166 Days: My Journey Through The Darkness (13 page)

15 July 2008

This entry is nothing more, and nothing less, than my sincere longing to be with my husband and best friend. I missed him so much, more and more as each day passed. I thought of him constantly and longed to be with him and in the safety of his arms. These feelings continued to intensify as I read his emails and heard his voice on the phone. I knew during our time apart, he too was going through a personal journey of his own. This time would continue to make us resilient as we both grew individually. We would both come out of this experience as stronger people and an even stronger “us”. I couldn’t begin to imagine the heartache and sense of helplessness he must have been feeling, knowing very little about what I was doing and the dangers I faced. I couldn’t tell him the majority of what was happening, nor did I want to. I couldn’t stand to think of him worrying about me any more than he already was. It would be awful to hear your wife was in a location that was under attack on a regular basis and there was little-to-no security around where she was every day.

It had become the norm to expect some sort of small arms fire, mortar attempts, or even RPGs on a regular basis. It had initially been a very scary thing for both Becky and me; however, as time went on we became used to it, something I would’ve never thought possible before this deployment. No…Greg didn’t need to know that. I loved him with all of my heart and soul and wanted him to get through our time apart as painlessly as possible.

18-24 July 2008

Occasionally, visitors arrived at the firebase on the ring flight with our mail and supplies. Sometimes they were in transit to other locations, and sometimes they were sent to our firebase specifically. They stayed until the next flight out, which was most often a week. On this particular ring flight we received a special kind of visitor, an Army Chaplin. He was traveling around to various locations to bring ministry, prayers, and comfort to the troops in the forward locations in the best ways he could. This was an amazing gift, especially considering how remote we were and the types of circumstances we faced every single day. I hoped it would be a way to lift our morale and reinforce the spirituality that is often forgotten with the nature of the business.

He was very friendly, and surprisingly, had an appreciation and respect for the team and what their mission was. I was impressed to hear he’d actually completed the qualification course (Q-Course) the Green Berets go through. While he felt war was an awful reality, it was just that, a reality that was happening, and he wanted to continue to focus on the grace and human element within the soldiers fighting to help them find peace in what they had to do. He spent a lot of time with Becky and me in the OpCen while the team was out, but he made an effort to seek out individuals on the team as well, often ministering to them one-on-one as they allowed.

He asked if we could have a service one night, and only those who wanted to attend were asked to be present. We sat on the roof on a beautiful evening as the sun was setting in the horizon. There were a handful of us in attendance, I had hoped for more. Becky, Hal, and I felt it was a service that was absolutely needed, and we happily accepted the invitation. He handed us each a copy of the New Testament and we prayed. We prayed for strength to deal with the harsh realities of war and to move on from it once we left this place. He had a beautiful sermon about finding the good in the unfortunate situation that occurred frequently during this and perhaps other deployments. It was perfectly appropriate for our circumstances, and where I felt I was on a personal spiritual level.

As I listened to him speak, I couldn’t help but notice he was standing in front of the M240 machine gun that was used to defend the firebase as we were so frequently attacked. What irony. I never would have imagined I would be listening to a sermon such as this in such a hostile place with horribly violent and inhuman acts happening all around me, but I was. When he concluded, he asked us to join and sing several hymns. It was an awkward silence initially. The only voice that we heard was the Chaplin’s. Asking these men, who were so hardened from their duties, to sing together, with no music was not the most comfortable thing for them to do. Eventually, more and more of them began to sing, and I felt I was witnessing a very rare instance, seeing these fighters let their guard down and be vulnerable; it was a moment I would never forget.

The Chaplin’s time with us came to a quick end, I hated that he was leaving; I felt that his presence helped me understand why we were there. I think we all took our own personal meaning from the time we shared with him, but I knew I needed that spiritual reminder that our God was still present despite the ugliness of the world we were witnessing on an everyday basis.

25 July 2008

My hands are literally shaking as I write this. The guys were going out on a mission, as scheduled, early in the morning and, as usual, Becky and I helped them get loaded up on the vehicles and took our positions manning the radios. While each vehicle had a person operating our radios, several also had an interpreter monitoring the channels the Taliban were known to use. It was helpful to the missions to listen in on what the enemy plans were. As the convoy of vehicles left the base, we settled in for what we thought would be a very long day. I pulled out my Sudoku puzzle and medical journal and propped my feet up on the table.

Two minutes after leaving the gate, Curtis came over the radio stating the mission was compromised and they were returning to the base. Becky and I looked at each other in confusion.

“What do you think that’s about?” Becky asked.

“I honestly have no clue,” I said. As they pulled in front of the OpCen several of the guys kept their armor and weapons on and proceeded to walk up to the ANA camp on the firebase. Our friend Roy made his way into the OpCen and saw the confusion on our faces.

“The Captain had strong reason to believe, after several failed missions, there’s a leak to the Taliban from someone in the ANA,” he explained.

“Are you kidding me?” I said.

“Nope, and as time has gone on he developed even more reason to believe that the
someone
was not just anyone, but the ANA Commander himself.” Becky and I were speechless. He continued, “So Curtis purposely told him, and only him, false information about the details of the mission hoping to catch him in the act. Sure enough, as we were leaving the interpreters heard the information that was passed on to the Commander being discussed between the Taliban voices on the other end of the radio.”

As I listened to Roy I was stunned and mortified at the same time. I had been left alone countless of times with this man on the firebase. How easily things could have gone badly. As I thought about it, I recalled several previous missions he did not participate in because he didn’t “feel well,” prompting a visit to the clinic. Ironically, those same missions ended up with some significant firefights and very close calls. Becky and I rushed over to the security camera and watched in horror as five team guys, and some of the ANA soldiers, drew their rifles on the Commander outside of his room. We, and everyone else on the firebase, were anticipating a huge rebellion from the ANA soldiers and a very bad situation with a stand-off between us and them.

I watched him on the camera as the whole thing happened. I could see it in his face, even before they got to his camp, that he knew he was caught. I watched him sit on a table and smoke a cigarette, trying to appear as if nothing was wrong, calm as could be, but we all knew better. He knew it was over, in more ways than one. After what seemed like hours of watching them talk to him, they finally took the traitor into custody and kept him in holding until he could be escorted off of the firebase and out of our lives.

Several days later he was loaded on the helicopter that came in as a ring flight, and I felt an unnerving sense of relief, relief that he was no longer in the same location, but unnerving because it made me question from that moment on who else of those with us was one of
them
. The phrase, “sleep with one eye open” had never been more personal, real, and true.

26 July 2008

It was supposed to start just like any other clinic day; the doors opened at 0900 and closed at 1200 with plans to fill the afternoon with whatever tasks would arise. As I was getting dressed, and getting my gear together, I heard a knock on my door.

“Jenn, we need you down at the clinic, there’s an emergency patient who’s unconscious!” Roy yelled.

“Ok, I’m coming!” I grabbed my things and ran to the clinic as fast as I could. I entered through the back door as I always did and hurried to unlock the front door, which opened into an area only feet away from the border of the firebase. I saw the gate guards and someone lying underneath a blanket with two men squatted beside him just outside the C-wire of the base. I walked up to the guards with Roy and my Terp. “Hanifi, ask them if they have searched these men,” I demanded.

“They say no Miss Jennifer,” he answered.

“Well, you tell them I am not treating
anyone
until they’re properly searched; emergency or not. That patient isn’t coming to me and I’m not going to him until proper procedures are followed!” I insisted. My jaw was clenched and my heart pounding in anger at their continued disregard for my safety. I looked back at the clinic and saw Becky coming towards me.

“Jenn! What the hell does he have?” she asked. She pointed at one of the men beside the man under the blanket who had a shiny object in his hand and was holding it up to his ear. We assumed this was a cell phone. Something that was second nature to Americans was quite an uncommon luxury in this region of Afghanistan.

“Tell the guards to clear out the rest of the people waiting to be seen in clinic now and search these men! Do it now!” I screamed. Almost instantly the guards drew their AK-47s and begin to search the men. This sent chills down my spine as I recalled the recent suicide bombing. Becky and I backed up out of the way and continued to watch as the guards and our guys searched for the shiny object. After several minutes, they came up empty; the object had “mysteriously” disappeared. Our unease was palpable. All of a sudden the unconscious man who was our “emergency” woke up. After the search was complete, and the men were cleared, they were brought up to the clinic.

We noticed these men looked significantly different than the normal people we saw every day at the clinic. Our patient had a long beard and shaved head, which was often a sign of authority. The men with him were dressed in shorter, better kept tunics than the locals.

“Becky, don’t touch them yet, stay with the Terps, I’m going to get Kyle and Hal.” I ran up to the OpCen and banged on Hal’s door. “You need to get down to the clinic right now. We have a sketchy situation,” I said, and explained the details of what had happened.

“I’ll get Kyle and we’ll be right there,” Hal said calmly. I was reassured by this, but at the same time frustrated because he didn’t seem to understand why I was so upset.

“Thanks, hurry please,” and I ran back down to the clinic to help Becky. Kyle and his winning personality joined us shortly after Hal arrived.

“I don’t know what the big deal is guys, I think you are over-reacting to it,” he yawned as he leaned against the wall.

“Over-reacting? Are you fucking kidding me right now Kyle!” I yelled. I was so angry I couldn’t hold back my tears; I didn’t want to show any weakness, so I walked to the back of the clinic to regain my composure. This was the second time I’d shed tears there. Kyle saw how upset I was and followed me to the back. The last thing I wanted was for
him
to see me crying. I’d already had that big run-in with him, and I was not in the mood for another. I expected he would continue to show disrespect for me and interpret my tears as nothing more than a “typical girl” overcome with emotion and not thinking clearly. In reality, they were tears of utter frustration and anger. I was tired of Becky’s and my legitimate concerns being brushed off as an over-reaction. We had faced that response from almost day one of arriving at the camp on Bagram and even more so once we got to the firebase.

Surprisingly, his reaction was quite the opposite. “Hey, listen, I’m really sorry Jenn,” he apologized, “I didn’t realize how upset this made you guys.”

“Listen Kyle, you need to understand something, this stuff is no big deal to you, but w
e
aren’t Special Forces; we don’t go out and get into firefights with the bad guys. We’re two Air Force medics, in a place that we had little training to deal with…and that’s ok, we’ve adapted. But, when I say we saw something concerning, it means I know what we saw and I know how uncomfortable it made us feel. My ‘over-reaction’ is a reasonable and appropriate way to react to what just happened and I am tired you making me feel like it wasn’t.”

“Ok, I get it,” he tried, but I wasn’t done.

“I’m going to tell you again about the situation we’re in down here every day when we are seeing these patients. There is almost
no
security being provided. The pep talk you guys gave the guards hasn’t done a damn bit of good, and I know each and every patient that walks through that door may very well have a bomb, a knife, or something worse. And no one seems to give a damn! So, Kyle, if I have nothing else to rely on for security other than my intuition, you damn well better believe I am going to listen to it!” I was shaking.

“I understand and I can’t blame you for that at all. The good news is, these men didn’t have weapons and we have several other guys out searching the area they were in for anything suspicious. I agree they do look different than the typical patients we see. Don’t worry we’ll handle it,” he explained.

“Thank you, I appreciate that,” I said and took a deep breath, collected myself and walked back to the men in the treatment bay.

My uneasy feeling never went away. I performed an assessment of the patient, and he was completely normal, with normal vital signs, normal mental status and no injury to explain his symptoms. When I asked the man when he became “unconscious” he could tell me the exact time he passed out and for how long he was out. This was interesting because not only do the Afghan people in that area have no real sense of time (most don’t even know how old they are), but this was a classic sign of a patient faking a syncopal (fainting) episode.

I decided to start an IV on the man and give him some plain normal saline. “Hanifi, tell him that I’m going to give him some medicine to make him feel better,” I instructed, and he did. The man nodded…and
amazingly
after not even 100cc’s of salt water his ailment was cured.

While the normal saline was infusing, Curtis came down to assess the situation. “I agree that these men are not from this area. Looking at the way they’re dressed I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re from Pakistan. It’s interesting for them to come to us when they would have passed through multiple areas with much larger treatment facilities. Let’s get Ivan down here to question them.” After several minutes Ivan appeared and questioned the two men that accompanied our “patient” and discovered they lived in a faraway region, under very heavy influence of the Taliban. They maintained they knew nothing. They were questioned for an hour, fingerprinted and released. Our newly “cured” patient walked out of the clinic a “new man.” We closed and locked the door after they were gone. Clinic was closed. Becky and I looked at each other in disbelief of what just
could
have happened, hugged, and walked up to our rooms and shut the door.