A Hard and Heavy Thing

by Matthew J. Hefti

  He grew lightheaded as he walked down the gravel road.

  He passed the EOD truck, where the bomb techs were reconstituting their explosive charges. Levi stopped, trying to decide whether or not to bring them into it. The extent of their interaction with the EOD team had come entirely outside the wire during QRF missions to IED problems, which happened nearly every day, but still; he knew the bomb techs, not the men. A glance back at Gassner and Ott whispering together made up his mind for him. “Sergeant Cazalet,” he said. “Do me a favor?”

  “What’s up?” he said.

  “We have two detainees in that hut. It’s open. It’s been cleared. The detainees have been cleared. We’ve got two guys watching them right now. They’re cuffed and ready to go.” He stopped and looked around, trying to find the words to phrase his request. “Our guys,” he gestured toward Gassner and Ott. “Well, let me put it this way: Do you have room in your vehicle to take them since there are only two of you?”

  Cazalet hooked a finger in his lip and pulled out a wad of chew. He flung it out into the canal and spit on the ground. “We could probably handle something like that.”

  Levi invaded his personal space and lowered his voice. Cazalet dropped his head to hear him. “Could you clean off their faces? Give them something to drink?” Levi turned around to look at his guys. Weber was on the opposite side of the truck where Levi had no visual on him. Ott and Gassner had finally split up, but each kept stealing glances in his direction. “The guys are a bit on edge after getting hit. I think it would be best if—” he paused again to find the words. “It would be best if a neutral party took care of them and transported them back to the FOB. You know, tensions running high and all.”

  He looked up and met the gaze of the much larger Air Force NCO. Levi found it impossible to discern what the man was thinking, and he knew him only peripherally. Cazalet nodded slowly. “Matt and I will take care of ’em. They’ll be in good hands.”

  “Thanks,” Levi whispered before moving on.

  “Everything cool?” Hefti asked as he laced detonating cord into a water bottle.

  “Yeah, we’re cool,” Levi said. But he wasn’t sure. Good NCOs didn’t stand for that kind of lapse in standards. When NCOs failed to maintain the standards, everyone suffered. You give ’em an inch, and they take a mile, he thought to himself. Levi didn’t buy into the crap about blousing pants over boots and shaving sideburns; he didn’t believe that if a guy relaxed his dress and appearance, the next step was disobeying direct orders in combat as all the first sergeants liked to preach; but he had seen how once a guy gets walked on by his subordinates, it’s impossible to gain respect. He needed to do things the right way. He needed to figure this out.

  Levi remembered the last time he saw his parents before he left for Iraq. Everyone mingled around the verdant parade grounds at Fort McCoy for one last goodbye. His mother had hugged him and cried. She whispered to him to be safe. Levi pulled away and his father closed his arms around him.

  “Any advice?” he asked his father.

  His dad put his mouth next to Levi’s ear. “Just do the right thing,” he said. “Worry only about what you control. The rest is war.” As his father let him go, he placed his hand over the flag that Levi wore on his shoulder. He shook his head and spoke sadly. “Mundum portamus.”

  We carry the world.

  They did. All those young men did. They carried the world, and it was heavy, and they didn’t know what to do with it. Was this the rest? Was this the war? Things had already spun out of control and they weren’t always as black and white or as right and wrong as Nick liked to think.

  Levi reached the platoon leader’s truck. The lieutenant sat with one leg out of the Humvee. He fought with battalion on the radio and held up a finger for Levi to wait.

  Levi glanced back down the road. Cazalet and Hefti had put the detainees on their knees on the gravel road next to the EOD truck. Hefti took some pictures and then pulled out a notebook. Levi wanted to choke him, shake him, tell him to pay attention to his job and nothing else, pay attention to every detail before he got someone killed. The kid thought he was a tourist, only along to document the ride.

  The detainees held their backs and necks rigid. Levi couldn’t believe their stoicism. He wiggled around in discomfort after taking one knee in the grass with kneepads on. He couldn’t imagine how he’d feel with the bits of gravel sticking into his kneecaps, the pull on his shoulders from having his hands cuffed behind his back, and the sharp plastic edges of the flex cuffs on the tender skin of his wrists. Yet these guys didn’t move a millimeter. He admired their discipline.

  Then another thought came to him. If one of these detainees lodged a complaint, and if some bleeding heart took them seriously—well, that would change everything. With the Abu Ghraib scandal still fresh in everyone’s minds and with the court-martials for that mess not even finished yet, everyone knew to tread lightly. If word got out, or worse, if pictures of helpless teenagers with busted faces leaked out, the knee-jerk freak-out by the brass would be startling. Those spineless bastards would eat their own in a second just to protect their images, egos, or their next stars. And, of course, they’d be assisted by the media, and—as always—public affairs would spin everything to protect the army, i.e., whatever commander happened to own them, and they’d ensure—as always—that the official story made it clear that all the problems were isolated incidents carried out by rogue individuals. Nothing systemic to worry about here. Public Affairs: as much the enemy to ground troops as al-Qaeda. Never mind that the kids were caught red-handed trying to kill American soldiers. Never mind that the rules of engagement kept American soldiers from doing so much as sneezing in the wrong direction. Never mind that the same American lynch mobs who would be calling for their heads had trained a bunch of eighteen-year-old kids to kill people so they could sleep soundly in their cozy beds by night and troll freely on the Internet by day as if they were all masters of public policy and international relations, and never mind that those same assholes had elected leaders who had sent soldiers over there to do just what they had been trained to do, i.e., kill people.

  Never mind that this was a goddamned war.

  Investigations were inevitable. Levi pictured the CID guys calling the young privates into the offices, offering them coffee, only to disappear for hours at a time, leaving the young kids to think about why they were there. The kids would grow more nervous and skittish by the second. The agents would come back in and tell them someone else already squealed so they shouldn’t bother lying to cover up for anyone; that would just make it worse. They’d give a little speech about the Army Values and appeal to their senses of honor and integrity, and the naïve kids would fail to understand that the omertà in an infantry platoon defined honor and integrity.

  Barring that, someone as soft and slimy as Ott would say anything to save his own skin, and the little tiff in the mud hut would no doubt be uncovered in that way. If Levi said nothing, Lieutenant Michaels could deny all knowledge, and the worst that could happen was he’d be on the naughty list for not knowing what was going on in the platoon; which, under the circumstances and with all they had been through already that day, who could blame him for that? On the other hand, if he told the LT, even as laid back as the guy was, he wouldn’t have been able to turn a blind eye to detainee mistreatment after one of his squad leaders brought it up. He would have had to report it or at the very least document some sort of discipline. Best-case scenario, he’d have to write up a letter of reprimand for Levi, and the company commander would probably write an Article 15 to bust Gassner down a stripe for the sake of posterity. That kind of punishment would tear the platoon apart. The soldiers would stop believing they could trust their platoon leadership and they’d stop believing they could trust those in their squads. When soldiers stop trusting each other, soldiers die. The more he thought about it, the more he wanted to tell Nick that right and wrong did change with circumstances. It was not always a simple choi
ce between good and bad, right and wrong, or righteousness and evil.

  If anything was evil, it was the war itself.

  “Hello,” Lieutenant Michaels said, dragging it out. “Earth to Hartwig?”

  Levi snapped out of it. “Yes, sir,” he replied.

  “Yes what?”

  Levi shook his head. “I don’t know, sir. Could you repeat the question?”

  “You okay, Soldier?”

  “Yeah. I’m fine, sir. Just thinking about—” If Levi didn’t tell the lieutenant, he would have plausible deniability. Besides, that’s what good NCOs did. They stopped nonsense at the lowest possible level, leaving the brass to talk strategy and collect their medals. And that’s exactly what he had already done, right? He did catch them before it could get out of hand, and he did stop it after all. No harm, no foul, right? “Nothing. What were you saying?”

  “Snap out of it.” Lieutenant Michaels pointed to his Blue Force Tracker, and he outlined their options. “The quickest and most direct route back to the FOB, down Tampa here, is blocked by another massive traffic jam. Initial reports were that a VBIED engaged a convoy, taking out a local oil tanker in the process. Another report, and what’s more likely since EOD hasn’t been called away, is that a skittish gunner opened fire when a taxi got too close to the convoy, leading the taxi to slam on the brakes, which forced an oil tanker behind him to swerve and crash over onto its side, leaving black gold all over the road. Either way, that’s blocked.” He hit a button, zooming out to show more of the map on the screen. “We have essentially two options then: We can get off this canal road up there and then head north until we hit Route Heather. Take that until we get to Balad. Go in the north gate there. We can chill out real quick, get some good chow, and smell the pretty girls. Then we come out the south gate and it’s straight up Dover to home.”

  Levi wrinkled his nose. A few of the privates liked the opportunity to live the high life with the Fobbits on Anaconda. They liked getting their Pizza Hut and gorging themselves on Dairy Queen, and a few would probably beg to stay long enough to go to the theater and watch a movie. Many of the guys, however, despised going anywhere near the huge base. The place was full of staff officers and senior NCOs with nothing better to do than play uniform police and check reflective belts. The whole roundabout trip would take forever. They’d be lucky if they returned to the FOB by ten and finished reconstituting their gear by midnight. With that scenario, it would be a miracle if they got four measly hours of sleep before waking up to do it all over again.

  “The other plus side to that option,” Lieutenant Michaels continued, “is that we can drop off the detainees right away when we get to the Anaconda side of the base. Have them swabbed right away for explosive residue. Check them in. Done. Not our problem anymore.”

  This idea sent chills through Levi. That option left no time to squirrel them away at O’Ryan to allow them to heal. If they took the prisoners back to O’Ryan to sit for a few days, any bruises and lacerations would have faded into signs of a simple struggle and nothing more by the time they took them to the main base. By that time, any complaints by the detainees would be the baseless and desperate pleadings of some bomb-setting terrorists who were looking at disappearing into the deep black abyss of America’s infamous detention system.

  “What’s the other option?” Levi asked.

  “Skip that little footbridge we crossed, follow the road here to Boa. Boa to Trouser, Trouser to Dover, Dover to home. Riskier, but quicker.”

  Levi whistled slowly. With that route, none of the roads before Dover were paved, and the dearth of patrolling in that area would mean IEDs could be hidden anywhere. But that route, as dangerous as it was, would get them home within ninety minutes. If they pushed it, they might get home before dark. Levi knew that with the long winter and recent rains, any IEDs that did lurk behind the road would be tough to spot before they hit them. On the other hand, if they did find something before it blew them to pieces, they had the bomb squad guys right there with them so they wouldn’t have to wait. He squinted down the road at the detainees made of stone, at Nick and his slumped soldiers, at Hefti and the camera hanging from his vest, at Ott and Gassner staring him down.

  The lieutenant said, “I’m inclined to hit the base, get a haircut, and let the guys get chow. What do you think?”

  Levi turned back. Mundum portamus, he thought. “I think Annie got his bell rung by the IED pretty bad. He says he’s okay, but he probably has a concussion. He’s been puking and acting pretty lethargic.” He took off his sunglasses and wiped them again, avoiding eye contact as he focused on the menial task. “As much as I’d love to let the guys get their milkshakes at Anaconda, I think we need to get home as soon as possible. Let Annie get checked out at the aid station, see what they say.”

  Lieutenant Michaels shook his head. “I was looking forward to my own milkshake. But it doesn’t look like we have much choice in the matter. Looks like it’s Boa.” He pulled his leg inside the Humvee so he could close the door. “Get everyone mounted up. If we push, we’ll be scratching our balls and playing Xbox by the time the sun goes down.”

  2.6 IF I NEVER SEE THE SUN SET AGAIN, IT WILL STILL BE TOO SOON

  Nick took a knee by the Humvee and faced out toward Tampa so as to give the illusion of attentiveness. The IED blast and the subsequent hours of waiting, the drama in the hut, and the knowledge that the day was far from over left him drained. His adrenaline had waxed and waned so much during the day that all he wanted to do was curl up on the road and take a nap, to just put his head down for a few minutes and close his eyes. He sucked his CamelBak dry, but his mouth still felt stuffed with cotton. He was so busy fighting his pounding head, sour stomach, and general anger, that he didn’t hear the first call to mount up.

  “I said mount up,” shouted Levi.

  Hefti pushed closed the rear door of his Humvee, ensuring he didn’t slam it on the teenager bound in the backseat.

  Nick watched Levi stalk over to them. “Hey, Hefti,” he said. “Didn’t you know it’s against General Order Number One to take photographs of detainees? Hand over that camera.”

  The airman looked honestly stunned, but he handed over the camera. “I had no idea,” he said.

  “You’re no journalist, dude. You don’t get to sit back and report on all this like some bystander.” Levi looked at the images and pressed some buttons. “You brought a gun over here, not a camera. You don’t have the privilege of pretending you had nothing to do with it all. You own this shit too.”

  The airman looked embarrassed and he said nothing as Levi handed his camera back.

  When the young airman whispered, “Roger, Sergeant,” Levi walked away.

  Nick plodded along to his own truck and took his seat as driver. He stared out the front window with his hands at ten and two on the steering wheel. The glass was still cracked, but someone had cleaned off the dirt and soot. He didn’t have great visibility, but he would at least be able to finish the mission.

  Hooper shouted something down to him from the turret, but he didn’t bother to respond. Jalaladin slept in the backseat with his head tilted back and his mouth hanging wide open. Weber the Mute sat in the backseat staring out his window. The LT and squad leaders conferred.

  When they had finished, Gassner knocked on Nick’s window. Nick opened the door.

  “Turn around,” Gassner said. “I’ll spot you.”

  Without a word, Nick put the truck in reverse and waited while the other trucks did the same. In turn, each truck maneuvered forward and backward, forward and backward until they were turned around. When they were turned and once again in the lead, Gassner took his spot in the TC seat.

  “Take us home,” he said. “Tampa’s blocked or something and there’s another jam by Ad Dujayl, so head to Boa, then to Trouser, then Dover to home.”

  “Boa?” Nick said. “Are you serious?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “So we can just get blown up again?” />
  “Hello? Were you with us today? You think Tampa’s any better? No difference.” He stared out the window. “Less traffic on Boa. Means sooner to chow.”

  “This is insane,” Nick said.

  “It was your boy Hartwig’s idea.”

  Too frustrated, tired, and angry to get into it, Nick shook his head and drove.

  He bumped along the canal road at about twenty-five miles per hour. Any faster on the rough terrain would bruise the forearms and ribs of all the gunners in the turrets. Not to mention, the lack of steering power would mean a certain loss of control if they went any faster. Hooper leaned back into his sling, which creaked under his weight with the swaying and bouncing of the Humvee.

  After nearly fifteen minutes, Nick turned west onto Route Boa. He flipped down his visor to shield his eyes from the orange setting sun looming large on the horizon, but it did little good. The orange light glared off the cracks in the windshield, and the tall grasses lining the shoulders cast dark swaying shadows across the road. Nick drove as much by feel and memory as he did by sight. He pressed on the gas pedal. The engine whined. Nick gritted his teeth, stared straight ahead, and thought about cheeseburgers. Big fat American cheeseburgers. The kind Oma made at her tavern, so slimy the grease leaked through the paper used to wrap them.

  The men rode in silence into the sunset, and the falling sun grew bigger and brighter as they drove, and finally, it burst in front of them.

  The next thing Nick saw was the driver’s seat, that is, the seat he had been sitting in. Flames licked at the seat, and the olive drab vinyl boiled and bubbled in front of him. The electronic countermeasures crushed his leg, and his driver’s side door came to rest on the highway. He looked down at his chest and saw an arm, and the arm was not his own. The blast had torn the passenger’s side door from the vehicle, and the opening poured thick black smoke into the air. Nick stared at the opening, catching glimpses of the orange sky during gusts of wind in which the smoke billowed away for less than a moment. He could not move, and he could not hear.