The War I Always Wanted (29 page)

For months I'd been downplaying the fact that I was a soldier. My hair was long, I had a scruffy shadow, and I liked to go on rants about how stupid the invasion had been. But I couldn't avoid it now. Turning the tables on the near-robbers had spelled such
satisfaction
. I had been parched—my veins constricted and starved of adrenaline—for months after quitting the war
cold turkey. In the bar it had come back in a drenching torrent, bringing back color and sound—bringing everything back to life, all in an instant. I had been completely
comfortable
with having had my back against the wall—literally. It hadn't been a tourist in there that had thrown the glass and contemplated killing—it had been a soldier. A soldier alone, without an army.

As the feeling subsided, I lamented that while a part of me wanted it, they might
not
ever just be mountains again—that in all probability, they would always be the Hindu Kush when I looked at them. And I would probably never be the person I was before the war.

“The argument that oil's not worth fighting for . . . or that you shouldn't go to war for cheap oil—that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.” A U.S. Air Force vet was making the case in the heart of Cairo's old section.

Since he was of Middle Eastern descent, I thought maybe he had some sort of a moral authority on the subject. I was eating dinner at a kebab restaurant in the Khan el-Khalili bazaar with some Americans I'd met earlier in the week. After two months of traveling, I'd finally made my way back to the Arab world. And I did feel normal there—like that was where I was supposed to be.

“Oil's pretty goddamn important if you ask me,” he continued. “Our whole fucking economy is based on it. Our whole way of life is designed around easy access to oil.”

I was skeptical and thought I was listening to an industry lobbyist. But then he made his point.

“You know,” he said, “if only a few countries had fresh water and they didn't want to share it, or they wanted to jack
up the prices, don't you think we'd have a real gripe with 'em? Don't you think it would be worth fighting for?”

I said, “Yeah, but, I mean, water's water. You can live without oil.”

“Yeah, you can live without oil, but then how the fuck are you gonna get home from here? What are you gonna to do for a living in a non-oil-based economy when you get there? No cars, no planes . . . you gonna be a farmer? And plow a field? Oil is the single most important resource we have. And it belongs to everyone. Just because it happens to be underground in a few select countries, it doesn't make it their oil. It's the world's oil.”

He was on a roll. “I say hell yeah we give a hard time to the countries that want to control the market or destabilize the market.” Then he tacked on: “And I'm a Democrat.”

I wasn't sure where his argument stacked up in current scholarly geo-political circles, but in a strange way it made sense. Oil is pretty goddamn important.

This is the world we live in. In our world, oil is pretty goddamn important.

Home had become a strange, foreign place to me, but I didn't really have a choice in whether or not to go back. My parents couldn't understand why I was staying away; my friends couldn't figure it out either. I had tried so hard to make it home in one piece, and now I was voluntarily avoiding it. I didn't know what I was doing. Even when I remembered the times when I would have given anything to be home safe, it didn't register. When I thought about going home my head filled with static. I didn't know how
to allow myself to be safe anymore. I couldn't let the damn thing go.

But outside a shady street café in Cairo one afternoon, I realized that if I were going to live like that, then the RPG might as well have flown off the launcher in Tal Afar. The bomb might as well have exploded in the valley. The result would have been the same.

On the long, westward flight across the Atlantic I started dozing and thinking, in that uncomfortable, half-asleep, upright position. I was thinking about the person I had once been. Leaning my head on the window, officer school started replaying itself on a reel in my head.

I look up from my bunk where I'm polishing my boots and roll my eyes. Cadet Moore is yelling for us to get outside for a formation. He's screaming the order, red-faced and disheveled. He looks like he's just gotten the smoking of his life. I wonder what he did. I wonder why this looks like it's going to involve me
.

Ten minutes later I am still in the push-up position, sweat rolling down my nose and forming a dark spot on the dusty ground, when the sergeant calls the platoon to attention
.

I close my eyes and exhale before popping to my feet smartly
.

Master Sergeant Taylor is glaring at us. “Cadets, you are out here for one reason.” He pauses for effect. “Your peer has left his weapon unattended. And I found it.” He is trying to make eye contact with as many cadets as he can
.

After his gaze passes mine, I roll my eyes.

“This is why you are being punished,” he continues. “This group,” he says, referring to us, “does not seem to understand the significance of this act—this negligent care for your personal weapons.” He pauses
again. “This weapon is the single most important thing in your life. One day . . .” he stops abruptly, as if he has just remembered something, his gaze becoming distant. “One day . . . one of you standing here will have your life saved by this weapon.” He holds it up in front of him
.

I think to myself, yeah right, Mister Desert Storm/ Mogadishu-man
.

He's from a different era. He's such a hardass that he doesn't realize none of us will ever actually get the chance to use a weapon in self-defense
.

Then he repeats himself, measuring each syllable out carefully. “You mark my words. One day, one of you will have your life saved by this weapon. And you will thank me for teaching you how to use it.” He is eyeballing a cadet in the first rank. I am still sweating, my arms still tingling from the push-ups
.

I see that he is in earnest and I almost feel bad for him. He's not talking about our future—he's talking about his past. He is somewhere else, in some far-off land—talking about situations that will never come about again in our lifetime. And it means something to him. I see now that this man can in no way relate to us
.

I am a cadet. It is 1999. And I know that it will always just be a misguided, boyish dream—me saving my own life with a gun, in a war.

A man's got to know his limitations
.

Sometimes I think everything I've lived since the war is a dream. Like I'm watching my life from the outside, as if it were someone else's. There are days when I think (
know
) that the bomb that landed on my platoon really exploded, killing us all. It makes me think that what I've lived in the time since is just something my mind has conjured in that instant between the detonation and the void.

Because of this, I hold on too tight. I am too controlling, too serious. There is an urgency and desperation in everything I do. I am trying to do as much as I can in this extended split-second before that bomb bursts. I wish this moment would last forever.

Killing is wrong, war is miserable. I miss being a soldier. I cannot reconcile these things.

O'Brien explained it best to me over the phone about a year after we got back from Iraq. He was in Boston, I was in Dallas, and we were both out of the Army. He had despised the job as much as anyone—the two deployments, the combat, the infantry, everything. He always said that he'd wished he'd just stayed in the landscaping business. But in the end, on the phone, I asked him if he was still bitter about the whole ordeal.

He said of course he was. And then, in his Boston accent, he added, “Yeah, it was miserable . . . ya know . . . prob'ly the wust period of my life. I wouldn't eva do that shit again in a million yea's.” I agreed.

Then he paused. “But ya know . . . we did have a pretty good time, didn't we?”

A lot of people can't understand a contradiction like that. But we can. We are enlightened.

ACP: assault command post

CP: command post

FARP: forward area refueling and rearming point; “farp”

GPS: global positioning system

ICOM: intercom; handheld radio; “I-com”

IED: improvised explosive device; roadside bomb

KIA: killed in action

LZ: landing zone

MRE: meal ready-to-eat

NCO: noncommissioned officer

NODs: night observation devices; “nods”

PT: physical training

QRF: quick reaction force

RPG: rocket-propelled grenade

RTO: radio-telephone operator

SAW: squad automatic weapon; “saw”

TOC: tactical operations center; “tock”

UXOs: unexploded ordnance

XO: executive officer

I could not have succeeded as an officer or as a writer without the assistance of a great number of people.

On the Army side, I will be forever indebted to the NCOs who taught me not only how to be a soldier and an officer in time of war, but also the life lessons that go along with that kind of responsibility. They are Jim Collins, Steve Croom, Vincent Cuevas, Chuck Nye, Rudy Romero, and Timothy Lindsey.

However, it is the soldiers who served in my platoons in combat who truly made this story possible. They were the finest soldiers I could have ever asked for, and it was a privilege to serve with them. From 1st Platoon, Bravo Company, they are: Brian Bailey, Luis Barajas, Bryce Beville, Jason Boudreau, Chad Corn, Andrew Creighton, Anthony DeGhetto, Rito Diaz, Eric Divona, Thomas Dougherty, Michael Dufault, Kwesi Hector, Kyle Johnson, Terrance Kamauf, Brant Krueger, Jose Limon, Josh Nantz, Ryan Lowe,
Christopher Morton, Peter O'Brien, Roger Paguaga, Joseph Pascoe, Craig Redmond, David Reid, Michael “Doc” Rojas, Timothy Rush, John Smerbeck, Nolan Speichinger, James Taylor, Kyle Walter, and Tony Wickline.

From 3rd Platoon, Delta Company, they are: Jesus Aguilar, Nick Ashley, Alex Estrada, Thomas Hemingson, Randell Jacobs, Matt Krueger, John Lombardo, Brandon Moose, Eric Poling, Carlos Torres, Michael Whipple, James Worley, and Trent Wykoff.

From Bravo's headquarters section they are: Reggie Garner, Ryan Kuykendall, Roger Shields, and Peter Sprenger.

I am also grateful to Captain B. and Mike Jones for having faith enough to allow me to lead my men as I saw fit. For their friendship I thank my comrades Mike Bandzwolek, Phil Dickinson, Sam Edwards, Shawn Graff, Rich Ince, Lauren Makowsky, Brian Payne, Clay White, Jim Willette, and Jason Wimberly.

On the book side, I offer deepest thanks to Dr. Michael Leggiere of Louisiana State University in Shreveport. Mike not only taught me the art of writing, but he has since continued to mentor me as I hone the craft. Without his urging, this book would never have been written.

I wish to express my sincere gratitude to my agent, Jim Hornfischer, for working tirelessly to find this book a home, as well as to Richard Kane at Zenith Press for taking a chance on it. And I'd like to thank Steve Gansen for spending more hours than he should have explaining the fine art of editing to me over the phone.