Demon Camp: A Soldier's Exorcism (6 page)

No one knew that three of the SEALs were already dead. That they died before the
Evil Empire
took flight. The fourth, Marcus Luttrell, didn’t linger when he saw the chopper explode. He’d seen the last of his friends die. Luttrell loped off into the woods, bracing against the pain of bullet wounds, cracked vertebrae, shrapnel in the leg, dehydration, and a head wound. The Taliban stalked him through the night.

•  •  •

Caleb’s enlistment was up. His eardrums ached from all the mortar explosions. He jumped on the next Freedom Flight home.

On the ground at Hunter, they told him everyone was dead.

Get our bodies out of this country, I hate this fucking country.

He flew back to Afghanistan to get their bodies.

SEAL teams and Rangers were already climbing the mountain, searching for survivors, trying to get the bodies. They knew everybody was dead, but to verify death you have to have a corpse. It took days. The enemy had rushed in. They’d looted the SEALs. It was hot. Smelled like charred flesh. Everything was blown up by a minigun. The rescuers knew who was who by where the burned flesh piled in the aircraft. Later there were DNA tests. They found a dog tag engraved with inspirational quotes. They found Major Reich’s wedding ring in the troop commander’s seat. He wasn’t supposed to be wearing it, but he’d kept it hidden under his flight glove.

The rescuers scooped the remains into body bags. Just pieces—bones and flesh. Wasn’t much left. Their bodies went to the Bagram mortuary. Caleb waited for Kip. He doesn’t remember how long he waited. Maybe three or four days. Kip went in a box and then in a plane and they flew together over the Atlantic to Dover, Delaware, where all the bodies return.

From Dover, Marcus Muralles went to Arlington. Shamus Goare to Danville, Ohio. Stephen Reich to Panama City, Florida.

Kip’s body went to Savannah. Caleb drove after Kip, looking up, seeking the plane’s small black shape against the blue sky.

Caleb waited at the offices at Hunter for news of Kip’s funeral. One of the Special Ops guys, the one they called the jokester, walked up to Caleb. “You got out of that one pretty easily,” he said. “You fucking killed them. They’re all dead because of you.” Maybe he wasn’t serious but Caleb knocked him in the face with a chair anyway. He wanted to kill him and he was trying to kill him. Blood spraying all over the office floor. Caleb wouldn’t stop. Six men pulled him off.

Everywhere he went, Caleb heard it, over and over again:
You killed them, Caleb. Why are you the one to be living?

Caleb was thinking about his promise to take care of Kip’s girlfriend, Kristina. Caleb had direct orders not to tell Kristina about Kip’s death. The Casualty Assistance Officers would tell her first. They said he’d end up in protective custody. But Caleb didn’t care. They met in Forsyth Park. “I know,” she said. “I mean, I didn’t really know. But I knew.” She’d heard on NPR that a helicopter crashed and the helicopter they described was the
Evil Empire.

Caleb told Kristina that if there was anything of Kip’s she wanted to keep, then she needed to make it disappear because otherwise the military would find it and take it.

Two days later Kip’s uncle called Kristina to tell her that her boyfriend was dead.

Kristina wanted to know why Kip’s parents didn’t call.

Guilt-stricken, the uncle said. Traumatized. They couldn’t deal with it. They threw their hands in the air and told the army to deal with it. And the way the army deals with it is that you get it done and you get it done now.

Kip’s uncle asked her a few questions: Where did Kip want to be buried? Did he want to be cremated? What kind of coffin did he want?

Kristina said she didn’t know because she and Kip never sat around and talked about dying.

She was twenty. She said that the fact that her live-in boyfriend was never coming home was a lot for a twenty-year-old to deal with.

Later Kristina thought maybe the funeral should be at Arlington.

Kip’s mother told her that wouldn’t be happening because the army killed her son and she hated the army.

•  •  •

Kristina waited for the knock of the Casualty Assistance Officers. Meanwhile she hid Kip’s steel-toed boots and Glock in the trunk of her car. She piled his clothes on the living room floor while her father sat on the couch, mother on the chair, and they watched while Kristina folded. She held each piece of clothing to her nose so as not to forget Kip’s smell. All the clothes smelled like him—the sweat, the deodorant, the detergent, and the scents he used to cover these scents.

Three days later, the officers arrived at her house just as Caleb said they would. It was seven in the morning and the sky was white and the room was cold. Kristina was still asleep on the couch, wearing jeans and a T-shirt. In the days following Kip’s death, she preferred the couch to her bed—using a torn spot where some foam broke through as a pillow.

The men raided the house. They opened drawers. They took everything that belonged to Kip. Clothes, guns, computers. Everything. They didn’t say two words to Kristina. They brought a chaplain and he walked up to Kristina and said, do you need to talk? She said,
I’m fine
. The men packed Kip’s things in heavy plastic bags and brought them to his parents’ house in Pompano Beach. They put the bags on the front steps. Delivered them like lunch.

•  •  •

Kip’s father, Steve, told Caleb he wanted an open casket at the funeral. Caleb said that wouldn’t be happening. Steve said, “I want to see my son. My son is dead.” Caleb shook his head. “There’ll be no open casket.”

Steve wouldn’t listen. “I want an open casket.” Caleb had to drive Steve to the morgue to convince him otherwise. He unzipped the body bag and told Steve to look. Kip was just pieces—bones and skin and ash. There were parts missing. There was a large chunk of femur.

“We’re not doing an open casket.”

Steve said, “Okay.” He was weeping into his hands. “I get it. I get it.”

•  •  •

Kristina found out from Caleb that Kip’s funeral would be in Miami at a place called Forest Lawn, nine hours south. She found out the day before. Caleb and his army friend Denis drove Kristina to Florida, the whole way, with air-conditioning and bad music and stops at fast-food chains and gas stations full of inflatable sea animals and stacks of purple chewing gum.

When they arrived at the funeral, Kristina wasn’t allowed inside. She wasn’t on the guest list. She’d never been close to Kip’s parents and they never put her on the list. Caleb tried to figure out what was going on. Steve said he lost his only son and wanted to have a private funeral. He didn’t mean any harm. Kristina waited in the car. The family didn’t want any soldiers to show up except Caleb and Denis. No military honors. Nothing. They didn’t want anyone at the funeral wearing a uniform.

The priest said few words. Kip was in in the same box he was shipped home in. Nobody ordered a casket.

Kip’s mother wasn’t there. Steve left in the middle of the ceremony.

When Kristina got home to Savannah she found a letter from Kip in her mailbox. I’ll be coming home in twenty-eight days, he said.

•  •  •

After the funeral, Caleb drove to the Blue Star Memorial in Savannah. The ground was covered in bricks inscribed with the names of dead soldiers. Caleb bought a brick for Kip and set it in the ground. Next to Kip, Caleb put down a brick for himself. A brick means you’re dead. Caleb liked being there next to his friend.

When the army organized a memorial service in Savannah they gave Kip the Purple Heart, the Bronze Star, the Service Medal, the Good Conduct Medal, the Air Medal, the Combat Action Badge.

After Kip’s parents received a military check for his life insurance, they divorced. Caleb heard the money went to a new car and gambling in Vegas; silicone breasts for the mom.

Kip’s ex-wife was a stripper from Florida. Caleb had this story about how Kip and the stripper bought a place together after the wedding and when he returned from his first deployment in Afghanistan, her things were in boxes. She left a note saying she went to visit her family, but she never came back. Kip and Caleb had dug through the boxes. They found homemade porn videos of her fucking. Kip forgot to change his will, so the money was still in the name of the stripper. Kristina didn’t get anything.

Jill Blue learned that her husband was dead while she was at work at her father’s law firm in Panama City, Florida. The chaplain and the officers showed up. She told them to be quiet. She sprinted out the door. They chased her all the way home. After she let them inside, she grabbed one of the men by his uniform, pushed him in the laundry room, and said,
I know, I know. Don’t say anything. I know.

She keeps Steve Reich’s Night Stalker helmet in the living room. It looks like a helmet built for deep-sea diving or space exploration. She was disappointed the army didn’t let her keep the night vision goggles. When Halloween comes around, sometimes she puts on a fancy dress, slips the helmet over her head, and wanders the streets, masquerading as the dead.

The parents of Marcus Muralles, when they learned of their son’s death, requested that the street names in their neighborhood no longer be named after trees but after dead soldiers. Elm. Maple. Oak. Why not the dead? Now his mother can see the sign for Muralles Street outside her window, just across Interstate 74, into the Marin Estates apartment complex. Sometimes they go visit the street. She takes pride in picking up litter on the street named for her son. Because Muralles was buried far from Ohio, in Arlington Cemetery, she’s never been able to see his grave. Instead she hired a woman to take photos of the grave and she looks at these photos instead.

Leslie Ponder covered Tre Ponder’s grave site with brightly colored marshmallow Peeps.

Shamus Goare had a little brother named Cory who worked at an industrial factory. One year and two months after the Chinook crashed, Cory died. A machine pinched his head. The brothers were born thirteen months apart and they died fourteen months apart. Their family called the two of them mashed potatoes and gravy. Cory’s wife thinks he wasn’t paying attention because he was too sad about Shamus’s death. Judy blames Marcus Luttrell for not killing the goat herders. She mentions that her son’s body wasn’t burned up as badly as the others.

Because a crew card had been mailed back to Savannah listing the names of every soldier on the
Evil Empire,
Captain Brady’s wife believed her husband was dead. For forty-eight hours she lived in a soft, mournful world. The card was never updated with Major Reich’s name.

When Brady returned home from the war in September 2005, he found an e-mail from Jill Blue in his in-box. When Major Reich went on dangerous missions, his e-mails rerouted to Brady. The e-mail was addressed to Major Reich. It was the only e-mail. He didn’t want to open it.

Stephen, tell me you are okay? Tell me it wasn’t you? I need you now more than ever. I love you.

Some members of Captain Brady’s platoon got out of the military. Some stayed and served and were killed. Some stayed and saw their buddies killed and then got out because they were thinking: When’s my time?

At the SEAL 160 Ride, a memorial service honoring the fallen soldiers of Operation Red Wings, Captain Brady saw Jill Blue. It was the first time since Steve Reich died. He reached his arms out and held her. She said nothing.

“I just want you to know,” he said, “that Major Reich died to save the wounded, and to bring our men home, and he did it out of a sense of duty and he will always be memorialized and remembered for his courage.”

“I don’t care what you think,” she said. “I don’t care that my husband tried to save all those people. In fact, I think your motto is pretty stupid.
Night Stalkers Don’t Quit
. What does that mean to me? How does that help me? Is that what you guys do? Do you guys just keep doing things until you’re all dead? Because now my husband is dead. He’s dead because of
you
.”

That’s when Captain Brady started having terrible dreams. No dream bothered him as much as this dream. The one he had on the fifth of August 2011.

In the dream Major Reich stepped aboard a Chinook helicopter and he paused to look back at Brady. Then he started to burn. Major Reich was bursting into flames. His lips peeled back like wilted petals. “Brady,” Reich said, “I’ve got this one.”

The next day a Chinook MH-47, the same chopper as the
Evil Empire,
carrying a Quick Reaction Force in the Wardak province of Afghanistan, was shot down. Thirty-eight men on board died, surpassing the death toll of Operation Red Wings.

Sometimes Brady walks down the street and a stranger’s face will shift and morph and become the face of Major Stephen Reich.

•  •  •

After the crash, Caleb was still dating Krissy, and she found him sometimes shaking on the floor, watching the crash all over again in his dreams: the choking gray-black smoke swirling with the voices of Kip and Al Gore.
Kip, buddy, can you get out?
Caleb was always looking for Kip.
I’m burning, man. I’m fucking burning
.

Caleb asked Kip: why am I still alive when everybody else is dead? Kip led Caleb down a dark stairwell. He wrote Scripture on the walls in cursive,
You were slain, and have redeemed us to God by your blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation; and have made us to our God kings and priests.

Krissy had enough of the dreams, the visions. The bodies ripped apart. Dreams where there was no more blood because it’s all in the dirt next to you. Dying in the worst ways. The
Evil Empire
in their bedroom at night, perfuming the air.

“You see Kip too, don’t you?” Caleb asked. Krissy shook her head.

Caleb had his eyes turned sightlessly toward the light. Krissy woke him. “Am I so horrible you have to sleep in the garage?” she said.

She got up and dug under the clothes where their engagement ring still sat untouched, and found a gun. It was a little white gun. A birthday present from Caleb. She walked downstairs. The afternoon sun poured through the unclean windows. He said she put the gun to her head.