Mass Casualties: A Young Medic's True Story of Death, Deception, and Dishonor in Iraq (14 page)

“You want to hear the worst or the most perverted — well, actually, they're both kind of perverted.”

“It's too early to talk —”

“Just listen to me. You know about two weeks ago Sergeant Major Ridge gave that speech about going home to be with his suicidal son?”

Denti doesn't wait for me to reply.

“Well, he went home on a plane with a bunch of other people who were going on leave. One of those people was Sergeant Henderson.”

Sergeant Henderson is a medic with our southern hospital.

“Henderson and Ridge both get back to the States and take the same plane back since they're from the same town. Henderson is home for a few days and decides to go out to a bar and play some pool with his buddies. And he's bent over a pool table shooting when he overhears one of his friends say:

“‘Check out this old guy grabbing that girl's ass.’

Henderson looks up —

“‘Oh my God. That's the command sergeant major for my unit.’

Ridge takes several girls to a private booth in the back of the pool hall.

“‘Just let the old man have some fun,’ Henderson's friend yells to him.

“‘He's got a daughter the same ages as these girls, too.’ Henderson says back.”

Denti pauses to take a piece of bacon from my plate; he pisses me off.

“As I was saying,” he starts back up again.

“Why don't you get your own bacon?”

“Listen, listen, listen.” He's already eating it. “What happened was Henderson goes back to playing pool and sees Ridge leave the bar with two prostitutes.”

“Some time of need for his family, what a dickhead, I can't believe I felt bad for him.”

“That's not even the perverted one,” Denti says. “You know the education courses? Since Waters's boyfriend is new here he's taking his education classes.”

I roll my eyes at Denti at the mere mention of Colonel Lessly, the man who's in charge of the education classes. He got in trouble before we even got deployed. Colonel Lessly was put on special orders to be on active duty before we got deployed and was in charge of getting our unit's inventory ready. He looks like the biker from the Village People, but in an Army uniform. Specialist Wilson also got put on orders early. Wilson is a twenty-eight-year-old man who is about sixty pounds overweight — with all of it in his gut. He's not the sharpest tool in the shed. If you ask him what time it is, he'll stare at you for fifteen seconds, his watch for twenty, stare at you again for fifteen seconds and then tell you the wrong time.

“One night Lessly invites Wilson to dinner and a movie. They went out on a Friday night. Over the next few days Wilson got three e-mails from Lessly. The first one asks him if he had fun at the movies, and Lessly attaches a picture of two animals having sex and a caption that says: ‘Doesn't that look fun?’ In the next e-mail there's a picture of a monkey eating a banana shaped like a penis, and the caption says: ‘The things I could do to that banana.’ Wilson doesn't answer the e-mails. I don't think it even occurred to him how weird this was. On Sunday Wilson receives another email. Colonel Lessly asks Wilson if he can ‘suck his dick.’ Wilson freaks out. He prints the e-mails and shows them to Mardine. She shows them to the GOBs, and you know what they told Lessly to do? You ready for this? ‘Don't talk to Wilson anymore.’”.

“HEY. If you want to hear the story, pay attention.” I hear Denti say, taking me out of my daze. “Oh shit, Anthony, you never listen — the point is that Colonel Lessly is now making the moves on McClee — ”.

BAAAANNNGGG. BAAAAANNNNGGG.

BUNKERS! BUNKERS! BUNKERS!

1500 HOURS, OR

Our surgeries are out early today after we each did three I&Ds. When Reto walks in for second shift he's got a paper with him. “What patient died in the OR?” he asks. Denti and I look up.

“None.”

No patient has died in the OR. Patients of ours have died at later dates, but up to this time no patient has died in our OR — as far as I'm aware.

“Let me see that.”

We go over to see this.

Denti says, “What are you talking about? This is wrong. What is this, yellow journalism?”

“Probably some mistake.”

“No patients have died in the OR.”

“An American soldier died on the operating table,” Reto is reading.

“That's not true. No patient died, not in the OR, I remember that surgery. There was an American soldier and Iraqi. Now, yes, the patient in question did end up dying, but he died later in the ICW. But the patient was alive, he didn't die during surgery here in the OR…. ”

We have an advanced copy of the article written by the journalists who visited the OR a few months ago. The article is a powder puff piece about our unit and it blatantly lies about a patient dying in the OR — the journalists were in there when we wheeled the patient out alive.

We're all just standing there in silence.

WEEK 2, DAY 6, IRAQ

2330 HOURS, MY ROOM

I normally go to sleep at 2200 hours, ten o'clock, but I can't sleep anymore. I've been taking sleeping pills almost every night. The pills are still working, but I have to take more and more each night to fall asleep.

I spend a half-hour tossing and turning in bed and decide to go outside and smoke a cigarette.

“Anthony, what's up, man?” I turn and see Specialist Steve. Steve is a friend of mine from the unit. Tall, gangly, white as a ghost.

“I thought you were down south.”

“Not me.”

“Working?”

“You just getting off?”

“Yeah, man, been working night shift ever since we got here. Twelve hours on, twelve hours off, sleep. Twelve hours on, twelve hours off, sleep.”

“That's what I'm trying to do right now myself — go to sleep. Pills aren't working.”

“NyQuil, man. I've been using it for a couple weeks. Down a couple of shots before bed and you sleep twelve hours.”

I make a note to buy NyQuil.

WEEK 3, DAY 1, IRAQ

0145 HOURS, MY ROOM

Earlier in the day I go to the store to buy some NyQuil, but it was sold out. The sales clerk tells me nighttime medicines sell out the second they come in, and he won't have another shipment in for two weeks. If I really want the NyQuil, though, I should check back every day in case they get the shipment early. He tells me that there's a tall, skinny, white man named Steve who comes in every other day looking for NyQuil and I should do what he does.

I have four sleeping pills in me and I still can't sleep. I've smoked two cigarettes and my mind is on fire.

As I lay here I am beginning to notice all the different noises in Iraq.

Bang!

I hear a loud noise; it's a dumpster hitting the ground but it sounds like a mortar. Both noises sound similar, but it takes a trained ear to differentiate the two. Sometimes you hear a loud noise and cannot tell whether it is the beginning of a mortar attack and you should grab your weapon or whether it is a dumpster hitting the ground and you should go back to sleep.

There's a string of gunfire heard in the background, but I can't tell if the guns are being fired to kill or as practice. Every noise has a different nuance and every sound has a different meaning.

I think of the Buddha. What is the sound of one hand clapping …? If a tree falls in the forest, but no one… ? If a bullet rips through the body of a terrorist, splitting his skin and bones to fragments, but no one… ? I know now what people mean when they say, “A shot heard around the world.”

But as terrifying as the noises and sounds might be, nothing compares to the silences, the silence as I lay here in bed. Silence is the real killer. It leaves you no other devices but your own thoughts, and when you are fighting a war your thoughts aren't too often good. There are many types of silences. The silence of fatigue after a long day in the OR. The silence of doubt after twelve hours of surgery when the patient still dies. The silence of fear just after a mortar attack. My mind races. Is it a mortar or a dumpster? Should I get out of bed or stay in bed? Do I even care if I die? Is someone now dying? Is someone now dead? Am I dead?

Silence… . I hear the dump truck drive away. I need to go back to sleep. It's the silence that drives us mad. That drives us to commit suicide or cheat on our wives or ruin someone's life.

It's the silence that kills us.