Mass Casualties: A Young Medic's True Story of Death, Deception, and Dishonor in Iraq (21 page)

Markham is jamming on the guitar now and I don't want to disturb him. I look at Denti; he's laughing at an episode of
Family Guy
and I don't want him to disturb me. I walk over toward Torres and Cardoza; Cardoza is talking and Torres is listening intently. I think for being at war, we all haven't lost our senses of humor.

“What are you guys watching?”

“Hey, Michael,” Cardoza is smiling. She's always smiling. “We're watching
Wedding Crashers
. But hey … I was just telling Torres something about Colonel Jelly. You'll appreciate this story….”

It's been happening more and more: I'm getting tired of hearing stories about everyone. I just don't care. I'm sick of hearing about husbands cheating on their wives and wives cheating on their husbands.

“You know Lieutenant Hamilton, right?” Cardoza begins.

“All right, all right, tell me.”

“Well, yesterday….”

Someone begins knocking on the door.

“It's pretty late for someone to be knocking.”

I get up and open the door.

“AANNTTHHOONNYY.” Standing in front of me is Specialist Fangell. I give him a hug and bring him into my room. Torres and Cardoza see him and jump up to give him hugs as well.

Fangell is an OR medic from our southern hospital, and he's been allowed to come up here for a few days and train with us. Fangell is six feet tall, twenty years old, and is a former Banana Republic model. He is wearing a cutoff tank top that shows off a tattoo on his right shoulder. It's an Army Special Forces tattoo. He got the tattoo when he was eighteen and full of dreams to join the Special Forces, just like his uncle. But Fangell isn't in the Special Forces. He's an operating room medic in an Army Reserve unit, and now he has a tattoo on his shoulder of a unit he was never in.

Fangell starts talking, but after a few minutes I start to daydream.

“Anyways, I was wondering if you guys could help me out. I wanted to say hi to Colonel Jelly — ”

“I thought he was down south, visiting you guys,” I say, coming out of my daydream.

“Haha,” Cardoza laughs. “You guys don't know where he's been?”

“Well, we're not his personal secretaries,” I say sarcastically, looking at Cardoza. She is one of Jelly's secretaries so she is privy to information that only Jelly and the GOBs know.

“He sure as hell isn't at our southern hospital. I was told he was up here,” Fangell jumps in.

“That's because he's not,” Cardoza replies. “He just wants everyone up north to think that he's visiting the southern hospital. And he wants everyone down south to think that he's up north. In actuality he's back in the States going to war college. He has to go if he wants to be promoted to general or something.”

“Baby, are you kidding me?” Torres says as he grabs Cardoza by the waist and spins her around.

“He doesn't want anyone to know, though. The school lasts for about a month and he's already been there for two weeks.”

“We are in the middle of a fucking WAR. In the middle of this Goddamn dessert and our ‘leader’ is back home in the States.”

“No wonder why he lied to everyone. He doesn't want everyone to know that he gave himself a month-long vacation,” Fangell says.

I start to feel nauseous — we are in the middle of fighting a war and our leader has given himself a month-long VACATION. We don't even have a leader in this GODFORSAKEN COUNTRY!

2300 HOURS, SLEEPING AREA

By the time I come back inside the room I've had three cigarettes, and Cardoza, Torres, and Fangell have changed the topic of conversation.

I lay down on my bed.

“So, I am outside of my room a few days ago,” I hear Cardoza finishing the story she started telling me, “and I'm waiting for Hudge so we can go to the gym together. Well, she was late and as I'm outside waiting I see Lieutenant Hamilton and a guy knocking on someone's door. The door opens and one of the doctors from the ER comes out. Hamilton and the guy go inside. Two minutes later Hamilton and the guy walk by me. They both have these herpes sores all over their mouths and lips.”

I turn over in my bed and throw the pillow over my ears as Cardoza — continues talking about all the people in our unit who've gotten STDs.

WEEK 4, DAY 1, IRAQ

1430 HOURS, OR

We now have the pieces to all four of our OR beds, so now we officially have the four beds operational. It's been a month since Jelly gave that speech. Although we had a mini mass casualty, it wasn't anything we couldn't handle and it was mostly taken care of in the ER. I don't know what I would have done, though, if commanders sent us patients thinking we had four beds when we only had two. People probably would have died and it would have been my fault for not speaking up. I'm glad I don't have to worry about it anymore.

Reto and I grab the trash from the bathroom and again there is toilet paper with huge chunks of shit loaded in there. It sucks, but we've come up with a plan to catch the person, or at least stop him, and tonight we are going to implement it.

Reto picks up the bathroom trashcan and places it outside the bathroom, three feet away against the wall. He looks at me and I smile in approval. Our trap is set. Whoever is throwing their shitty toilet paper into the garbage will have to open the bathroom door, walk out, and place it into the trash. Reto takes the bags and heads outside to put them in the dumpster. I head back into the bathroom and put on a teeth-whitening strip.

I've been using my teeth-whitening strips for about three weeks now and I have one week left of lower strips, but I only have one single upper strip left. I'm still not sure who is taking them, but now I spend all day looking at my coworkers' teeth to see if the top ones look any brighter from day to day. I have no idea who, but right now my attention is on Sergeant Sellers. She also bought teeth whiteners, and she keeps her box in a wide-open area whereas I keep my box hidden in the bathroom. I suspect that the culprit may initially be stealing from her and that she in turn steals the ones that she's missing from me.

Fangell is there waiting for me. I don't know how long he's been there, but he gives me a hug.

“Well, this is it, man. I've got to go back down to the southern hospital. It's been good. Take care.”

“You too, man. It was great to see you,” I reply.

Fangell turns and I watch him walk away. It's always sad to see a friend leave, and as he walks away I think back on all the stories he's told me since he's been up here. Men and women cheating on their husbands, wives, boyfriends, and girlfriends. I think of all the people he's told me about that are getting alcohol, and even cocaine and heroin, shipped to them. As Fangell turns a corner and leaves my view, I think of the worst stories that he told me. A male doctor was running the sick call for the southern hospital. Sick call is where people go who aren't seriously injured but just sick, like the flu or stomach problems. They can come in and get care and medicine. A female soldier came in with complaints of flu-like symptoms, runny nose, fever, and headache. The doctor told her to lie down on the bed and he begins giving her a medical exam, but the doctor wasn't wearing any gloves. The exam consisted of him caressing her breasts and asking her to get naked, bend over, and cough. The female patient did what the doctor asked. When she left she immediately filed a complaint. Soon another woman came forward saying a few days earlier the same doctor did the same thing when she only came in for a headache.

Fangell is gone and I remember that I never got to hear how the story ends.

MONTH 7

“THE ARMY CAN'T ORDER ME TO PUT SOMETHING IN MY BODY.”

WEEK 1, DAY 6, IRAQ

1430 HOURS, OR

I dump the contents from the package I received on the table:tuna fish, ramen noodles, a pair of used black socks, a notebook with half of the pages missing, and a pack of crayons from the family restaurant, Friendly's. The package says it's from a senior citizens group home in New Jersey.

I remember watching a news special on NBC a few years ago. It was about elderly people who were poor and didn't have enough money to pay for all their bills; from medicine to food to heating. Some of them could only take a pill once a day that was prescribed for three times a day. Some could only afford to eat tuna fish for every meal of the day, while others were forced to eat dog food.

I put away the food in the OR break-room cupboards; they're filled with supplies sent to us from dozens of soldier support groups across the United States. I eat better here in Iraq than I do at home.

These people are sending us everything they have, and most of us don't deserve it. They aren't sending provisions to the heroes they think we are. It is going to us doing shit jobs and others who are criminals; people doing drugs, committing crimes, molesters, adulterers; people doing anything they can to only help themselves. The worst part about these old people sending me this package is they think they're helping. I don't want to tell anyone the truth because it will just break their hearts.

WEEK 2, DAY 1, IRAQ

0600 HOURS, MY ROOM

Beep. Beep. Beep.

I know that cigarettes are bad for you. They're bad for your health; they're bad for your skin, your teeth, and all of your internal organs. They're addictive, and I know I've slowly become addicted.

When my head is throbbing, I can hear the vessels in my brain pumping blood. It's as if tiny people are in my head trying to hammer their way out. I light up a Camel Light, and my headache goes away.

Cigarettes work; don't kid yourself. They bring me to another place. They relax me. People say that in life we're either running away from pain or toward pleasure. Well, cigarettes combine both:They hide you from the pain and stress and they move you toward instantly gratifying pleasure. I'm not sure how much I smoke, and I don't really care. Not anymore. I'll quit when I get home. I'm only going to smoke in Iraq. I make a mental note to quit the second I get back to Boston.

WEEK 2, DAY 7, IRAQ

0600 HOURS, MY ROOM