Chapter Six
Eric
The heat was unbearable. It always was. I crouched down in a bombed-out building, huddled among the chunks of concrete, random debris, and blood that seemed to be everywhere in this God forsaken place. I'd only been in-country for a month, but I already knew why the other soldiers in my unit called it the Shit – capital S.
I felt the sweat rolling down my back underneath my fatigues and flak jacket and wanted nothing more than to strip it all off and take a long, cold shower. But I knew from experience that it would be refreshing for a moment, but I'd be back to sweating like a pig ninety seconds after getting out of the shower.
This was not what I'd envisioned when I'd enlisted straight out of medical school.
I didn't expect it to be the country club and charity gala circuit I was raised in, but life in Afghanistan was a lot more – brutal – than I'd ever dreamed of it being. Than I'd ever thought possible. I'd seen more death and grisly shit in my month to last me a lifetime.
The sound of explosions and gunfire rattled in the distance, echoing down the rubble-laden street that once passed for a neighborhood. My unit had been on a routine patrol – just another shitty walk through a shitty, burned down, husk of a neighborhood.
It was all normal. Routine. Until it wasn't. The rattling of the AK's favored by these shitheads rang out and then all hell broke loose. We'd walked into an ambush. The firefight had been fierce – the worst I'd ever been around during my brief time in-country – and to be perfectly honest, I nearly pissed my pants.
Not proud of it, but I'm not ashamed of it either. War is a real bitch and it takes some getting used to – if you can ever actually get used to it.
Although I'd gone through basic like everybody else, I wasn't a fighter. I was a doctor. My role wasn't to take lives, but to save them. And although I figured I'd be stationed at Landstuhl – the hospital just south of Ramstein Air Force Base – my first assignment had me attached to an infantry unit as a field medic.
It was a grind. It was brutal. And I was learning on the job that over there, in the Shit, I wasn't going to be able to save every life. It was a bitter fucking pill for me to swallow, but I did what I could for as many as I could. I'd been able to save quite a few of my men already, but the ones I hadn't been able to save haunted me. I saw them every time I closed my eyes to sleep.
And I expected that I always would.
“Captain, we've got incoming,” said Corporal Meeks.
“Thank you, Corporal.”
I'd set up a temporary med station in the ruins of somebody's house. It wasn't ideal, but given that it looked like Godzilla had rampaged through the neighborhood the platoon was clearing, it was the best I could do. At least this place had four walls and a roof – pocked with bullet holes though they were.
Meeks had been stationed to stand guard over me while the rest of the platoon cleared the neighborhood and either killed or drove off the enemy fighters. And from where I was sitting, the sound of gunfire was growing more sporadic, meaning the fight was just about over.
For now, anyway. Something else I'd learned was that in the Shit, the fight never really ended.
“Lieutenant Donovan,” I called. “We have wounded. When they start bringing them in, I need you to run triage. Give me the most serious first and if I don't need your hands, you handle the others.”
“Yes, sir,” she called back to me from her station.
A moment later, two men carried a third man into the house. His face was twisted in pain and he was bleeding from a wound in his abdomen.
“Took a bullet from some asshole sniper, Cap,” said one of the soldiers.
“On the table,” I snapped. “Donovan, I need you.”
The man on the table was writhing in pain and screaming so loud, I thought they might be able to hear him all the way up at Landstuhl. Donovan helped me hold him down, but he was moving around so much, it made it difficult to get his jacket and shirt off.
When we finally did manage to get them off, I saw the blood pouring out of the bullet hole in his side. Once I'd washed away the blood and had stopped up the hole, I was able to better assess the situation.
“Looks like you got lucky, Private Mendez,” I said. “Sniper got you through the love handle. We should be able to get you patched up.”
“Hurts like a bitch, sir,” he hissed.
“Donovan,” I called. “Something to take the edge off for Private Mendez, please?”
“Sir,” came another voice from the doorway.
I turned to see two men carrying a third on a stretcher. As Donovan gave Mendez a shot to ease his pain, I rushed over to the wounded man. He was unconscious and had a gaping wound in his chest.
“IED,” said one of the men carrying him. “Took some shrapnel from the blast.”
“Get him on the table over there,” I said.
They rushed him to the table and set him down. And when I got his shirt and jacket off, my heart immediately sank. I knew that there was going to be no way to save him. The holes torn through his chest were ragged and the blood was pouring out in rivers. I had no doubt that his internal organs had been shredded and that he had massive internal bleeding.
The man was going to need extensive surgery immediately – and even that wasn't a guarantee to save his life. He needed more than I could do in my temporary med station. A lot more.
“Captain,” came Sergeant Willis' voice. “I've got another man that needs help.”
I looked to the doorway and saw him helping another soldier in. Blood saturated the leg of his uniform and he was grimacing in pain. I looked at the man on the table before me. His skin was growing pale and his breathing was shallow. Ragged. Donovan looked at me, the obvious question in her eyes.
“Captain,” said one of the men standing next to me – Corporal Norton. “Can you help him? Can you get him back on his feet?”
I looked at the soldier, opened my mouth to speak and then closed it without saying anything. I looked back at the man on the table, watched the rivulets of blood spilling out of his ragged wounds to pool on the table beneath him.
I knew the answer to the question, I just didn't want to give voice to it.
“Captain?” he asked again.
“Sir?” Donovan said.
I hesitated, my emotions swirling around inside of me. A dark maelstrom of fear and grief that was causing me uncertainty and indecision – things that were deadly in my line of work. I didn't want to let this man die and yet, I knew intellectually, that I couldn't save him.
“Please, sir,” said Norton, “He's like my little brother. Can you help him? Please, sir. Help him.”
I stared at the man who had tears in his eyes. His lower lip trembled and the grief-stricken look that contorted his face tore me apart. Med school never prepared me for moments like that and I didn't know how to react. I'd never felt more helpless before in my entire life.
“Sir,” Donovan snapped. “There's nothing we can do.”
The man looked at her, his face blanched with horror. “No, you have to –”
Donovan's voice snapped me out of my haze. She was right. And I knew it. As much as I hated to admit it, there was nothing we could do for the man on the table. Maybe if we'd been in a properly equipped operating theater. Maybe. But there in the dirt and rubble of that bombed out neighborhood, there wasn't anything I could do.
“I'm sorry, Corporal,” I said gently. “I truly am.”
The man on the table wheezed, his breath rattling in his throat. And then he was still. Corporal Norton's face twisted in anguish as he stared at the man on the table. The man who'd just passed. The man he thought of as his little brother.
Turning away from him, I brought in the other soldiers, tending to their wounds. Thankfully, most of them were superficial and didn't require much thought. In my head, I continued to see not just the face of the dead soldier, but that of Corporal Norton.
We only lost one that day, but it was the first in a long line of faces I knew would haunt me until my own dying day. It was the first, bitter taste I had of actual war – and the high cost of it.
And I knew the only way I was going to make it through was if I shut down my emotions. Grew cold. Numb to it all.
Emotions and allowing myself to care for those I served with, were luxuries I couldn't afford.
~ooo000ooo~
Sitting on the balcony of my condo, I look out at the Pacific Ocean and try to banish the memories from my mind. The memories of my time in Afghanistan came on unexpectedly and sometimes, at the most inconvenient of times. I can't control them. Can't stop them. All I can do is let them roll through me like some hellish highlight reel. When they finish, they never fail to leave me feeling shaken.
And the only thing I've found to combat the way I feel after suffering through another episode is to drink. To numb myself to the memories of that place. Of the death and violence I saw on a daily basis.
No, it's not the healthiest coping mechanism, but it works for me.
The night is dark and the sky overhead cloudless. The moon sparkles dazzlingly off of the water, making it shimmer like a giant pool of liquid silver. I take a long drink from my glass of scotch, savoring the feeling of the burn as I swallow it down. I smile as the familiar warmth spreads throughout my gut. The liquor in my system slows my thoughts. Slows the anxiety that is coursing through my veins. It calms me.
I know I didn't have it nearly as bad as some of the guys I served with. I wasn't one of the guys kicking the doors in and facing down the bad guys. I was a combat medic for about a year and a half which meant I wasn't usually being shot at. I was safe in the back, just there to patch the guys up as best I could.
But growing up in the country club, private school set like I did in no way prepared me for the horrors of war. Growing up wealthy and privileged, I'd been kept well insulated from all of that. In some selfish ways, I wish I'd remained insulated from it. The things I saw – I know I'm never going to be able to wash them away no matter how hard I try.
I know though, that even enduring what I did, bearing witness to the horrors I saw, made me a stronger man. And in some ways, a better man. Stripped of my insulation and air of privilege, I saw the world for what it really is. I saw it for the ugly, violent, bloody place it can be.
But I also saw incredible acts of heroism, love, and sacrifice. I saw men and women literally laying down their lives for one another. For me.
And it was because of that, because of the sacrifice and courage I saw in others that I was able to get myself under control. That I was able to be an effective field medic. To be good at my job. I know I don't have the same kind of courage those soldiers I served with have, but I learned to lean on them for strength. It helped me get through some of the worst times.
But it also came at a price.
I take another sip of my drink as Lara's words from the hotel come back to me and rattle around in my head. What she said about the darkness inside of me. The walls I keep myself behind. It's necessary to do the job I do. I have to be able to maintain some professional distance from my patients.
At least, that's what I tell myself.
But is Lara right? Is it something more than that? Is there some darkness, some missing puzzle piece inside of me?
I shut those thoughts out of my head. They aren't worth thinking about right now. Instead, I fill up my glass and slug half of it down in one swallow, enjoying the way it warms me from the inside. I don't want to think about Lara's assessment of my personality and I don't want to remember my time over in the Shit.
All I want to do in that moment is drink myself numb and forget it all. So, I raise my glass to my lips and take another long swallow, heading farther down that path of inebriation I know so well.