by Paige Wetzel
I got my first phone call from Josh about thirty-six hours after they left. He called to say that they were in Alaska waiting on their next flight. Then, things were quiet for another thirty-six hours.
Quickly, my world revolved around getting to talk to Josh. He was eleven and a half hours ahead of me, so we were at almost perfectly opposite ends of each day. About a week following his deployment, these short messages became my lifeline.
March 31, 2012
From Josh Wetzel:
Hey baby. I’m sorry. I am getting them [referring to countless emails I had sent]. Everything is just so crazy because everyone isn’t here yet and I am pulling 6 on 6 off guard shifts. I’m not going to be able to call you tonight. Maybe after I get off guard tomorrow which will be about midnight your time. Things will get better, I hope, baby. I will call when I get off guard. Don’t stay up. I will call more than once and try to wake you up. I love you sooooooooo much.
I kept my phone close when I was getting close to the end of my shift. A strange six-digit number would call, and I would run out of the room to listen to his voice for just a few minutes as several other soldiers also needed to use the phone. I quickly learned that Josh tried to keep me up to date with what was happening to him in real life. He would call or message with updates about his first mission or what was happening on base. I learned that whether missions ranged from one day to a week, going “outside the wire” usually meant they were looking for IEDs or someone in particular that was affiliated with IEDs. Josh had explained what an IED was, but they didn’t seem to pose any imminent threat to him. It seemed that they knew the tactics used to create these explosives and they had the technology to find and dispose of them. The nature of their living conditions on post did not provide the means for modern communication. Once the base finally got internet, it was still very spotty and couldn’t withstand more than one or two people using it at a time. Josh and I discovered that we could text via Skype, so that became the best way I had to check in with him. I was texting him probably three times more than he was texting me, but I kept thinking about how he might react if he saw constant encouragement coming through from me. I would send him several messages a day, but the typical response was maybe a sentence or two that came in the middle of my night (his day). Because communicating was so difficult, I felt justified in stopping whatever I was doing to answer the phone. I also vowed to never end the conversation. I would let his schedule decide when we needed to hang up. I hated hanging up, but when we did, I would let him go and think, I can do this. Yes, this deployment is going to be long, but all I have to do is get from phone call to phone call. Two or three a week, and this will go by quickly. I’m feeling as good as I can about this. We are going to be proud of what we did when this is all over.
No matter what I thought was going on during the initial weeks of his deployment, as Josh started to unravel his deployment story as he lay in bed at Walter Reed, I quickly realized I had been greatly misinformed—by my own husband. While I was adjusting to military life and readjusted to deployed military life, my husband was adjusting to hell on earth. My daily routine of living the mundane was only a pinpoint on the larger picture of Josh’s story. His pleasantries and stories of the mundane were a ploy to not have me pick up on reality. And I was happily believing it.
Those cheery check-ins always had a trace of dishonesty. I just sidestepped my concerns and listened to the glossy version of what life on the front lines was like. Whether I totally believed it or not, it would become the narrative in my mind until the next phone call. That was way better than the places my imagination could go.
As Josh talked about his deployment, the mail cart arrived with a package. Josh had been in the intensive care for the first six days at Walter Reed Medical Center. Once his pain regimen had proved sufficient over consecutive days, he was finally stable enough to move onto the fourth floor: the Wounded Warrior Unit. This was an entire floor of approximately seventy beds for wounded soldiers. This floor wasn’t too different from the ICU other than it had a door instead of a curtain, and apparently your mail finds you after a couple of weeks. I was awkwardly puzzled to receive something that was once so customary. Someone is trying to send us something? Then I remembered giving Doc the address! It was the journal Josh had asked him to send me just moments after he was injured. He skimmed the pages with relief, seeing that he had remembered to write down certain things about certain days. Then, he passed it to me and asked me to read it, too. Doc had originally contacted me following Josh’s incident because Josh wanted him to send me the journal he kept in Afghanistan. This journal was the only proof I had that Josh was processing the events around him. He wasn’t just seeing horrific or heroic things and calling it another day at the office; he was writing them down with the intention of talking about them later. As Josh’s state of consciousness shifted to a slightly more temperate place, he began to tell me the details of all the amazing things that happened on his deployment. “You just don’t understand how brave my guys are. They aren’t afraid of anything.” He was so thankful Doc had remembered to mail his journal to us because it would help him remember more details of the stories he wanted to tell. He even remembered every minute before stepping on the bomb that took his own legs.
JOSH
It was miserably hot walking along this dirt road, sweeping the metal detector back and forth as everyone walked behind me. I had already been on a ton of missions at this point, and I felt like I knew what to look for before my metal detector went off. But this day had a weird vibe that I couldn’t put my finger on. We decided to cut through an opening carved out of the mud wall separating the road from a grape field. Something sharpened in my posture as I approached this wall. At this point I had found dozens of IEDs and I thought, If I were to plant an IED, I would put it right here in this shortcut. So I swept in front of the opening, then swept again. Nothing. Safe to cross.
As I stepped across the opening to sweep the other side, I felt the ground explode beneath me. Suddenly, I could only see the blue sky, then the ground, then the sky again, as I flipped through the air. I felt my body slam against the ground, but I couldn’t hear it because my ears were ringing from the explosion. Through the dust, I saw people running toward me as I gave myself the once-over noticing the blood everywhere and my dangling fingers on my left hand. I confirmed Doc’s story with Paige. Yes, I asked if anyone had seen my sick flip and yes, I rubbed a fentanyl lollipop in the dirt because it was the wrong flavor.
After that was a long wait for a helicopter. I kept asking people to pour water on me because I felt like I was on fire. Doc told me that my legs were no longer there and judging by the sound of the explosion, I felt lucky that that was all I had lost. However, looking back on that day, I realized how hard it must have been for all my guys to stand there looking at me and pouring that water on me while we talked about barbecues and running legs.
Finally, the bird arrived to take me to Kandahar. When I left my guys, I felt everything changed. My adrenaline and determination to keep everyone positive quickly began to fade, and I just wanted to go to sleep. The flight medic kept telling me to stay awake. He was really getting on my nerves because every time I closed my eyes, he would ball up his fist and rub his knuckles across my sternum. Finally, he said, “I’m not going to be able to give you an IV because of the tourniquets on your arms, so I’m going to have to give you the FAST1.” Oh, heck no, I thought. I had heard about the FAST1, so I threatened this guy with all I had left, demanding that he not give it to me. He got out of my line of sight, and I thought that maybe he had changed his mind. Then, suddenly, he was on top of me, puncturing through my sternum with the nine-needled FAST1 to begin IV fluids (which explained the circle of nine scars Paige found on my chest when I got to Walter Reed). I told this man that I hated him and then begged God to let me make it to Kandahar. I never thought that I was going to die, but that was out of ignorance of the consequences of falling asleep. I was kept awake for the re
st of the flight and finally closed my eyes in Kandahar.
PAIGE
I didn’t ask many questions; I just listened. This was a large part of what I was thankful for: that Josh could remember what happened to him so no one else had to tell him. It was in these conversations that I learned Josh’s role as the team leader and that he volunteered to hold the metal detector, believing he could be the most effective with it. As we conversed with each other and with his platoon, we learned that the metal detector did not pick up this IED because it was the first nonmetallic IED they had encountered on their deployment. Instead Josh found a carbon rod IED, an explosive that is detonated with carbon parts rather than metallic parts like metal wires. We also learned that Sgt. David Brooks was injured, too, taking shrapnel to the face as he stood close behind Josh. He flew to Kandahar as well, though Josh was too busy fighting off the flight medic to remember. I was partially freaked out at some of the other tales but mostly thankful that Josh was telling them with such pride and honor. As he spoke, I not only learned a lot about the men he served with, but I also learned a lot about him, too. Josh completely defaulted to his training when the bullets were flying, but when the dust settled and the conflict ended, his mind and emotions were forced to catch up to what had happened. Each guy had a different way of coping. Josh took up smoking cigarettes and writing down the day’s events. Other guys played cards or lifted weights, all with the same intention of decompressing. Externally, he was focused, steadfast, and confident. Internally, his emotions were back and forth like a pendulum. One day he felt guilty for doing his job; the next day he didn’t. Some days he wanted to open up about his feelings; some days he hardly had anything to say. Some days it’s just a job; other days it’s your life or someone else’s.
JOSH’S JOURNAL ENTRIES
02 APRIL 2012
We went on our first patrol today. It was pretty nuts. We were on foot the whole time. We took contact about 1.5 hours into the mission. First, we took indirect fire. Then, I am not sure what happened. I just hit the ground and started firing. I saw rounds impacting in front of me. I couldn’t say if I was scared, excited, or what. It just happened. I didn’t even think about it. Then, when I got behind cover, I was pretty juiced up. When we took contact, we were in the middle of a field. It was probably the craziest thing that has ever happened in my life. We used every weapon we had with us: .50 cal, 240, SAW, 204’s, 320’s, and M-4’s. I’m just glad none of us were hurt.
07 APRIL 2012
We are on 72-hour ground lock right now and it is miserable! We have five people in a Stryker and we just sit in an area and “control it” for 72 hours. Being here and watching the kids makes me think though. These little girls make me so sad. They all remind me of my little sisters. I wish I could help them. The one I have been seeing today has been herding goats with her little brother. She is probably 11 and he is probably 7. They both just push these goats around the fields all day long. They do it with such ease. The little girl uses a stick to get 1 or 2 going then the rest follow. If there is a straggler, they throw rocks at it until it realizes it’s time to move. These people are completely different from us. They work so hard just to live. While in America, we can sit around and do nothing and still somehow make money.
The fighting season is starting to pick up significantly. More and more Taliban are coming from Pakistan every day. Not as many of the village elders are coming to the meetings with our leadership anymore. There are reports that the Taliban are threatening them and scaring them off. Hopefully we can get them back since they are an essential part of our mission.
I miss home pretty bad most days. I miss my wife and I can’t wait to see her again. Time is going by pretty quick though. It has already been a month since we left. That means we have about 8 months to go.
08 APRIL 2012
Things got a little more personal today. Our group that went out got into a firefight and when they were getting everything set up to go back to the base, the truck with my squad leader hit an IED. We were literally 150 meters from it. We couldn’t see it because it was behind a wall. I don’t understand why I wasn’t in that truck. It was my truck with my squad leader in it. I do thank God for my safety though. Nobody was hurt but the Stryker was disabled because the blast blew the two front wheels off. The craziest thing was we drove right over that spot on the way to our new ground lock location. [As I think about this now, it was very likely the bomb was there, and it did not detonate because placing it there between trips would have meant the Taliban pulled people out of a firefight to plant a bomb in broad daylight. The trucks must have barely missed it on the way out.]
09 APRIL 2012
I honestly thought we were going to go outside the wire today and not take any contact. I was wrong… The road we were on winds through a village. It starts out in a heavily populated area. Then, the buildings became abandoned and crumbling with poppy fields all around. It looks like a prime place to make HME [homemade explosives]. I am going to expect contact every time we go there. We keep taking fire from this grape hut in the middle of the fields but there is no safe way to get to it so we can’t assault it. Yesterday, the guys who were out got intel that the area was an ambush site… These Taliban seem to be getting braver as the fighting season drives on. I want to take the fight to them so bad, but rules make it hard. Most of the reason they fire at us is to get us to move into a certain area. Usually that area contains a bunch of IED’s. I wish the ANA [Afghan National Army] would search houses more. That way we could find the HME factories and maybe slow the IED’s down.
We also got intel that the Taliban leader is shipping a package of 500 RPG’s, 200 feet of detonation cord, 100 blasting caps, along with AK-47’s and ammo for them. The fight is about to get real.
11 APRIL 2012
Today we were out on patrol and took contact. We were on our way back to the COP. First, we were walking through a field and took what seemed like a good bit of fire, but we couldn’t see where it came from. Then, we bounded to cover and decided to assault the grape huts. While our flanking element was moving, we took contact again. Then, we moved across the field to our flanking element. Once we moved across and set up support by fire, our ground lock vehicle took five precision rounds to the driver’s window. That makes me nervous that now there is a sniper in our area of operation. I thank God every day for keeping my men and me alive. Nobody has been hurt yet and it’s a miracle. I feel like it’s only a matter of time. Either an IED is going to get someone or someone is going to get shot. I pray for my men so much. I love every one of these guys and do not want to see them get hurt. I don’t know what goes through my mind during a firefight. It worries me that I don’t get scared. All I think about is finding who shot at my guys and sending lots of rounds in their direction so they will stop shooting back.
PAIGE
As Josh shared his first entries from his journal, I couldn’t help but try to piece together what I would have been doing at the exact same moments he was writing. April 10, the day between two entries, had been my first experience with the blackout email. A week later, I had been coaching in a volleyball tournament when I saw the email with that dreadful subject line—“Loss of an Arrowhead Soldier”—and I had to sit down. I must have looked like I had seen a ghost. One of my players asked if I was okay. I said I was fine and stuck my phone in my pocket as we walked onto the court to warm up for our match. I had been so determined to live in the moment, which might have been the first time I had ever done that in my adult life. That’s kind of terrible, isn’t it? Most people can remember the atmosphere of their wedding dance or winning a college championship, both of which I had done, but I spent most of my brain space trying to figure out what’s next. I couldn’t really live in the moment of our wedding dance because Josh and I had only two days to honeymoon and we needed to be hitting the road, not dancing. I couldn’t really live in the moment of winning a volleyball conference championship because I was so fired up about where we would be seed
ed in the NCAA Tournament. The first time I had ever shut out the problems around me was when I just could not bear to receive more bad news about Josh’s deployment.
Throughout the entire deployment, the longest we ever talked was fifteen minutes. I lived for phone calls and emails from Josh, especially after a communication blackout. I cared less and less about what I had to step away from to answer the phone.
I always pretty much screamed “Hey!!” into the phone every time I answered.
“Hey, babe, what’s up?” Josh would calmly say as if he were calling me on his lunch break somewhere in downtown Tacoma.
We had promised each other to keep conversations light and encouraging, but as time went on and Josh’s unit kept tallying casualties, our phone calls became awkward. What was the point in asking “How’s it going?” two days after someone in the other company was killed? From a duty standpoint, Josh couldn’t tell me anything anyway, but I believed the emotional consequences of bringing up someone’s death or serious injury could mentally throw him off, putting him in a bad mental state the next time he needed to go out and be focused. There was so much we couldn’t bring up, so we talked about volleyball and traveling and Cooper chewing the couch pillows.