Formation

by Ryan Leigh Dostie

  I’m in the sand, huddled against a thorny bush, hands dragging through the silt, nails digging into the rock bed as mortars sing and crash overhead, but I can’t find my M16, hands grasping at nothing, heart pounding. I’m crawling through the dirt, cringing with each explosion, screaming, calling my weapon by name, as if it will respond and come home, but I can’t find my fucking M16, and when I wake, gripping sheets soaked with sweat, I still can’t find it. My hands are still empty. And it hurts.

  Or there is the recurrent dream where I am both soldier and insurgent, two bodies at once, staring down the barrel of an M16, staring up the barrel of an M16, huddled against a stone wall, feeling trapped and helpless at one end of the rifle, and also standing, rifle tucked into the shoulder and with the superiority of holding metal and gunpowder in my hands. There’s the fear of dying on one side, the fear of killing on the other, one of us hisses, “Die,” the other screams, “No!,” the crack of a shot and we both live and die, the sensation of life draining from the body, while also being simultaneously victorious, standing over the dead me, finally having done what I am trained to do. They say you can’t die in your dreams, but I’ve done it over and over again, felt that death, the terror of staring up into the black hole of a muzzle. That narrow little barrel becomes my entire existence, too large to escape from, impossible to look away.

  I think I can ignore the nightmares, or the inability to fall asleep, or to stay asleep. I can do this. When I do finally sleep, I doze late into the morning, into the afternoon, and it seems like a reasonable trade. I can write late into the evenings anyway, shifting everything around. It’s okay. I can do this.

  The Warworn’s Battle Cry

  It’s not like I haven’t heard of PTSD. But there’s a hierarchy to these things, a level of justifiability, and I don’t match up. I didn’t kick down doors; I didn’t put bodies back together, or count the missing parts. I didn’t huddle down in firefights, my Humvee never exploded. I’m not deserving of PTSD. So it’s a kind of betrayal the first time I hit the deck at a loud noise.

  I’m newly home and at a Memorial Day parade, asked to march with the local American Legion in my hometown. It’s surreal to march down the streets I grew up on, past buildings I once ran through as a child, seeing young faces stare up at me. Am I now to them what those soldiers in Haiti were to me then? I wave big and wide.

  I march with older soldiers, real soldiers who saw real war, veterans of World War II and Vietnam and Korea, some slightly shriveled and bent with age, but brilliant and hard underneath. I am small and inconsequential in their shadows, a peripheral figure, a member of the new wars, those absent of trenches and napalm and overgrown jungles. I march with them, feeling a little out of place, a whole lot of unworthy, just me, the only Iraqi War veteran, the only woman, and when they shake my hand and pat my back, I know I’m a fraud. They give me such attention because I’m young and new and female, and I bow beneath its burden.

  At the end of the parade, as I’m stepping out of formation, a man presents his hand to me. He is graying at the temples but has sharp, intelligent eyes. “Thank you for your service.” His handshake is firm, strong, and I grin back.

  “Thank you for yours,” I start to say, seeing his black hat with the Vietnam insignia.

  A cannon goes off. The crowd claps but I hit the ground, flat on my ass, legs spread inelegantly, and with no recollection of how I got here. I’m dazed for a moment, surrounded only by legs, slowly realizing what I’ve done: I’ve hit the deck in front of all the crowd, in front of all these veterans who’ve seen worse things, violent, bloody things, and I’m the only one who flinched.

  Then hands clamp onto my upper arms and pull me to my feet. “You can always tell the ones who went over.” The Vietnam veteran holds me up, his grip firm and comforting as if he can will his strength down his arms and into my body, his gaze resilient, daring me to look back at him and be all right. I want to sink into that stronghold, that embrace, the commonality that might bridge that chasm I always feel between everyone else and me. I’m so tired and I want to rest.

  But I haven’t earned this PTSD. I glance around, avoiding his eyes, ashamed. The girl dropped to the ground, of course it was the girl. So instead of accepting his kindness I flash him a quick smile. “Thank you, I’m fine,” I say hurriedly, not really looking at him, pulling out of his grasp. And the skin is already crawling at the back of my neck, every muscle tightening, tensing for the next impending explosion. I already know I’ll hit the ground again, in front of them all, so I escape quickly. Not running but fast, get out before the next blast, get into the car where no one can see you cry, and I have to remember to breathe, to let out a hiss of air between clenched teeth, red-faced, shamed, because nothing that bad happened to me, so why am I like this?

  The veteran calls after me, saying, “It’s okay, don’t be embarrassed,” but I’m out of there before he can finish his sentence. It must have resonated with him somehow, because he writes a few paragraphs in the local newspaper a few days later, to the Iraqi female veteran. And he wants to tell me that it’s okay, to never be sorry for the things I’ve seen; that he wants me to hold my head up high, and that he gets it. He gets it. And I should’ve written back somehow, to thank him for those few words, those short seconds, but I’m still too ashamed, because what did I see? What really happened to me? So little, so very little in comparison. And so I pull my PTSD close against my chest, afraid to let anyone see, lest they ask me why, why, and what can I say? I have nothing to say.

  * * *

  I join the Connecticut National Guard in 2005. I’m not ready to be separated yet, to be cut off from that thing which is bigger than me. I need the uniform and the purpose that comes with its sharp lines.

  I see war on the news and I ache. There is no draft anymore, and service members are devoured by the machine, crunched between gears and spit back out, accumulating years of war, accumulating PTSD, and TBI, and broken bones and shattered limbs, redeploying and redeploying, silently marching forward again and again and it should be me. My fifteen months are short, I feel useless here in the civilian world, sitting behind a desk as a mechanic shop office manager, guilty, as soldiers line up for yet another deployment, backs bowing slightly more with each rotation, and it should be me. I wear my civilian life with scarlet shame and guilt. I don’t want to go back, I never want to go back, but how can I not when everyone else is?

  So I join the National Guard as a journalist. I don’t want to return to Iraq, but I’m soothed by the possibility that I could go, that I’m still doing my part. If I don’t go, it’s not my fault, I didn’t hide; blame my unit for not sending me. But for now I’m safe on parade detail on the streets of Hartford. Right now, my biggest concern is that this Veterans Day parade runs smoothly. No one knows my secrets here in this little unit far removed from active-duty life. I preen before the crowd in my uniform, still in love with the sandy colors and the combat patch over my shoulder. The national anthem plays and I salute, pride closing my throat and causing my vision to blur.

  Boom. A cannon explodes, a sound of celebration, and I’m on the pavement again, gravel digging into my palms. People stare, every head turned, eyes black and watching. I scramble to my feet, the anticipation of another boom strangling me. I feel the second explosion in my gut, and I crumble, pushing off the pavement with fingertips, clinging to the brick wall for stability. I never reacted this way in Iraq: Mortar, IED, and EOD explosions were par for the course. So why now? When there is no real danger, why must I react now?

  I push through bodies, ignoring the way they swivel to watch. I escape down an alley, radio crackling to life as I gasp that someone needs to take my post. At the next boom my knees buckle and I’m hyperventilating, slapping my hands against a locked glass door, desperate to get inside, as if that will somehow soften the blow.

  A police officer finds me curled in the brick doorway, pressed against the glass with fingers twisted in my hair, covering my ears as I dig my
heels against the pavement. “Come in here,” he coaxes, opening the door to his squad car.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I mumble, frantically pushing away tears. “I’m so stupid,” I confess.

  “It’s all right, it’s perfectly normal.” He turns up the music to drown out the next cannon cry.

  I don’t think this is normal.

  * * *

  Then there is the aftermath, standing ashamed in front of my sergeant’s desk. “I don’t think you should re-enlist,” he confides, with what seems like genuine concern. “We could be deployed and this”—he gestures toward me—“could only get worse.”

  I hold on to the edge of my uniform as he speaks, as if by gripping it tight enough, I can ensure that it can’t be taken away from me.

  But it can. And it is.

  * * *

  No one really explained the dusky film that settles over civilian life, how the safety breeds a mind-numbing boredom, how everything feels a little dead. I’m not meant for this, I think, watching everyone content in the endless movement from A to B, as if only partially aware of the feeling of life. I ache maybe not so much for Iraq, but perhaps the uniform, the power behind the M16, the comradery in misery, the space that is mine. I have no place here, I think. The words that escape from my mouth are too quick, too brutal, and civilians cringe a little when I talk. I’m other, an oddity, all the more rare for being a woman in this masculine identity, the Veteran.

  I’m not meant for this. I stare down at my office keyboard, deeply entrenched in civilian life. The computer screen is filled with numbers and columns, and there’s a bitter taste in my mouth. I shift in my seat, skin twitching. The four half-section walls of my cubicle are suffocating me. Looking at their blue padding I have the sudden urge to claw up over them, to stare down at my blind, fish-eyed co-workers and hiss “You’re all dead,” feeling trapped and cornered by the onward march of the mundane, the ringing phones and mechanical grins and incessant typing, everyone doing something that is nothing.

  * * *

  Then there is the car accident on a rainy afternoon, when the Subaru skids across the highway, elegantly hydroplaning, rear end swinging around to the front, a ballerina twirl until the tires slam into the hard ditch on the edge of the double lanes, having crossed traffic and misplaced itself in the wrong direction.

  No one screams. There is quiet horror as we spin, and a moment of silence after the vehicle finally stops. Four people in the car and three of them exhale. The driver is clinging to the steering wheel; the college girl in the back, a tiny blond swimming in her gray university sweatshirt, is trembling.

  I’m in the passenger seat, one hand lightly touching the seat belt, and in the dead silence of the car I tilt my head back, crack open my mouth, and laugh. I remember this feeling! I laugh from the gut, with my whole body, because I remember this. It reminds me of the time in Iraq, during my first R&R, when Delta forces traded volleys of mortars with insurgents over the river, and a stray mortar soared over our stone wall, crashed into our compound, sliced a tree in two, but didn’t detonate. If it had, we all would’ve been dead. We crowded around the dud shell, marveling at the shattered wood, the way it planted itself deep into the soil but never exploded, and commented on the kill radius, which expanded way beyond us in our little stone bunker.

  “How was R&R?” Sergeant Baum asked when I returned.

  “A mortar hit our compound thirty feet away from us but didn’t explode,” I gushed. “We almost died.” Because almost dying is bragging rights.

  I laughed, he laughed, so now I laugh.

  The driver turns to me, appalled, jaw a little slack. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” I giggle, fist pressed against my lips as I try to swallow my laughter.

  “She’s in shock,” says the guy in the back, and that almost puts a damper on my mood.

  I swing around toward him. “I’m not in shock,” I snap. I know what shock is, and this is not it.

  “We almost died,” the little blond whispers.

  I’m back to smiling again. “But we didn’t die. That’s why it’s funny.”

  “It’s not funny,” she says back softly.

  But I think it is. They’re reminded of death, but I’m reminded of feeling alive, brain synapses lighting up like fireworks, remembering that delightful space right at the cusp of life, so I laugh, and finally realize there’s probably something wrong with me.

  * * *

  After that the crying starts.

  I’m standing at the edge of a festival in my hometown, my mother and brother deep somewhere inside the crowd, but I’m walking the outskirts, for some reason unable to dive into the throng. I take a few steps in, then instinctively find myself back out, as if pushed by some invisible barrier. Each time I stop, Dorian Gray leans against me, his weight pressed against my legs, face tilted up at me, watching my face.

  An older woman pauses and touches my wrist, causing me to visibly startle. “Are you okay, honey?”

  “What?” I blink at her. For some reason my vision is blurred. “I’m fine,” I say. But when I touch my cheek, my fingertips are wet. “What the fuck?” I brush the heel of my palm across my eyes, realizing I’m leaking.

  “I’m sorry,” I mumble, pulling away, dashing for my car with my head down, one fist digging into my stomach, as if to hold my insides in. I coil around Dorian in the car, wet cheeks buried into his fur, and he sits quiet, holding up my weight with his perpetual calm. I have no idea why I’m crying, and that in and of itself seems absurd.

  And so I begin to cry randomly and inexplicably. No emotion is too small—happy or sad, frustrated or delighted, I regulate nothing. It’s the worst kind of punishment for the once-soldier who prided herself on the impression of strength and masculinity. Soldiers don’t cry. At least not where everyone can see them.

  I make a tally of my symptoms, a little checklist that is startling—nightmares, jumping at loud noises, hypervigilance, difficulty sleeping, rage, inability to regulate emotions—and realize that maybe, just perhaps, I have some post-traumatic stress. I silently wonder if any of the others got it, as if it’s some contagious disease, or if I’m the only one who got infected. Does female King have trouble sleeping at night? Does Sergeant Daniels think of the mortars, the IEDs, the bullets? Does Locke dwell on her time in the turret seat, lost beneath a Kevlar and a flak vest? Am I the only one, the weakest link, fracturing while everyone else stayed whole? Will everyone snicker, just softly, beneath their breath, when they hear that I’ve caught the disease, and say to themselves, to each other, “Of course it would be Dostie. It wouldn’t be anyone else but Dostie.” I don’t ask because I’m afraid of the answer.

  I call the Veterans Affairs hospital for guidance and somehow end up at Compensation and Pension. “We’ll send you paperwork,” says a woman on the line, who isn’t nasty, but isn’t friendly, either. A robot would be just as effective. “Are you going for therapy?”

  I pause, sitting on my couch and drawing one knee up to my chin. “No.”

  “You should,” she says curtly, “if you want to get paid.”

  “If I want to get paid?”

  “You’ll get a higher rating if you’re going to therapy,” she tones, voice flat, as if her attention is elsewhere.

  “I’m not looking for a disability rating,” I respond. I’m looking to stop crying.

  “Sure.” She doesn’t sound like she believes me. But she sends the paperwork regardless, and I shift through the lines and questions, filling out each block accordingly, until I get to 3E: DESCRIPTION OF THE INCIDENT. It provides a sizable box of space that somehow is both too large and too small. Dread fills my stomach. I tap my pen against the paper, stand, walk across the room, then come back. The box stares up at me, empty and fat. Describe the incident. Write it here because it should be that easy.

  Never mind that writing down the event will later be the basis of my fourteen-week cognitive behavioral therapy. Never mind that I will fear
each session, standing at the door of my apartment, one hand on the doorknob, and sob, because I won’t want to go, I won’t want to talk about it, and I certainly won’t want to commit it to paper, where someone else could read it and judge for themselves. It will take years of therapy before I can scratch out “the incident” for an undergraduate thesis, and more therapy mixed with bottles of benzodiazepines and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors before I can fully commit, can wholly describe it, hunched over a laptop in a local coffee shop, punching out each letter, jumping up periodically and pacing around the shop, wasting time, procrastinating until I force myself to sit, hunch, write the next sentence, repeat, a herculean effort as laborious as birth but not nearly as beautiful.

  So I don’t provide a description of the incident then. I jam the half-finished form into its manila folder and toss it in the mail, counting on my records to show something. Except I’ve forgotten that Fort Polk has lost any and all of it.

  We were always told to keep copies of any military document for our own records, just in case. Before I out-process from Fort Polk, I dash over to the hospital to stand awkwardly in line at the information desk. When it’s finally my turn, I shuffle up to the desk and lean over the hard linoleum counter. “I need a copy of my rape kit report,” I whisper to the man on the other side.

  He blinks at me, freezing in mid-place, one hand still clenching a file. “Your what?”

  “The rape kit report?” I lean further so that I don’t have to say it any louder.

  The soldier is young, probably just some clerk hardly past his teens. He flushes red and fumbles with the computer. “I don’t…do we have that here?”

  His embarrassment rubs off on me, and I turn crimson. “I was told you would.” I don’t make eye contact. Not that he does either, of course.