166 Days: My Journey Through The Darkness (11 page)

30 June 2008

The last couple of days consisted of a lot of administrative work with the clinic. We got the patient bays organized and the pharmacy in order. The pharmacy was almost completely stocked with expired medications, so I had to completely re-inventory and organize it. Becky, the other medics and I did some brainstorming and came up with an idea to provide classes on basic medical knowledge for the general population as well as the women, specifically for female-related healthcare issues. We also decided to come up with some radio broadcasts consisting of medical advice and tips on prevention of the most common ailments for the population, such as diarrhea and dehydration. I was pleased with our ideas and was relieved we could come together as a team. Becky also had a good idea about putting a “comment box” of sorts in the clinic for the patients to put their questions and/or any information they wished to relay to us in. I hoped the ideas would be fruitful and not just talk, as so many ideas often were.

We had several team meetings as well, all of which consisted of the same theme - fighting. Over the next month it was expected there would be a lot of fighting, since it was the prime season for the Taliban, which meant I would be seeing very few “routine” clinic cases, and focusing more on the traumas from the missions. After each of these meetings, the guys picked up and shipped out for another mission. I got so nervous every time they went out. The Taliban wanted their firebase back, and I hated being in such a vulnerable position.

After one of the first meetings, Becky and I went to our room, and shortly after Hal came running in. “Guys! We’re getting attacked! Get your gear on and get to the OpCen as soon as possible!” We rushed to get our flak vests, helmets, and weapons on as quickly as possible and ran to where we were instructed to meet. As we arrived in a state of panic we saw no one was there.

“What’s going on?” Becky asked. Suddenly we heard laughter.

“Come on,” I said. We slowly made our way back to our room. As we walked outside we heard a large eruption of laughter above us. We looked up and saw the majority of the team on the roof laughing and pointing at us. It was all a joke. The guys thought it would be funny to see us run out of our room as fast as we could in our full gear, so they sent Hal in to deliver the instructions while the rest of them waited for the show.

“Sorry guys! We had to do it! Man you should have seen your faces!” Hal laughed.

“Ha ha! Very funny!” Becky said, as we went back to our room. Initially I was hurt we were the butt of their joke, but then I realized it was their way of keeping things light, and they would have done it to anyone. I was able to see the humor in it, but I couldn’t disregard the real threat that was out there, and the potential violence that could occur. I felt very insecure about what my role would be if things did get bad. I didn’t want to engage in contact, but the reality of the situation was I might have to. Through the deployment I tried hard to stay healthy; mentally and physically, but it was not easy. Already I could see my mental well-being wavering and slipping at times. I talked with Greg about it and he agreed the journal was the best avenue for me to channel my feelings.

1 July 2008

It was a day filled with nothing but badness all around. It started with Becky getting very sick in the middle of the night with another episode of gastroenteritis; vomiting and suffering from diarrhea all night. I woke up several times trying to help by giving her what medications I could, but she still suffered the whole night and into the day with her symptoms.

Clinic that day seemed to go the way Becky felt. The day before I’d seen a little five-year-old boy who fell approximately eight feet off of his roof. When I initially saw him he was fine, only complaining of shoulder pain, but responsive and smiling. If this were a patient I were seeing back home, I would have been able to get a head CAT Scan to fully evaluate if there was a severe head injury, but I only had his father’s words to go by and what I could see on physical exam.

“IG, tell the dad I am going to tell him what he needs to look for in his son over the next twenty four hours,” I instructed my Terp. As IG told the man what I asked him, the man nodded eagerly as he helplessly waited for instructions to help his son. “You need to watch him overnight and if he stops eating, starts sleeping all the time, or if he throws up more than four times I need you to bring him back to me,” I said. The father agreed and took his son home.

Sure enough he was back the very next day. The boy had completely changed in just one day; all of the things I told his father to watch for had happened. During the physical exam I saw something alarming that was not present the day before. In the medical world we call it “Battle’s Signs,” which is bruising behind the ear, a finding that is consistent with a basilar skull fracture. I examined the affected side of his head and discovered the entire left side was swollen and when I pushed I could feel the edema - another sign of a serious injury to his head.

“Sir, I am so sorry, but your son’s injuries are severe, and I have limited capabilities here in this clinic. I can only treat his symptoms.” The man began to cry. “If you can get him to TK or Kandahar there are much larger facilities to treat his condition.”

He looked at me with tear-filled eyes and began to speak. Through IG he said, “I have already walked for several hours to get to you. I have no money or means of transportation to get my son to those places.” I could feel my own eyes filling with tears. He went on, “Even if I did walk to TK, the Taliban would surely kill me or my son.”

“Why would they kill you for traveling to TK?” I asked.

“They know I would be traveling there for the help of the infidels,” he answered. I tried to fathom what it must be like to be in his shoes and I couldn’t comprehend it.

“IG, tell him to wait here, I will go and see if there is a way I can arrange for transportation for him.” I tried everything I could to help him, but I was unsuccessful. “Sir, I am so sorry, I have no way to get you there,” I explained.

“I know. It is what it is,” he said. I could see he had given up. I gave the boy a steroid shot, hoping to decrease the swelling and inflammation. I packed up some medicine for pain and the nausea and handed it to the boy’s father.

“We can continue to monitor the boy if you would like to bring him back, there’s a chance he could pull through this injury,” I said, as I handed the medications to the man. I knew as I spoke the words it was likely not the truth; given the environment had none of the necessary medical care available, coupled with his rapid deterioration, his outlook was dismal at best.

The man took the bags I gave him and put his hand over his heart and nodded to me. He picked up his child, turned and walked away. As he left I felt his genuine gratitude for the care we were able to provide, which made it that much harder to watch him walk away carrying his son into the abyss of Afghanistan, never to be seen by me again.

After I completed my day in the clinic, I went back to the room to check on Becky. She was sleeping finally, so I decided to check my email. While I was logged on I decided to email Don and Chad, I was thinking about how the mission they went on after we did the MedCap together. I knew they had a long week and were likely just getting back. Shortly after I sent the email I heard back from Don. I read his words in complete disbelief:

I remembered hearing chatter on the radio that a US Special Forces troop was killed a couple of days prior to the email, but I never heard who it was and I never thought it would be a friend. As I read the words on the screen I began to cry. Not Travis! Out of all the guys I met on that team, he was by far one of my favorites. He was only twenty-four years old. He had a wife and a great sense of humor.

Don explained in the email that three other ANA and interpreters were injured as well, but they survived and were sent to BAF for definitive care. One lost a finger and one had over thirty fractures to his face. To make matters even worse, the next day the Battalion sent a team to retrieve Travis’s extremities and they got their vehicle, an, RG-33, stuck in a creek and three of them drowned.

I cried and cried. I felt sick to my stomach. I couldn’t get Travis out of my head; I kept seeing his shit-eating grin and joyful eyes. Why did this happen? What is the purpose of losing such a great person? Or losing the three soldiers who went back to collect his remains?

I remembered again the last time I saw him while I was waiting for my flight out at TK; I gave him a hug and heard his haunting words, “We do it because we love it; don’t worry about us.” Now he was gone. I was aware that soldiers were dying every day, but naively I never expected to be so personally affected. I, like many others, had developed a false sense of distance from the inevitable loss that comes with war. Sadly, I now had a new understanding of the reality of wartime.

4 July 2008

I have to say without a doubt that this 4
th
of July has been the most significant one in my life. For the past twenty-seven years I enjoyed the family barbeques, fireworks and friends in the comfort and relative safety of the borders of the United States. I had no concept of the true meaning of this holiday. I had never made a sacrifice for my country and never known anyone who had given their life for it. Of course, like any red-blooded American, I celebrated it with pride, but the sacrifice behind what made the day possible was always something I read about in books, not anything that was personal. Now, I had lost a friend to this horrible war, been on a firebase that had been attacked by enemy fire, seen the poverty and the toll hundreds of years of war had taken on the country of Afghanistan and its people, and I was looking at this holiday through a new set of eyes …eyes of understanding and true appreciation.

I looked out at the mountainous horizons of Afghanistan, saddened to know now firsthand there are people in this world who have no idea what it means to have freedom or experience its benefits as we Americans have. Even more saddening was the realization that Americans, including myself, had such a horrible habit of taking what we had in our nation for granted; having no concept of what it is like to live without the luxuries we have come to
expect
as a right, not something we have earned. I openly admit to being just as guilty of this. It sickened me that I, like so many Americans, had
no
idea what was happening in the country of Afghanistan prior to my deployment. It saddened me that the American youth was growing up in a generation of tablets, cell phones, and fancy cars, completely missing the bigger picture of what was happening in the world outside of our “American Bubble”.

Unfortunately, I spent the majority of the day in bed, sick with diarrhea….perhaps Kyle would recommend an antibiotic for me. In the evening we had a barbeque to acknowledge our country and what we were all there for and I managed to drag myself out of bed to attend. I sat outside on a bench, and in between my trips to the bathroom, I looked at the guys that surrounded me and I had an overwhelming sense of pride to be sharing this day with them. I looked at them all and smiled, listening to them laugh and give each other a hard time. I glanced up at the roof of the OpCen at our beautiful American flag flying with honor and pride even though she was flying at half-mast to pay tribute to an American soldier who, just days before, had made the ultimate sacrifice like many before him and many after him would continue to make.

I decided to go up to the roof to be alone with my thoughts. As I sat there, as the sun was setting over Afghanistan, I couldn’t take my eyes off the flag flying at half-mast for my friend. I sat alone, letting the tears of grief stream down my face; grateful to have known a brave soldier like Travis who proudly served knowing of the dangers he faced… and loving every minute of it.