by Paige Wetzel
The cycle had been torture. Josh would call early in the week to let me know he had a mission that week and wouldn’t be back on the base until the end of the week. They would leave for the mission; I would get a communication blackout email; Josh would call me when he returned, both of us aware that yet another member of his battalion was either injured or killed; and we would make small talk. We would try to text and message each other through different apps. I was not ready for our conversations to be all about avoiding the obvious. I was not ready for the emails. I was not ready to be alone. I was not ready for Josh’s family to ask me how he was doing. I was not ready to pretend like this whole thing was about letting the time pass. Trying to do things to occupy my mind was the most emotionally taxing thing I have ever done. How can I endure this for another nine… eight… seven months? Wow! It’s already been two months! Ugh. It’s only been two months…
CHAPTER FIVE
INCOMING
Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who shall go for us?” And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”
—Isaiah 6:8
PAIGE
Following March 22 my prayer life was dormant. I don’t mean that I didn’t pray, but there was no life in my prayer. I asked God to protect Josh and his guys, but I felt like I was asking for something that God was already in control of. What was my prayer going to change about anything? Deep down, I just felt like saying, “God, You know more about it than I do, so just do whatever You think, I guess.” My prayers had no expectancy behind them. It’s not that I didn’t believe in God’s power; I just didn’t believe my words could activate it. I defaulted to what I had always believed: God was making His corporate-level decisions, and I just needed to pray for the people in my circle to be spared.
But they weren’t being spared; the emails kept coming in. I received blackout emails every week, followed by the report of injury or death. There was no point in asking Josh questions, because giving answers was not allowed.
His family asked me so many questions during his deployment that I just could not answer. Not only was I not hearing from Josh on a regular basis, but his family heard from him even less. They didn’t receive the blackout emails. They hadn’t seen the faces of the deployed soldiers I saw walking to the bus in March. His family sent him messages and care packages and had their own countdown calendar, but I didn’t want to risk Josh’s safety or an emotional breakdown by telling his family the truth. So, I gave short responses and avoided answering the phone, blaming it on the time difference. Isolation was never my plan, but keeping quiet about how things really were for me was the only safety net I had.
I sat in Josh’s hospital room while he went back into surgery. It took less than a week at Walter Reed to realize we were still very much living an Army life. Walter Reed, a premier military hospital and rehabilitation center, followed strict military protocols. Whenever we felt like we had conquered a medical hurdle, such as sitting up in the bed, eating a full meal, or just surviving a surgery, military policy and procedure had the power to demand more from us. I knew they had jobs to do and patients to track, but these great moments of clarity where Josh would brag on his guys were so hard to come by, and they were constantly interrupted by pain, fatigue, fevers, or nurses’ checks. Every time someone came in just trying to check a box, I was being robbed of time that gave me hope. I needed those moments, even if they were suggestive of a few skeletons in the closet. When those clear moments faded, I feel like all I did was watch him try not to suffer. He sat in a hospital bed twenty-four hours a day. He had surgery every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, each for at least nine hours. When he wasn’t in surgery, he was drifting in and out of a drug-induced consciousness, often confused about where he was and in extreme amounts of pain. While he slept, he was restless and stressed. Our room was also a revolving door to anyone who wanted to come in. Josh was a critical care patient, which meant we did not have the authority to keep our door shut. We easily saw a dozen different people in a day, ranging from nurses and doctors to Army officers, physical therapists, and psychologists. Josh did whatever he could to get those people out of his room as fast as possible. Observing Josh under constant stress, I felt like it was not my place to tell him how to handle his situation, even though I felt like some visitors were worth more of our time.
I continued to read from Josh’s journal while waiting for him to return from surgery. Reading his own words made me feel like I knew my husband less and less. I didn’t see Army Specialist Josh Wetzel. I saw a light-hearted adrenaline junkie who just rolled with the punches of life. He influenced me to be more positive and relaxed, even though he was the one preparing for war. Accepting that this journal full of trauma was written by this helpless person who couldn’t even brush his own teeth filled me with both sadness and gratitude. I dealt with some disbelief that someone I was so close to had seen these things with his own eyes, things that were much worse than any hallucination or narcotic could put in his head. My heart ached for his future with this cross to bear, knowing I would never know everything that happened over there. On the other hand, I had the same feeling I had when I learned that his explosion did not break his neck and knock him out—pure gratitude that even through all this trauma and all the medication, my Josh was still in there. A guy who was reaching for why God had let him live and still loved me deeply.
JOSH
I don’t remember specifics about my first weeks at Walter Reed, because every day felt the same. It took me almost a full twelve hours to recover from being under anesthesia, and being put under three days a week left me really foggy. However, I always had family with me. My mom and Paige were constants, but I also had amazing help from my aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends who would drive all the way to Washington, DC, to help. Paige was exhausted, and rightfully so—she crossed three time zones to meet me at Walter Reed and had not been able to rest since arriving. There was so much chaos going on during this time. The main focus was still trying to keep me alive. For the first three weeks I only slept about an hour at a time but was always woken up by pain, fever, vomiting, and so on. If Paige or Mom did not respond fast enough, it was possible that I would code. I kept them very busy. Then when things did calm down, it was because I was high as a kite. I would fall asleep in the middle of speaking a sentence and just talk nonsense because of the drugs—accusing them of things like flickering the lights or turning the TV down or taking my stuff.
Emotionally, I wasn’t capable of much, but I can remember that when my brain would clear up from the drugs, I always had one motive: gaining independence. I understood how injured I was, but every limb was splinted from top to bottom. I couldn’t brush my teeth, feed myself, sit up, or scratch my own face. I would scheme ways of talking doctors into unwrapping my elbow or letting me take a spin in a wheelchair. Just something to show for all this time that I couldn’t be in Afghanistan doing what I was supposed to do.
As a few more weeks passed, I was able to have small windows of clarity. The fog would lift for a moment, just long enough for my mind to drift. I was thinking back to the day I failed that run during Q Course. I could have run that in my sleep. I’d been in the course for fifteen months, and I was dropped for failing a run? How had I let this happen? I remembered my concern and embarrassment when I had to tell my dad. And then telling Paige was like icing on a cake made of failure. I had so many people pulling for me, and I felt like I had let so many people down. Not only did I fail out of the Q Course, but suddenly all our plans changed, and I had to prepare to deploy, something I had thought was way down the road.
Then my thoughts drifted from that horrible run to being in the big meeting room on post during a Family Readiness Group meeting before deployment. FRG leaders are typically the wives of the company commanders, who act as liaisons from family to deployed soldiers. I couldn’t help but notice the age range. Some guys were right out of high school, and some were older than my parents. All were preparing to be foot
soldiers in Afghanistan. I remember thinking, This is the group. These are the people I’m deploying with.
During the meeting, the first sergeant showed us a slideshow of maps of where we would be and the dos and don’ts of a deployment. I listened to the information, but thinking about it now, I can’t say that I was really absorbing what I was hearing. I obviously had no prior experience with deployments. I just knew they were hard, and I assumed we wouldn’t get to talk to our spouses much. The piece of information that struck a nerve with Paige was the only reason I could leave the deployment other than injury: death of immediate family. Immediate family means mother, father, wife, or child. So, if one of my sisters passed away, I would not be allowed to come back for the funeral. My grandparents, aunts, uncles, or cousins wouldn’t count. For this small-town Alabama man, that was hard to comprehend.
I am not one to express my feelings very much, but on the inside, I remembered being terrified of what to expect. I had done a little research on the area where we would be deploying, and that didn’t help my fears. Everything I read pointed to this being one of the most dangerous places in Afghanistan, an area the enemy would fight for with relentless abandon. I was hoping to keep this information to myself so I wouldn’t worry Paige, but I knew this FRG meeting would spark questions that I would inevitably have to answer. I’ve been told numerous times that I do not have a healthy fear of anything, and I would have agreed until I was asked to go to Afghanistan. Fighting an unconventional enemy scared me. The Taliban has no rules, and they wanted to die for their country. It’s like in sports, when you travel to play someone at their home field. We were literally going to fight an enemy who was undefeated on their home field.
I also thought of how I felt later that evening after the FRG meeting. I was trying to decide which terrible thought to start discussing with Paige, but then suddenly my mouth started speaking before my mind could catch up. I began telling Paige what I had heard about Afghanistan, and then unexpectedly I was crying—my mouth and my eyes really needed to get their act together. Paige was on her way to the closet when she suddenly froze in her tracks. My choking sob, her looking back at me, and my swirling thoughts of deployment—it was like I was viewing the scene from above. Now, I’ve been known to cry during sappy movies and when babies are born, and I will admit to glistening eyes on our wedding day, but I have never cried out of fear.
Ironically, once I got to Afghanistan and the action began, something changed about my fear. Afghanistan wasn’t like what we had prepared for—it was worse. But I didn’t lock up when I heard bullets flying for the first time or the dozens of times after. The fear became motivation. I never froze. The minute I heard us taking enemy contact, I would hit the ground and start unloading my M240 in the direction of the bad guys while my platoon got to cover. All I could think was, If I don’t get after them as hard as they are getting after us, somebody on my side is going to get hurt. Suddenly, I didn’t really care what happened to me. I only cared about what happened to my friends. That thought broke the reservoir of adrenaline that I had been missing for so long. I was going to make sure nothing happened to my friends.
Now I was on the other side of the world, out of harm’s way, and I could do nothing to help them. I was so thankful it was me that got hurt. I knew I could take this. But I didn’t know what I would do if someone else became an amputee or got killed. I could have kept everyone else safe—I found over thirty IEDs after I volunteered to be the minesweeper. I gave up being the 240 gunner to volunteer to carry the metal detector because I was always very careful to take care of the guys who were walking with me. Who would do that job now? Would they care as much about the lives walking behind them as I did? I’m really thankful for the days when I can remember the things I saw on my deployment. It gave me hope that the drugs and the trauma from landing on my head hadn’t completely messed up my memory. But my deployment was still going on. I prayed so hard that I would be the only amputee, but I didn’t think that would be the case.
Please, God, help me go back to sleep.
JOSH’S JOURNAL ENTRIES
13 APRIL 2012
It’s my [26th] birthday today. It makes me miss home more. No patrols today. We keep getting intel about the Taliban trying to overrun our COP. I hope we are prepared for that.
14 APRIL 2012
Today started out like any other day. Joking around, thinking it’s going to be a good day. We were getting ready to go on ground lock. It was the first time I ever took the VC [vehicle commander]. We had three trucks total. In the first truck was Sgt. Derick Gamez, the driver, Private Dortch, PFC Eric Cress, and Private James Muma on the rear hatch. The second truck was SSG Murphy, SPC Williams, Private Anderson, PFC Victor Guevarra on rear hatch. The third truck contained me (VC), Sgt Bill Kearney (squad leader), PFC Kyle Peters and PFC Brent Buffington were on rear hatch, and PFC Jarraid “Hendo” Henderson was the driver. We were almost to our positions when I heard the boom from the lead truck that had just turned a corner around a wall. I knew they had gotten us again. The IED had hit the lead truck causing it to immediately burst into flames. Nobody saw it coming. Immediately we knew it was bad. We couldn’t see the truck from our position, but we knew. The black smoke told us it was really bad… Sgt. Gamez, one of the toughest guys I know came running to the second truck trying to get help. He grabbed a litter (a rescue gurney) off the second truck and started running back toward the explosion. I could tell by the way he was running that he was messed up. Then I heard “We have a casualty” over the radio. The second truck got out and cleared to the lead truck and started pulling people out. I saw Sgt Gamez and Private Muma dragging somebody to the second vehicle. It was the driver of the first truck. He was messed up bad. They put him on a litter and brought him to our truck. Immediately, I could smell burning flesh. His hands and face were black, he had a tourniquet on both legs, which looked completely charred from the fire. I later learned that Gamez and Muma actually pulled him out of the burning truck because the impact had broken both of his femurs.1
We drove back to the COP as fast as possible. When we got there the medics were ready.… The other truck pulled up and behind us and people started pouring out. Cress and Dortch both collapsed as soon as they got out. The impact of the explosion along with smoke inhalation caused them to almost pass out. We grabbed two more litters for them and ran them into the aid station. We left the burning lead truck behind with third platoon. Rounds were cooking off with the AT4 and LAW both exploding…
Usually I would be an emotional wreck, don’t get me wrong, I still teared up some, but today I wasn’t. Today was our platoon’s first casualty. The first time I have seen someone this messed up. It didn’t scare me. I’m not scared. I know I still have a mission I have to accomplish. Even though they were all messed up, they are alive and will be able to live normal lives. Our platoon still hasn’t had a death or an amputee. I’m sure it is coming soon, but right now I’m just going to thank God for his blessings.
18 APRIL 2012
I am starting to understand why this is the home of the Taliban. Not only is the desert a perfect place for transporting equipment, but the people also support the Taliban. They are very uneducated and easily intimidated by Taliban members. I was on ground lock with our interpreter today and I was talking to him about the locals. He said this is the first place he has been where the locals do not want to help us. I think the reason is because we do not help them enough. The Taliban can promise so much to these people like money, food, and protection. If the locals refuse to cooperate, they will just hurt their family in some awful way. I have also heard rumors that we will be out of Mushan in 90 days. That is going to upset a whole lot of people in our company. We don’t want to turn this place over so the Taliban can freely rule the area again. That defeats the whole purpose of what we are doing now. People feel like it’s so important to get out of this war, but when we do, it’s not going to be finished at all.
22 APRIL 2012
Tod
ay, 1st platoon almost got hit by an IED. They were on patrol when a command wire IED blew up right in front of them. Nobody was injured, but they didn’t find the detonation point.
We have a pretty full week ahead of us. Tomorrow, we have a patrol in Dohab. Then, tomorrow night we are going to support an ambush by the ANA. On Tuesday, we go straight to ground lock again. Wednesday, we have Force Pro classes all day. Thursday we go on a rather large patrol and it could be dangerous. We are going to Kanizay. This place is where bad things usually happen. It is the only place I am scared to go. But, this time we are taking the ANA and the ANP [Afghan National Police]. The place is “deserted” but it is my belief that the Taliban live there and run their operations out of there. I am ready to change that. People here would not just desert a place that their family has lived in for many years. A deserted place means someone has run them out.
25 APRIL 2012
Today I got pretty shaken up. A [local] kid was brought to our COP by his father. [He was probably four or five years old.] The kid had been shot in the head by a stray bullet during a firefight. I thought he was dead when I first saw him. He still may not live, but I know he is in good hands now. I respect my 1st Sergeant more now too because he flew the kid and his father to the hospital in Kandahar without hesitation.
[This child was actually placed in Josh’s arms, and those who were present tried to take him to a medical tent and do CPR on him. The child had lost too much brain mass out of the exit wound in the back of his head to be revived. The child was handed back to his father and the two were flown to Kandahar. Josh does not know what happened to him after that.]
26 APRIL 2012
Today was a long day. It started last night when I was told I would be carrying 800 rounds of ammo. That is a lot of rounds for a gunner to carry. Then this morning when we left for patrol, our third truck was hit by an IED. No serious injuries though… The chaplain came with us on patrol today too—good way to get broken in. I sucked the entire patrol; those rounds were so heavy. Just when I thought the day was over, we went to the chow hall and started taking indirect fire. A mortar round ripped through the tent ceiling and out the side wall while we were eating. No one knew what to do at first, then finally the interpreter screamed “INCOMING!!”