what looks like an old mobile phone. And then I get it. I have one single second of clarity, and I know this is it. “He’s got a phone!” I shout to my brothers, run toward my dog, attempting to throw my body over his to protect him. The blast knocks me off my feet. My head cracks against the hard-baked earth, and all I see is a plume of dust misted with red, exploding into the air. All I feel is pain, searing and white hot through my entire body.
I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe.
“Havoc!” I shout, but it comes out a gurgled whimper, swallowed by blood in my throat that’s as thick and suffocating as the dust around us.
My legs are on fire, my lungs too, and I clutch at the lead that should be connected to my belt. It’s not. I grasp at nothing but dust and debris. Moisture runs down my face, hot and sticky, stinging my eyes and turning my vision red. I struggle to sit up, to shift, to call out for my dog, but every breath, every movement is agony.
The voices of my brothers ring out around me between a hail of gunfire and shouting. Someone screams for the medic. Rodriguez is beside me, his voice calm in the midst of chaos, an anchor to cling to, a shining beacon that penetrates the dust and red mist of this hell and guides me back to the pain and present. A lead weight rests on my chest. I can’t breathe, but I attempt to call for Havoc anyway. I can’t see for the dust. The pain is so consuming that all I can do is squeeze my eyes tightly shut and hope that either death or the enemy’s bullets find me, and fast.
But neither do. I wake to the harsh florescent lights of the military field hospital. A team of doctors fill the room, all in bloodied gowns and surgical masks. I reach out and grab the arm of the person closest to me. A female doctor. Her blue eyes stare impatiently down at me, and from behind her mask she says, “I need more anesthesia here.”
“My dog,” I whisper, but the words are rushed away from my tongue, stolen from me by the drugs coursing through my system.