Mass Casualties: A Young Medic's True Story of Death, Deception, and Dishonor in Iraq (4 page)

I look at Gagney. “We've got eight patients on the way.” The ER hasn't sent us any fake patients back yet.

“Get your rooms ready.” Gagney is acting as if we've got twenty on the way.

“The rooms are set up,” I say.

“Listen, soldier.” Gagney talks over me at a volume higher than necessary. “ER might have two patients with gunshot wounds coming over. I want you gowned and gloved and sitting in that OR waiting for those patients to come in.”

I was about to stand up, to show him respect, but I change my mind.

“This is a test,” he says.

“If it were a real mass casualty, we wouldn't do that,” I'm saying. “If this is supposed to be real, then we'd sit out here and wait.”

“Stand up when you talk to a superior officer.”

I shouldn't be saying this. “It could be an hour — ”

“I don't care if you wait for ten hours. I want you in there now.”Gagney stares at me.

I stand up reluctantly. It's all I can think to do. I look around the room. Everyone's watching, but no one says anything. I look at the others. I see the sympathy in their eyes, but no words of encouragement are forthcoming. Everyone is afraid of Gagney's temper — and no one wants to be on the wrong end of it.

Gagney continues to yell. “It goes for the rest of you, too,” Gagney booms. “I don't care how long it takes. I don't care how hot it is in there. Gown up and go into your rooms and stay there.” Everyone gets up.

“I don't care if you have to go to the bathroom. No one leaves until I tell you you can go!”

I stare at Gagney and recall a thought I've had many times in the Army. I cut my hair at least every twelve days, and I wear the same uniform without fail because I signed a contract three years ago. The contract says that all my decisions are to be made by somebody else who is my superior. He is my shepherd and I must follow. I am nothing more than a sheep being led into a dry, desolate desert. I must follow my shepherd if I want to get out alive — or at least that's what I'm told.

1600 HOURS, BREAK ROOM

“Let's cut the guy some slack,” says Sellers, the only one to come to Gagney's defense. As if his performance at the mock mass casualty wasn't salt enough in the wound, he then puts Hudge and Chandler on second shift, which started at 1500 hours. (Chandler is a twenty-eight-year-old mechanic from the backwoods of Maine. He's even more “country” than Reto — and missing more teeth than he has.)

Gagney placed Waters and Sellers on third shift. Everyone else needs to be back tomorrow morning at 0700 while Gagney gets to stroll in whenever he wants because he's still working on a final schedule.

Maybe she's right; maybe we are being too harsh on him. I nod in agreement with Sellers. She looks at me as if trying to find out if she can trust me or not. She's not sure she can trust anyone, ever since someone started a rumor about her being a lesbian a couple of weeks ago. She denied it — then got caught fooling around with a girl during our stopover in Kuwait. She refuted it again and accused her detractors of conducting a witch-hunt against her. However the rumor — and her mistrust — persist.

Reto blurts out from his chair: “I don't care if it's day one or one hundred. That guy is an asshole.”

Denti says he doesn't want to waste any more time on the douchebag and gets up to leave the break room.

I don't say it, but I think Sellers is right. Just do your job. Give it a few weeks. There's a lot to get used to for everybody. Maybe military life hasn't been all I thought it would be. I pictured men and women shoulders back and heads held high, living their lives by virtuous ideals and proud to wear the uniform of their country — maybe I'm not that naïve. I saw a military marching, flying the American flag, singing the national anthem, and defeating all our enemies without losing a single man. But I think there's something behind that, that in the end it's right and it works, and we can trust that — we have to be able to trust that.

1900 HOURS, GYM

Bunkers are cement shelters designed for mortar attacks. They run about four feet high and around fifteen feet long. There's room enough for about twenty people. The first thing we're told to do when we enter a new building is locate the closest bunkers.

In Iraq we carry our M-16s with us everywhere we go, and that includes the shower, the dining facility, and the gym. When I first started carrying the weapon around, it felt awkward having to take it with me everywhere. I even had to balance it on the bathroom floor while I relieved myself. Now, after all these months of having to carry it around everyday, it still feels unnatural and cumbersome. Back home, my friends talk in awe about what it's like to be a soldier and a man, someone who walks around all day with a weapon, but I don't tell any of them the truth. The truth is that I don't feel like a real man. A real man would have a choice in the matter, but in my case it is merely an order. In the end, though, I know it's for my own good to carry the weapon with me everywhere. I'm learning weapon awareness, and if I ever come upon an enemy soldier, I will have my weapon ready to fire and kill.

Although sometimes I can't stand Denti and the stories he tells — like the time he told me he had a girl pee on him, or how he had sex with an Asian prostitute — it's pretty cool being at the gym with him. Since he is allegedly a former powerlifter — not that he isn't a great bullshitter at all times — he says he'll get me jacked by the time I go back home. I figure I don't have much else planned while in Iraq, so I might as well go to the gym when I can.

Denti's workout is very thorough: sit-ups, push-ups, leg work, benching. Most of the time he's screaming at me — either telling me I'm doing something wrong or yelling in some type of weird powerlifting congratulatory manner when I do something right.

I'm spotting Denti and Reto comes over, finished with cardio.

Then we hear the sound of this car door slamming:
Bang. Bang. Bang.

The runners stop running and look at the weightlifters to see if the noise was the weights banging. The weightlifters stop lifting and look at the people playing basketball to see if the noise was a ball bouncing. Everyone turns and looks at the cyclers, who have stopped riding.

Loud noises.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
Louder than I've ever heard before, like fireworks and thunder all together.

Freeze.

Suddenly everyone's rushing toward the weapons rack, grabbing guns, running outside.

The explosions are coming closer now, closer together, one on top of the other.

We're sprinting for the bunkers. I'm breathing deep, it's twenty-five feet away. Crouching down as I enter.

Huge crash, very close.

“Get the fuck in there now!” Denti yells.

Bbbbbooooommmmmm.

It's hitting the dome right outside. Mortar, a huge bullet fired from a cannon explodes and sends shrapnel flying over and into people.

A second later and Denti could have died. I look at Denti and try to gauge how he's feeling since he came the closest to getting hit. It's too dark to see Denti's face, though.

More mortars are going off and hitting around the gym. Since it's a huge dome, it's an easy enough target.

We look around; there are fifteen people in the bunker. It's pitch-dark; I can't see who is with us in the bunker.

I sit there and replay what just happened. I'm not sure how I'm supposed to feel about the whole thing. I've never had a near-death experience before, and I'm not sure how to react. Everyone else is just sitting in silence. I feel like I should be happy to be alive; I feel like I should have a newfound perspective on life, but I don't know what I feel. It's no emotion I've ever heard described before. I can't describe it with a word like
nervous, scared
, or
afraid
; I've felt all those before, but never before have I felt the feeling of almost dying.

“Who grabbed my ass?” a burly male voice yells out. Everyone in the bunker laughs. No one seems fazed by the attack and how close Denti came to injury or death.

“I grabbed it and I'd do it again,” a different male voice yells out. This brings even more laughter. I try to force myself to laugh with all of them, but I am still shaken up. I almost died and people are making jokes. Intellectually, I know that joking about a situation should help, but I don't feel like joking. I'm just not there yet.

The mortar rounds continue to go off, some sounding on the other side of the base and some hitting next to us. Everyone goes on talking and laughing as if we aren't in danger, as if this is no big deal, as if people almost die all the time. Denti lights up a cigarette. I'm riled up so Denti offers me one. I normally don't smoke, but I take a cigarette anyway. As I take my first puff, I start to relax.

The lights from the cigarettes illuminate the inside of the bunker and we can finally see the hints of each other's faces. Everyone looks relaxed and calm. My heart is still racing, but I begin to realize that I will have to learn to accept that the base being mortared and me jumping into a bunker is going to be a part of my life for the next year. I can either sit and wallow in fear or learn to laugh like the rest of them.

1915 HOURS, BUNKERS

Fifteen minutes go by. No further rounds go off. A soldier gets a call on his radio saying it's all clear, we're safe to walk around again. Emerging, we're looking at the damage to the bunkers. Amazingly, there hasn't been any structural damage, the concrete was so thick. The gym is alright, too. The ground surrounding, however, is a different story. Although there's only a small indentation in the ground where the mortar hit, the area is covered in bits and pieces of metal — shrapnel. Someone picks up a piece, it's hot; it burns his hand.

We decide to start walking. Our hospital policy dictates that everyone must report in after a mortar attack to count who's still alive, and we don't have radios.

“You know I almost got hit by that,” Denti brags. “I jumped into the bunker at the last second.”

People seem impressed and Denti is proud. I look at Denti and laugh. I'm happy that his near-death experience hasn't scarred him for life, but I know I will have to hear the retelling of this story, again and again.

1930 HOURS, BASE ROAD

As we start our trek back to the hospital, I notice that it's dark and the base has a new feel to it. This is our home — but we are not safe here. I think this is what the enemy is trying to accomplish: They want us on alert until it burns us out. The worst part is thinking about how it could happen at any time or at any place. It makes me feel like a prisoner inside a prison that I was sent to liberate. I think I can finally realize a name for my feeling. It's the feeling of impending doom. I could be dead or mortally wounded anywhere, at any time.

The moon, standing alone in the sky, is our only light. My legs are tired from the workout at the gym; it feels like we have been walking forever. We pass the dining facility and the Iraqirun Hajji stores that sell bootleg DVDs and cigarettes. We aren't seeing damage from mortars; the rest must have hit on the other side of the base.

It becomes hypnotic, the noise of each step we take; they're the only distinguishable sounds within earshot. None of us speak as we walk. This must be what the world would feel like after a nuclear war.

“We're the only people on the street,” says Reto. He and Denti light cigarettes and I stop and look around. We're standing in-between streetlights and there's a fence on either side of us. Up ahead are buildings. This is the busiest street on the base and there is no sound, only Denti throwing his old cigarette to the ground. It feels like impending doom, like something's going to happen, like people felt on New Year's Eve 1999, at 11:59 and 58 seconds, possibly the end of the world.

“Where the hell is everyone? If it's all clear, where are they?”Reto asks.

I think for a second. “They're probably all at their units checking in.”

I have a cigarette with them, even though I don't smoke. It's my second in the country, a pretty worthwhile occasion I would say — just nearly got my head blown off. The nicotine kicks in fast and is relaxing. We see a Humvee speeding down the road behind us. It pulls up next to us, but the window doesn't roll down.

“What the hell's going on?” Reto asks.

I'm really starting to get nervous: “Fuck, man… .”

The window cracks open: “What are you guys doing walking around? It hasn't been all cleared yet; get to some fucking bunkers now!”

And then it leaves, speeding away. Reto's hand shakes as he puts the cigarette to his mouth and grips his weapon.

Denti's head jerks back and forth as he looks in all directions.

“Do you guys see any bunkers anywhere?”

We start running, running as fast as we can for the hospital. I've never run this fast before, none of us have, and probably never will. When we reach that front door at the hospital I look down; my hands are shaking, too. As we head inside the main lobby we hear a loud explosion, followed by an even louder one.

After a while, staff for our unit check in one by one to let everyone know that they're alive. Some are scared; some excited. It's strange to see the ones excited about a mortar attack.

Someone from another part of the hospital comes in and tells us we shouldn't be here. We should have stayed in the bunker. Nothing's all clear until there's an announcement on the loudspeaker.

A soldier pokes his head through a door and yells into our room. “Don't send anyone home. We've got a mass casualty. This is real.”

My anxiety from this morning returns. Inside I'm screaming. I want to throw up, it's too much fucking pressure, I can't take it, I can't fucking hack it. I wish I had gone to college. If I had gone to college I would only be worried about girls and midterms, but instead I am worrying whether or not I can save someone's life, and whether or not all my worrying could cost them their life.

We hear shouting and a lot of commotion coming from the ER. The first casualties are arriving: two Iraqis and an American soldier; the American soldier is from the unit we're replacing. He was hit by shrapnel in the second attack. He was going home in a few days. A year in Iraq he survives everything, then a week before he's supposed to leave he gets injured.