by Travis Mills
Kelsey took notes on all the information; Josh promised to call again as soon as he had any updates. After he hung up with Kelsey, he called my parents with the same news, and then contacted the commander of the hospital. Josh knew I’d be transferred to another hospital soon, and he asked to be transferred along with me. The commander was very helpful and said yes.
Our division commander was in Kandahar when I was there in the hospital, and he and army personnel held a brief Purple Heart ceremony right after I was brought out of surgery. This is the award given to soldiers when they’ve been wounded in battle. In a situation as grave as mine, they want to do this as soon as possible in case a soldier doesn’t live. I was still unconscious. Josh accepted the medal on my behalf. The division commander pinned it on my blanket. A picture was taken, which I’ve never seen. They were very supportive and said to relay to Kelsey their concerns and prayers.
The nurse brought Josh some of my personal effects that I’d had on me when I was wounded. Among them was my wedding ring. My ring finger had been destroyed, but one of the medics at the scene had thought to find the ring. It was caked with blood and dirt. Josh asked hospital staff for a couple of alcohol wipes. He sat in the hallway and painstakingly scrubbed until every bit of blood and grime was gone. I was still sedated, and this gave him something productive to do to take his mind off things, he said. He vowed that the ring would not be out of his possession until he could give it to Kelsey.
When the job was finished, he put my wedding ring in his pocket next to my Purple Heart.
—
Getting hit with an IED is like having a heap of broken bottles hurled at you by a pitching machine—an extremely powerful and completely vicious pitching machine. Any uncovered body part gets shredded.
Doctors said the stumps of my arms and legs looked as shredded as raw hamburger. Imagine your arm jammed into a meat grinder. Someone had turned the handle on me until huge amounts of my flesh and bone were simply gone.
Fortunately, Kevlar body armor had covered my torso and shielded me from the bulk of shrapnel, so my internal organs were intact. My heart was good. My liver, lungs, colon, and intestines were fine. My kidneys were shaken up but otherwise okay, and that was about it internally. In one place, shrapnel had ripped through my body armor and left a jagged golf ball–size hole. If I hadn’t had my armor on, I would have been ripped in half.
Unfortunately, body armor only goes over your trunk. Maybe someday they’ll design body armor for limbs, but right now a soldier couldn’t move if he had body armor on his arms and legs. I suppose limb armor could be hinged, but even then it would be too heavy. You couldn’t fight in it.
My helmet had protected most of my head. My brain was fine. I had glass shards and bits of rock embedded in my face and all through my cheeks. What the doctors couldn’t pick out was left to emerge on its own. For months a zit would pop and a piece of glass would come out.
My hearing and sight were okay.
My man parts were okay, if anyone’s wondering.
It was just the rest of me that was messed up.
—
I remember little about being in Kandahar. Altogether, I was there for a day and a half. From Kandahar, they transferred me to the U.S. hospital at Bagram Airfield. It’s officially titled the Heathe N. Craig Joint Theater Hospital, and its facilities are as good as any hospital in the United States. The transfer was a regular part of the process of evacuation. All casualties departing the theater go through Bagram, but I couldn’t tell you exactly what the reason is for this.
We flew to Bagram on a C-130. It’s a large four-propeller plane, and ours had been modified so the inside was a large functioning hospital room. Josh stayed with me throughout the transfer, and he said the plane was full, the casualties were stacked two high in cots, and the critical transport team was extremely professional.
But Josh couldn’t be next to me for every procedure. He wasn’t officially my next of kin either, so he wasn’t consulted on decisions that doctors needed to make quickly. Shortly after arriving in Bagram, on April 12, two days after being wounded, I was taken in for another surgery. Later, when Josh came into my room to check on me, my left hand had been removed. My forearm had been amputated just below my elbow.
Josh found a nurse, his eyebrows lowered, and he asked, “What the hell?!”
“It was necrotic” was all the nurse said. This happens when not enough blood flows to tissue and the tissue dies. She was matter-of-fact, cold.
Josh called Kelsey and relayed the information that I was now a quadruple amputee. He wanted his sister to hear this piece of bad news directly from him. He kept it together for Kelsey. Then he called his wife, relayed the same news to her, and broke down into tears.
—
Within a day or so I was transferred again from Bagram to the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, again as part of the normal evacuation process. We flew on a C-17 to Germany along with a critical care transport team. This time the casualties were stacked four high. Josh went with me and was able to stay in the holding barracks at Landstuhl.
Kelsey heard the news from Josh and wrote the following in her journal:
I haven’t been able to breathe since Tuesday at 11:53. I want so badly to talk to Travis, to touch him, to be by his side. It is killing me to sit here helplessly.
Today is April 13, 2010, and I have been in contact with his doctors and nurses in Germany. He had his third surgery today where they washed out his wounds. He is now in recovery with a slight fever of 101. His kidneys are working well and he is able to maintain a somewhat stable blood pressure on his own. He has opened his eyes a few times, and they are bringing him up to a light sedation. He opens his eyes on hearing his name or my name.
He is still on a ventilator to help him breathe, because he is so heavily sedated, but when they bring him to lighter sedations they turn it off and he is able to breathe on his own. Later, they said they’ll bring him out of his sedation and take the ventilator out completely, and he should, God willing, be able to talk. The nurse assured me that I could talk to him if at all possible.
He’s so far away from me now. I feel so completely useless and helpless. I know the man he is, and how he brightens any room with his presence. He is handsome, funny, athletic, caring, giving, worrisome in the best possible way, loving. He is the essence of all things good, and he is such an amazing father and husband.
I know Travis will overcome. He’s hanging on, hanging on for Chloe, for me, for his parents. He loves life, and I know that he will be strong and persevere through this. I’m not saying there won’t be times of doubt, depression, anger, hurt, disappointment, but I will be at his side, and I’ll assure him he’ll get better.
I will be there every agonizing step of the way.
I love him so much.
—
Four full days after the wounding, they let me come out of sedation gradually, and I woke up for the first time. Josh said I looked confused and scared. Josh’s face was the first I saw, and it must have registered to me at some level of consciousness that I wasn’t alone.
“Travis,” said one of the doctors. “Can you hear us?”
I took a few deep breaths and croaked out a faint “Yeah.”
I had a tube down my throat, and the doctors told me I needed to cough once or twice to help get the tube out. I coughed, and somewhere above me Josh said, “That dude is really tough.” The tube slid out.
“Okay, Travis,” a doctor asked. “What’s your last name?”
A few seconds went by. I just stared at the face above me. Then I said, “Mills.”
My voice was raspy, and the word came out lower than a whisper. No one above me said anything, so I said it again, this time a little louder. “Mills.”
Somehow I thought that wasn’t loud enough, or maybe they hadn’t heard me, so I said it as loud as I could. “MILLS!”
The doctors looked happy. All my exertion barely yielded the volume of a strong w
hisper, but seeing my resolve to keep repeating my name louder and louder, that’s the point where Josh knew I was going to be okay. I wasn’t going to die. They told me to get some rest.
I fell asleep, and Josh went to go get a sandwich. He hadn’t felt like eating since before he’d met me in Kandahar. When I came to again, Josh was there at the hospital bed. This time I had more presence of mind and decided to ask a few questions of my own. Only he and I were in the room then.
“My soldiers?” My voice was still raspy, barely a whisper, and I was groggy from all the meds. “How are my soldiers?”
“They’re both alive,” Josh said. “And they’re doing awesome because you took the brunt of the explosion for them. If Riot or Fessey had stepped on that IED, they might be dead because they’re smaller than you. Riot’s here in Germany with us. I can go get him later if you’d like.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’d like that.”
Josh nodded at me. “We’ll do that, then.”
A few moments of silence went by. I knew I’d been wounded, but I didn’t know how badly. I knew I couldn’t move my arms and legs, but that’s all I knew. I looked at Josh and stone cold asked him outright, “Am I paralyzed?”
“No, man,” Josh said. “You’re not paralyzed.”
“You don’t need to lie to me,” I whispered. “I can take it.”
“I’m going to tell it to you straight.” Josh knew I’d want to know the truth. “You’re not paralyzed, but both your arms and legs are gone.”
A little sound erupted from me, somewhere between disbelief and horror, half gasp, half laugh, almost a snort: “Hmph.”
Then I shook my head as if saying no and closed my eyes. I wasn’t sleeping after that. I was awake. But I wasn’t saying anything to anyone anymore. The reality of how badly I’d been wounded hit me with as much force as the initial blast. I couldn’t take the magnitude of what I’d been told.
I lay there for some time without saying anything. Josh stayed by me. He was silent as well. Eventually I drifted into an uneasy sleep, and when I awoke a few hours later, Josh was still there, and I still refused to talk to anyone. I glanced at a calendar on the wall. The date was April 14, 2012, still the same day as when I’d heard the news I was a quadruple amputee.
It was my twenty-fifth birthday.
—
I could call Kelsey if I wanted to. But I didn’t want to talk to her. I choked at the thought.
Josh was still sitting on the chair next to my bed, and I was still silent, still not wanting to talk to anyone. Why was I so damn embarrassed to call Kelsey? I wasn’t a sissy. I wasn’t afraid. I loved her so much. I just couldn’t take the thought of her being married to a man without any arms or legs.
Thoughts swirled around the insides of my mind. They’d gotten me. Those damn Taliban got me. I always thought I was pretty tough. Nobody ever messed with Travis Mills. The Taliban wasn’t ever supposed to win. I was always the sort of husband who took care of things for his wife. I lifted the heavy weights. I opened the jars. How was I supposed to do that now?
Two harsh words gradually formed in my mind and stayed there, words worse than any swearwords I could think of. Those two words contained all my dismay and anger and hatred and fear and anguish and heartbreak. Those words directly related to my new reality, to my will to move forward, and I wanted to scream those words with every ounce of my being, but for now I held my tongue because I ached all over and all within me. The pain was so bad.
Part of the pain was the thought of what I’d become. I could hardly picture the new me.
Yet the pain was more than emotional. It was physical pain—it coursed through my body. I felt like I was on fire.
I tried to focus on my breathing and take stock of why my pain was so bad. Even with all the medications flowing through me, I still felt like I was in a red-hot vise. I could hardly take it. I knew Josh would never lie to me, but my arms and legs still felt like they were attached. My hands felt like they were burning, like someone was clamping them inside an industrial furnace—but my hands weren’t there. The flames were eating away my ligaments, my nerves, my skin. My legs—my phantom legs—were clamped in that same fire. Bolts of agony surged from limbs that weren’t there and registered to a brain that still was. The pain came and went. Came and went. Came and went.
Josh started in his seat and leaned closer. “Travis! You need me to get the nurse?”
I didn’t say anything. I was itchy and sweating bad.
He pressed a buzzer, then went and got a cool cloth and laid it on my forehead. The nurse came in and upped my morphine.
Just before I went under again, everything that I’d always drilled into myself rushed through my mind. Never show fear. Don’t ever let your guys see you in pain. Don’t cry out.
Even when I’d been lying on the ground right after the blast, I’d felt pain then, but I hadn’t showed it. When that IV was shoved through my chest, that was painful, but I wasn’t going to complain then. You don’t let people down. You just don’t.
But this time the pain was so bad. It was still so bad, even with more painkillers in me now. So bad. So bad. So bad. This time, I wanted to do the unthinkable. Those two words began to vocalize within my throat. “Josh,” I said.
“Yeah—what do you need, buddy?”
I swallowed and whispered the two words.
“I quit.”
The phantom pain came and went. Mostly it came and stayed. Sometimes I had moments where I was thinking clearer, and I wasn’t quitting then. In my soul, I know I never did. In a moment of unbearableness, I’d whispered to Josh that I wanted to end it all. Maybe I even whispered it more than once. My memories of that time swirl; they aren’t linear. Sure, I thought about suicide. I never formulated a plan, but the thought of not being around anymore had its appeal. Those were my most depressed moments. Right at the beginning when I knew this was my new reality. Before I could work up the stomach to call Kelsey. Before I started thinking that there was still hope of going forward.
In Germany, they wheeled Theriot into my room. The Riot had some holes in his legs in addition to the cuts in his face, but he was healing fine. He’s a big guy with broad shoulders and huge arms, and he tried to smile at me, and I tried to smile at him. It was good to see him, although it looked like he didn’t know what to say to me.
I found out later that Riot knew I hadn’t called Kelsey yet. He knew I needed to. But how would a private ever say that to a staff sergeant? How do you say that to someone you look up to?
“I’m sorry,” I whispered to Riot. “I’m so, so sorry.”
“It’s not your fault,” Riot said.
“I shouldn’t have let you get wounded. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry, Sergeant Mills,” he said. “It wasn’t your fault.”
But I was sorry.
Sorry for everything.
—
Instead of calling Kelsey, I called Lieutenant Lewis.
He was still in the outback of Afghanistan. Still in daily firefights. I tried to put a smile in my voice and I said, “Sir, I got something for you.”
Without missing a beat, I sang a phrase or two of the 82nd Airborne song, just the same way I had always sung to the guys whenever we returned from a combat mission and I high-fived them back into the base. My voice was raspy and not too loud, but I croaked out,
All the way Airborne, Airborne all the way.
Drive it on, drive it on.
Externally, I was so messed up, but inside I was still a weapons squad leader. I wanted to be fierce when I spoke with my commanding officer. I wanted to reassure my guys that I was okay.
I could hear the smile in the lieutenant’s voice, and he thanked me. Then he explained that they’d run an air assault mission the night after I’d been wounded. They were certain they’d taken care of the same savages who’d planted the same IEDs that had got me. On that mission, in my honor, each soldier in our platoon carried something that had belonged to me. A
magazine of ammunition. A grenade that had once been mine. I thanked my lieutenant for this. My unit was still out there in the thick of the battle. Still doing their job.
Our conversation didn’t last long. I was exhausted. I asked that he take care of my remaining squad, and he promised he would.
I apologized that I couldn’t be there to help out for the rest of this deployment, and he reassured me I’d get better soon.
I told him in a couple of months I’d meet him and the rest of the guys at Green Ramp in America (the name given to the location where the unit would redeploy to at Fort Bragg). I’d be there with bionic arms and legs on, and I’d give Lieutenant Lewis a big ole bear hug, same as I always did. He said he was looking forward to it.
“I’m sorry I let you down, Lieutenant” was the last thing I remember saying to him.
“You didn’t let us down,” he said.
—
I had the presence of mind to call John Becker, my Presbyterian minister from my childhood days. He was living in Ohio and retired now, but I knew he was still strong of spirit and faith. I didn’t want to talk to him necessarily. I wasn’t liking the idea of God much at the moment and my anger and dismay were still clouding everything else.
I wondered if God was punishing me. Maybe I was a bad person. I was filled with frustration. Self-loathing. Doubt.
I didn’t come to any conclusions then. But I called Reverend Becker for a specific reason: I wanted him to do something for me. Something that meant much.
“Can I ask a favor?” I whispered, my voice raspy.
“Anything,” Reverend Becker said.