Gabby

by Gabrielle Giffords

  This time, our weapons hit the target and we sank one of the ships. The other was sunk a short time later by another aircraft from our squadron.

  I ended up getting an award from the Navy for “heroic achievement” on that mission. You can’t celebrate awards like that. I was doing what my country asked me to do, and I recognize that there was great violence inherent in my act.

  I have no idea how many people were on those two ships. I did see men jumping into rafts as we flew away, so I know some of them lived.

  When the war began, a couple of men in our air wing decided they couldn’t serve in battle. They were left back on the Midway, standing watch as duty officers, ostracized by some of their comrades. Whether they were scared or just disagreed with the legitimacy of the war, they made a decision I wouldn’t make. As I saw it, I was trained as a combat pilot for a singular purpose—to deliver weapons to an enemy target when my country called. It wasn’t my job to question the decisions that put us in that position, at least not at twenty-six years old.

  I believed that 1991 war with Iraq needed to be fought. I still believe that. I was proud to serve. But I never lost sight of the sobering fact that I had a job, sanctioned by my government, that required me to kill a lot of human beings.

  I know the magnitude of what it means to use destructive force against people. I saw it as a twenty-six-year-old pilot flying combat missions off an aircraft carrier. I saw it again at age forty-six, on that terrible Saturday in Tucson.

  After Gabby was shot, and eighteen others were killed or wounded alongside her, I did a lot of thinking about the violence humans are capable of committing. Much of it is beyond senseless, like the gunman’s rampage in Tucson. But even violence with a purpose—including my missions in the skies over Iraq—requires solemn reflection. It can never be taken lightly.

  In my Navy career, I logged nearly six thousand hours in the air, flying fifty different aircraft. I landed planes on aircraft carriers 375 times. I’d risen to the rank of captain and was able to earn a master’s degree in aeronautical engineering from the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School. I also attended the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School. By 1994, I was a project test pilot on a variety of aircraft. My training and experience had left me with a pretty formidable résumé.

  The following year, at age thirty-one, I decided to apply to be an astronaut. Ever since I was a boy, I’d dreamed about the possibility that I’d be chosen. The job of an astronaut involved everything I was interested in: adventure, risk, speed, the unknown, and massive amounts of adrenaline. My high school girlfriend remembers me promising her that I’d be the first human on Mars. Back then, I had more confidence than experience, knowledge, or sense.

  As an adult, though, I knew the odds were long that I’d actually make it into the program. First, the Navy had to agree that I was qualified enough to have my application packet forwarded to NASA. About 2,500 military personnel and another 2,500 civilians apply for each NASA class. For the upcoming class, NASA would end up taking just thirty-five Americans and nine international candidates—two Canadians, two Japanese, an Italian, a Frenchman, a German, a Swede, and a Spaniard.

  I was lucky, though. The first step went my way. The Navy agreed to send my application on to NASA. A few weeks later, I was having dinner with my brother, and I told him he ought to apply, too. He and I had similar résumés; he was a naval aviator and a test pilot. The Navy agreed to send in his application, too.

  I continued my military duties as an instructor at the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School in Patuxent River, Maryland. Almost a year later, out of the blue, I got a call to head down to Houston for a weeklong NASA interview. I didn’t have a business suit, so I borrowed the one suit my brother owned.

  I was nervous. I knew this was a real opportunity—a childhood dream within reach—and I didn’t want to screw it up. But I also knew that of the 120 candidates they were bringing down for interviews, half would be disqualified for medical reasons. It didn’t matter if you were in great health. They’d find some minor condition or something you didn’t even know you had—a heart murmur, imperfect vision, a missing kidney—and they’d cross off your name.

  The testing was intense and comprehensive. They took a lot of blood. They did a colonoscopy. They hooked me up to an EKG and put me in a sphere, curled up in the dark like a ball, while they watched my heart rate. If it went above a certain level, they’d figure I was claustrophobic and they’d dismiss me. I was pretty good in there. I just relaxed and went to sleep.

  Once I made it through the medical tests, the interview process followed. It was a twelve-on-one interview: twelve of NASA’s top officials and one of me.

  One of my inquisitors was John Young, the legendary astronaut who flew the first manned Gemini mission in 1965, went to the moon twice, and was the first commander of the space shuttle. He asked me a very technical question about the frequency of the flight-control computer on a plane I was flying then, the F-18 Hornet. I wasn’t sure, but I made the most educated guess I could. I must have been close because he seemed happy with the answer.

  The next day they told me they planned to invite my brother down for an interview, too. I thought that was a good sign that I’d done well in my interview. If I had done poorly, why would they want another one of me?

  When it was time for Scott’s interview, however, he realized he had a problem. He had just one suit, and I’d already worn it to my NASA interview. He thought it would be ridiculous to show up wearing the same suit his twin brother had worn.

  “Buy another suit,” I told him.

  “You should have bought another suit!” he said.

  He ended up wearing the same suit, and I let him borrow the shoes I’d worn down to Houston. It was a bit nuts. He decided to bring the matter to people’s attention before they noticed. “I bet something looks familiar,” he said, “and it’s not just my face.”

  Scott thinks that we both benefited from each other’s interview. Most candidates who get called down to Houston are technically qualified. Acceptance hinges on whether NASA officials and veteran astronauts connect with you and like you. Because they got a double dose of me and Scott, they had more time to get to know us, and we had more time to try to impress them.

  In the spring of 1996, I got the call first. It was Dave Leestma, head of Flight Crew Operations. I had learned that Dave would be placing calls to all those who were accepted, while the chief astronaut would call the candidates who were rejected. I was obviously thrilled to hear from Dave.

  “You did very well in the interview process,” he told me, “and we hope you’ll want to come down to Houston and work here as an astronaut.”

  I accepted immediately, trying to find the right words to express my gratitude. We talked for a few more minutes, and then I had to address my curiosity. I knew I normally wouldn’t get anywhere asking about another candidate for the job, but I couldn’t help myself. So I asked Dave: “Will you be calling my brother?”

  Dave answered, “Well, I usually wouldn’t say this, but yes, I need to talk to him as well. Do you know where I could find him today?”

  He didn’t say the chief astronaut—that bearer of bad news—would be looking for my brother. He said he’d be making the call. So I knew Scott had been accepted, too. I was incredibly proud and thrilled for both of us.

  Other twins may know what I was feeling. It was like a double triumph.

  Years later, after I met Gabby, I described for her the emotions I felt when I learned I’d been accepted into NASA’s astronaut program. “It felt better than winning the lottery would,” I told her. “I wouldn’t have traded that job offer for anything in the world.”

  My career path was slightly more conventional than Gabby’s—I never lived with Mennonites—but she saw us as kindred spirits. It wasn’t just that we were both ambitious and driven. It was also because, even though she was liberal arts and I was the sciences, we were fascinated by each other’s life and career choice. We were each other’s cheer
leader.

  It was especially thrilling for me to watch Gabby fall in love with the space program. My enthusiasm became hers and hers became mine. Her district had many connections to space research, from the local astronomy culture to the University of Arizona’s lead role in the Phoenix Mars Mission, which studied the history of water in the Martian arctic’s icy soil.

  In her congressional career, Gabby turned out to be both a geeky policy wonk and great advocate, serving as chair of the House Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics. Again and again, she spoke about the benefits of space exploration, and about the need to continue an ambitious and coherent national space policy. She could be tough, angry, and exasperated when NASA and its funders in government lost sight of the lofty goals of the nation’s earliest space pioneers. In congressional hearings, she never minced words.

  At one hearing regarding NASA’s uncertain future, in February 2010, she pointed to a proverb on the wall behind her: “Where there is no vision, the people perish.”

  “These words,” she said, “are as true today as when our forefathers undertook a voyage of discovery, when they landed on this continent and founded America as a city upon a hill, a beacon of light for the future world. . . . Our job as servants of the people, as members of this subcommittee, is to allow our scientists, our engineers, our researchers, our visionaries to be as bold in this undertaking as our faculties will allow.”

  Some of Gabby’s advocacy efforts were rooted in her understanding of me. She knew the grittiest details of my trajectory from directionless kid in New Jersey to military pilot to shuttle commander. Understanding how my dreams came true, she often thought about the young people today who deserve a chance to be the next generation of explorers. At that 2010 hearing, she said: “My concern today is not numbers on a ledger, but rather the fate of the American dream to reach for the stars. Should we falter, should we slip, should we let our dreams fade, what will we tell our children?”

  In the months after Gabby was shot, I’d think back to how she was always such an eloquent idealist. She had a contagious enthusiasm and a true gift for encouraging others, including me. And now, sadly, she had no choice but to focus on herself, to hope she’d again be able to master the simplest tasks.

  When I’d feel disheartened about all of this, it was helpful for me to think about Gabby kneeling beside Dr. Hawking, patiently waiting for his words to come. I may have rocketed into lower Earth orbit, but he had explored the entire universe from his wheelchair.

  Maybe big dreams were still possible—for me, for Gabby, and for our life together.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Baby Steps

  By late March, almost three months after Gabby was injured, she had graduated to more complex tasks in speech therapy. For instance, rather than just trying to identify and say words she saw in a series of photos, she was asked to think more deeply about what was going on in the pictures.

  In one session, her speech therapist, Angie, showed Gabby a photo of an envelope about to be mailed. It had an address on it. “What is missing from this letter?” Angie asked.

  Gabby brought the photo close to her face. She read the recipient’s address on the envelope. “Kansas,” she said.

  “Yes, the letter is going to Kansas,” Angie answered. “But what is missing?”

  Gabby studied the photo. She didn’t know what was missing, so Angie told her. “It’s missing a stamp. What will happen if an envelope is mailed and has no stamp on it?”

  There was no response from Gabby. Maybe she knew and couldn’t find the words. Maybe she didn’t know. Angie moved on.

  The next photo showed a motorcyclist. “What’s missing?” Angie asked.

  It seemed like Gabby knew the answer, but her word choice wasn’t exactly right. “Medical. Medical,” she said, waving her left hand over the photo.

  “It could be a medical issue, yes. Tell me what is missing.”

  “Scary. Scary. Medical,” Gabby said, and then touched her head. “Glasses,” she said, but as soon as the word came out, she knew it was wrong. She tried again. “Helmuh . . .”

  “Yes!” Angie said. “The motorcyclist is missing a helmet. And without a helmet, he could hit his . . .”

  “Head,” Gabby said.

  “And what would happen?”

  “Bump, bump,” Gabby answered.

  “What else?”

  “Brain injury. Brain injury.” Gabby had come to know those two words very well. They came easily to her. Her answer was a good one.

  Angie held up a third photo. It was a picture of someone drinking a glass of water. “What’s the matter with this?” Angie asked. “There’s a safety concern with this glass. Try to use words to tell me.”

  Gabby couldn’t answer.

  Angie prompted her. “The glass is . . .”

  “Green,” said Gabby. She could often come up with a common phrase or a snippet of a song lyric, though not always precisely.

  “Well, the grass is green, yes,” Angie said to her, “but this glass is . . .”

  Now Gabby found the word in her head. “Broken.”

  Angie wanted Gabby to think through the steps. “If you’re out for dinner and they give you a broken glass and you drink out of it, what might happen?”

  “Brain injury,” Gabby said. That was her fallback affliction.

  “No, not a brain injury, but you could get . . .”

  “Cut,” Gabby said.

  “What would you cut?”

  “Cut lip. Lip,” Gabby said.

  She’d gotten it. Angie smiled at her.

  When I sat in on such sessions, I was pretty good at being upbeat and encouraging, complimenting Gabby on her progress and urging her on when she was frustrated or tired. But it could be dispiriting sometimes, watching how tough this whole process was for her.

  Most of us have contemplated what it would be like if we were blind or deaf. I certainly have thought about that. But until Gabby was injured, I had never once considered how disabling it is to be unable to speak. What Gabby was dealing with was more debilitating. Those who are blind or deaf can engage with the world, they can communicate their needs and feelings. They can express themselves creatively. But especially in those early months, Gabby was locked inside herself. And that could be terribly disheartening, even for someone as optimistic and innately cheerful as Gabby.

  At one low point, I fantasized about making a deal with God. If Gabby could just regain the full use of language, it would be OK if she’d never walk again. I thought Gabby would make that agreement without hesitation. To be able to talk, she’d give up the ability to walk.

  There were no deals to be made, of course. All we could do was hope and pray and offer Gabby our optimism.

  It was important for us to keep reminding her that she was definitely making progress. That’s why I’m glad I had a lot of her therapy sessions taped. She was far more on target in this late-March session than she was just one month before. I had the old footage to prove it. Eventually, I showed Gabby some tapes, so she could see for herself.

  My forty-seventh birthday was February 21, and the day before, Gabby was in therapy with Angie, and they were singing together. My digital recorder captured it all.

  “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine . . .”

  Gabby was singing softly, but she seemed to be hitting every word. She wore a green sweater and a khaki cap over her short hair. She looked tired, but she was trying.

  Then Angie asked her to practice “Happy Birthday” so she’d be ready to sing for me.

  Angie and Gabby sang together, but when they got to the third line, Gabby sang, “Happy birthday, dear chicken . . .”

  “You’d better not say that on Mark’s birthday,” Angie said. “It’s ‘Happy birthday, dear Mark.’”

  Gabby tried again. Again she said “chicken” instead of “Mark.” Angie wrote my name on a piece of paper and held it up for Gabby. Again, she sang “chicken.”

  You could see how frustrated Gab
by was. Angie decided to move on to looking at photos. She held up a photo of a hairbrush.

  “Comb,” Gabby said.

  “It’s not a comb, it’s a brush,” Angie told her.

  Gabby said the words “boo hoo” and seemed ready to cry. She looked miserable.

  “Gabby, you’ve been amazing,” Angie told her. “It’s been just five weeks since you were hurt. It’s a long road but we can do it. Are you a fighter?”

  “Yes,” Gabby said, and used her left arm to deliver a positive fist pump.

  Angie showed some more photos. Gabby looked at a photo of a set of car keys and said “Tooth berry.” She looked at a photo of a desk lamp and said “Tooth berry” again. She’d been saying those two words together a lot. We didn’t know why and she didn’t either.

  Angie tried to get her more focused. “What are you wearing on your head?” she asked.

  “Chicken,” Gabby said, but then she tried to force the right word out of her mouth. She furrowed her brow and squinted her eyes as she thought. “Hack,” she said, finally.

  “Not hack,” Angie told her.

  “Hat,” Gabby said. She’d gotten it right, but she was overcome by a wave of emotion. She started crying.

  “You’re doing amazing,” Angie said. “Can I tell you something? It will get better. You’ve come a long way.” Angie rubbed Gabby’s back, then brought her a tissue. “Do you need a hug?”

  She and Gabby hugged, and as they did, the water bottle in front of Gabby fell over. Gabby’s tears were interrupted by a little giggle.