Remembrance Day

The poppies blow, between the crosses, row on row

January 2, 2004 was, frankly, a pretty anonymous day. It was pretty cold in Balad. Part of my unit was up in Samarra carrying out a mop-up operation, so we were mostly just keeping an eye on things while the main action was happening up there. Most of us were relaxing; contrary to what Hollywood might depict, combat is mostly long stretches of boredom spent scratching your nether regions while you wait for shit to happen.

Which it did at about 3:30 p.m. or so. That’s when the first of around 13 to 14 rocket and mortar rounds landed on our forward operating base (FOB). By this point, we shouldn’t have been surprised, but the truth is that we were caught napping (some of us metaphorically, but in my case, literally). I stumble outside to see what was going on, and to launch a counter attack, depending on what direction the rockets and mortars were coming from.

Suddenly: I’m shaking my head, dazed, groggy. Disoriented, palming my chest, and feeling a piece of metal sticking out of it. It’s not large; jagged, maybe an inch or so?

I did what any guy would do; teased it out of my chest. For a lot of reasons, I don’t recommend doing that, not the least that it left me with a fairly gnarly scar. It doesn’t hurt, but the feeling isn’t pleasant.

In any event, my instincts kick in as the last of the rounds fall. Rolling over, I hug the ground, willing myself to be as small as possible, knowing it won’t do a damn bit of good if my time has come. Maybe I prayed; maybe I didn’t. It doesn’t matter; I don’t recall.

Silence reigns.

I made a rough estimate of where they were coming from based on the craters, then stumbled into the tactical operations center, bleeding. Not much, but enough that people notice. Two of the guys on my team are already calling in artillery strikes. I check in with them, and give them my best guess on where the incoming fire came from. I’m told to head over to the medics, but I tarry.

Meanwhile, in the medic station, Captain Eric Paliwoda gets stretchered in. He’s a giant - 6’6, if I recall, burly, imposing, even. When equipped with all our accoutrements, the armor, the weaponry — he is nothing short of terrifying. I can absolutely believe that Iraqis would imagine us possessed of otherworldly power, seeing someone like the captain on patrol.

I don’t know him well; he commands the engineer company attached to our infantry battalion. Like all commanders, he tends to stoicism and taciturnity when dealing with subordinates. But the FOB is small; our battalion commander, Nate Sassaman, is close with most of the officers residing there, including Paliwoda. This past autumn, they’ve rigged up the shaky satellite connection so that anyone interested can watch college football. And, let me tell you, the officers, especially, are interested. Sassaman played quarterback at West Point; he is revered for it, as all Army football players are, particularly the quarterbacks.

The football breaks up the interminable tedium of Iraq. Some of us — many of us? — can’t help but feel that time exists outside of Iraq, outside of the dust, the grime, the endless petty grievances that add up to an occupation none of us wanted, but damn it, we’ve got a job to do, and we will do it. Sassaman and I get to know each other, as much as a sergeant and lieutenant colonel can get to know each other.

He notices that I read about Iraq and the Middle East exhaustively; I share my books with him, and he makes a point of recognizing my efforts at self-education. We banter occasionally; he teases me about how poorly my school (Ohio U) plays football.

None of this matters now. Paliwoda is gravely wounded; shrapnel from another mortar sliced into his left side. Sassaman desperately tries to save his life; his efforts, heroic but insufficient. A helicopter lands. Paliwoda gets trundled in, and floats away. We don’t know this yet, but he is dead. We don’t want to know it.

Which makes the news of it so devastating. We are not ready for it. When the news comes, Sassaman curses audibly. Others punch objects. Vows are made. His death will not be in vain. For those who remain, we are haunted by it. Over the next few days and weeks, I find myself shaking, convinced my death is near. I don’t know it yet, but I’m suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

---

I wake up, sweating. Gasping. A scarce moment ago, I was convinced my death warrant had arrived: orders to deploy back to Iraq, as a forward observer. It might be 2019, but here it is eternally 2003 or 2004, or even 2005 or 2006.

More moments pass. It’s dark. The ceiling fan rattles quietly, randomly. I paw around my bed, find my phone. The light, blinding me — it’s 4:30. The phone unlocks. I don’t want to sleep again, so idly I load up one app after another. The world is precisely as grim as you’d expect the early-morning world to be. But it’s not Iraq.

Those who remember
church groups passing
step in time with high school bands
to bring joy to those who watch

smiling
collecting candy

on this
a welcome day off

forgetting the weight
of the wreath that’s laid

for the nameless
the forgotten
the ones who died
in sunshine
just like this. — Colin Halloran, “I Remember the Parades”

I struggle with Veteran’s Day. Truth be told, I struggle with the idea of being a veteran. Going to the VA hospital weirds me out; I see men hanging out there all day, wearing ballcaps with unit affiliations or the names of combat operations. I’m not close with anyone I served with, either in peacetime or war. When I left Ft. Carson for the last time as a soldier that cold Colorado day, I closed the door on a chapter in my life.

My service was honorable, quiet, and worthy of little commemoration, other than that given to me on my departure.

The truth is, I had no other options. At 18, the 69 miles between my house in Granville, Ohio and Athens — the home of Ohio University — might as well be 69 hundred.

I’m incredibly sheltered, arrogant, insecure, and desperately lonely. I’ve spent the last three years at an all-boys Catholic prep school. I don’t know what to do with myself, absent a structured schedule. The idea that I can skip class and do whatever I want is profoundly inebriating.

Which is one thing I start doing: drinking. First, only on the weekends. But Ohio U is a legendary party school, and at 20,000-plus students, easy for me to disappear in. Soon, I graduate to drugs — mostly pot, sometimes coke, anything to quiet the demons in my head, the ones saying God, you’re such an idiot. Or: good fucking lord, why’d you say that? Of course no one likes hanging out with you. Or: you are so ugly, no wonder no one wants to be with you. I hook up occasionally, but really, drinking is my main pastime. That, and volunteering for late-night DJ shifts at the independent college radio station.

It’s no wonder that by the time spring of 1997 comes around, I’ve flunked out of school. I get rid of most of my belongings; everything I own fits in a duffel bag and knapsack. I spend the summer squatting in a vacant apartment, until one day, my boss at my summer job takes pity on me, calls my mother, and has her pick me up.

I sober up enough to work a few dead-end jobs. I’m stuck in neutral; I’ve failed miserably, and I’m drowning in the shame of it. I’m 21, and I have no idea what the fuck I’m going to do with the rest of my life. I just know that I need to get out of my parents’ house, that I’m heartily sick of hearing my step-father’s wheedling voice needling at me.

One morning, after arguing with my mother, I visit every military recruiter in town. I end with the Army recruiter. I make an appointment to take the ASVAB (the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery); I ace it. The recruiter wants to sign me up for all kinds of jobs; I douse his enthusiasm. Look, man, I have to go to boot camp right away; I can’t be hanging around over the summer. This reduces my options considerably.

Which is how I came to be a forward observer.

I enlisted in March of 1999. I was honorably discharged in February of 2006. In between, one tour in Iraq.

---

sadness is the color of my eyes, my heart,

the same shade as distance

and some kind of Miles Davis on repeat.

it's the sound I don't want anyone to hear

creeping out of my pillows in the morning

before the coffee and cigarettes begin-

an avatar, when I'd rather just be myself. — Chantelle Bateman, “PTSD”

It’s dark again. I’m tired, exhausted, really. Some nights, I get the rest I need, others, I don’t. I’m alone with my thoughts. Later today, people will march in a parade; despite the emails I’ve gotten, I won’t be one of them. I don’t want to be on a pedestal. I appreciate the sentiment, but thirteen years after my last reveille, the thanks I receive do more for you than they do for me — and I’m not sure what they do for you.

Mackenzie @coffeeshopjihad

Brace yourselves for all the “I almost enlisted, but” tweets that are sure to come this Veterans Day.

What do the thanks of a grateful nation mean? I don’t know, and I’m not sure I ever will. Whenever I hear someone say, I almost enlisted, but…, part of me wants to say, But what?, as if to dare the response we all feel is tongue a-tiptoe. I don’t need to say it: the but… says everything, and then some.

Thank you for your service, but… But at the same time, I’m not angry. That’s for others; it’s not for me. If anything, I’m resigned. Weary, whacked, knackered, and tuckered. My service was that: service. Willingly given; now, quietly remembered. I can only laugh, at once mirthless and mirthful, as Veterans’ Day competes with Singles’ Day.

How can I not, as I am both single and a veteran?

In England, Australia, Canada and elsewhere, people will pause, silence will fall, on the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.

In remembrance of the fallen, does that silence fall.

Here, there are sales.

What's all this hubbub and yelling,

Commotion and scamper of feet,

With ear-splitting clatter of kettles and cans,

Wild laughter down Mafeking Street?

O, those are the kids whom we fought for

(You might think they'd been scoffing our rum)

With flags that they waved when we marched off to war

In the rapture of bugle and drum.

Now they'll hang Kaiser Bill from a lamp-post,

Von Tirpitz they'll hang from a tree....

We've been promised a 'Land Fit for Heroes'---

What heroes we heroes must be!

And the guns that we took from the Fritzes,

That we paid for with rivers of blood,

Look, they're hauling them down to Old Battersea Bridge

Where they'll topple them, souse, in the mud!

But there's old men and women in corners

With tears falling fast on their cheeks,

There's the armless and legless and sightless---

It's seldom that one of them speaks.

And there's flappers gone drunk and indecent

Their skirts kilted up to the thigh,

The constables lifting no hand in reproof

And the chaplain averting his eye....

When the days of rejoicing are over,

When the flags are stowed safely away,

They will dream of another wild 'War to End Wars'

And another wild Armistice day.

But the boys who were killed in the trenches,

Who fought with no rage and no rant,

We left them stretched out on their pallets of mud

Low down with the worm and the ant. — Robert Graves, “Armistice Day, 1918”