And apart from the few, no one would remember. No one would care. They would get five words and a one-inch photo in the newspaper, a perennial Faces of the Fallen tribute in which their faces and names flashed with the thousands of other faces and names, and the people who saw these tributes and even the editors who produced them would callously skim over them and not even notice that these guys—these guys with their all-American names like Hooper and Weber and their bland unsmiling faces backdropped by the American flag in their official photos—were real people that meant something to someone.
Levi’s sleeping bag was soaked with sweat. The same had drenched his boxers and the brown T-shirt he used for a pillowcase. He winced at the pain in his chest. His heart had never beaten so hard. He sat there in the cool moist fabric for a time, his bare torso exposed to the chilly air inside the bunker, and his damp sleeping bag bunched around his waist.
When he was able to calm his breathing, he got out of bed and dried his face and chest with a towel. He changed into dry boxers. He put a new T-shirt over the plush soccer ball he had been using as a pillow. He turned it over so the damp side was down. He then turned his sleeping bag inside out.
He slipped on his flip-flops and went outside, easing the door closed so as not to wake anyone. He pulled down his boxers and sat on the toilet. He rested his elbows on his thighs and his chin on his folded hands. He didn’t know how long he sat there. Without ever going, he stood up and went to wash his hands, but while standing at the sink, he refused to look at himself in the mirror.
He climbed back into his sleeping bag, grateful to be warm and dry. He turned the day over in his mind, examining every detail he could remember. The thing was, it had all felt so utterly normal, even inevitable as he experienced it. He tried consoling himself with the fact that from the time the explosives detonated until help arrived and it was out of his hands, he had done everything he thought he should. He made snap decisions to leave those who couldn’t be helped; he put himself in harm’s way to help Gassner; he helped pull Nick from the wreckage. He had been perfect for those twelve minutes. But by that time, it was already too late. He could not find consolation in having simply done what he had been trained to do in a horrific situation, when he himself was responsible for the situation. The compounding of his tiny mistakes and missteps and failures in leadership had led to a devastating tragedy he could never undo, and he would carry that with him always.
He tried remembering the details, but it was difficult to piece together what he remembered into something coherent. He saw the moments, if he remembered them at all, in little snapshots. Yellow and hazy, it was hard to see them clearly, but every once in a while one would push its way past the others. Weber’s face on Jellybean’s shoulder, his arms wrapped around him in a hug. Tom Hooper’s silhouette, suspended indefinitely against the cloud of smoke and flames, his one arm acting as a useless wing that would never succeed in keeping him from falling and landing and dying. A view through his scope of a man’s head popping back and opening before dropping out of sight. Gassner’s stump oozing blood. Three holes appearing in quick succession in a still and spongy chest.
The next day a pall hung over him, and he waited. He waited and he waited, but night fell and no one came for him. Miraculously, the sun came up the next day also, and the world continued to turn. He woke. He put on his reflective belt and went for a run. He showered. He dressed. Despite his best effort to deceive himself, he had to face the fact that as the world went on, so too did the missions. Casualties or no casualties, the three infantry platoons on FOB O’Ryan continued their three-day rotation of missions, guard duty, and QRF.
It was quieter than usual in Archer Platoon’s bunker, but the men talked some. They ran. They lifted. They dressed. They ate. They started the Humvees. They checked fluids and tire pressures and lights. They oiled weapons. Then they waited for the field telephone to ring, letting them know that someone needed the QRF.
After Levi’s squad did their preventative maintenance checks and services, he personally checked the lights and fluids. He opened up ammo cans to ensure the links hadn’t rusted. He opened the feed tray cover on the 240B up in the turret to personally verify the cleanliness and proper lubrication of the weapon’s mechanisms. He walked around to each man assigned to his truck and he made them disassemble their weapons so he could inspect their bolts and firing pins. When everyone else went to lunch, he took a Motorola handheld radio out to the line of Humvees and he personally tested each Duke in the platoon. He put fresh batteries in his GPS. He opened the combat lifesaver bag in his truck and verified that no saline bags and no packages of QuikClot powder had reached their expiration dates. He replaced the batteries in his night vision goggles, and he made sure that all his men did the same. He went to the supply NCO and got an ammo can full of extra batteries. He did all of this and then he did it again to verify that he had not missed one single thing that could mean the difference between life and death if he somehow failed to recognize the significance of some seemingly insignificant detail.
For the first two days of their QRF stint, he obsessed over everything, checking and rechecking. He was terrified that the field phone would ring. He was terrified that Lieutenant Michaels would yell, “Mount up,” and they would all don their twenty-six-pound vests with the ballistic plates that would do nothing to stop the blast overpressure of a two-hundred-pound IED hidden under the road or the molten copper slugs of an Iranian EFP array.
By the third day, he had grown so anxious and fearful that he prayed the phone would ring just so it could be over and he wouldn’t have to worry anymore.
It did ring. The LT did yell, “Mount up,” and first and second squads did leave the comfort of their bunker. Their mission was to escort the EOD team to an IED outside Al Abayachi.
Levi’s guts bubbled as they made the short drive to the staging area. His skin grew hot as they gathered around the lieutenant for the pre-convoy briefing. Levi forced himself to listen to every word. When his mind began drifting, he reached inside his pocket and he felt the rock he had dropped down Nick’s body armor several days earlier. He ran his thumb over its smooth surface to remind himself that a war zone was no place for insouciance. He listened to the ROE. He made note of his place in the chain of command, fourth behind the lieutenant, Staff Sergeant Roper, and Tech Sergeant Cazalet. Though he had heard them before—had lived them before—he did not let his mind drift as the lieutenant described actions on contact.
When the briefing had been completed and each man returned to his own truck, Levi quizzed the men in his charge on what had been briefed. When they departed the gate to the FOB, they put magazines in their rifles and the fear left Levi’s bowels. He turned on their Duke and he scanned the road. Rather than letting his mind drift, Levi listened to every word that crackled over the radio. Rather than singing songs in his head, composing lyrical poetry in his mind about the landscape and the sky and the trees, or daydreaming about looking up Eris when he returned home he scanned the road for disturbed earth, for black wires, for animal corpses, for the glint of copper wire against the sun. When they arrived at the bottlenecked stretch of canal road that held the IED, he secured the EOD team, and he watched his sector. He ignored the robot screen. He avoided eye contact. The only time he took his eyes off his sector was to verify that the men in his squad acted in kind.
When the EOD team conducted their controlled detonation, he did not allow himself the luxury of ooohs and aaahs. He kept his back to the blast and his eyes out, looking for threats. He did not allow his attention to waver on the way to the scene, at the scene, or during the return trip. After returning, he went through the same rituals he had gone through before the mission so they would be prepared the next time.
For months, his attention did not waver and his anxiety did not abate. He held a hard and heavy thing in his chest and the weight pressed on his stomach at all times. He slept little and ate less, but he soldiered on. Every day he waited for someone to rel
ieve him of his duties and to punish him for his derelictions. In the meantime, he allowed himself no respite from the work of keeping his squad alive. No longer did he think of himself. No longer did he allow his ego or romanticism or grand ideas to keep him from performing in the way he knew he should. He stopped thinking about the merits of the war. If war was bad, it didn’t change his mission to keep his brothers alive. If war was good, it was only because it taught you how to survive; it taught you how to endure; it taught you how to wait; it taught you how to abide.
He quit smoking. He quit going to the gym to lift, preferring to run alone. He did not watch movies or play video games. He was not there to make friends; he was there to finish his tour and take care of his troops. What good were friends if they were dead?
Each night he went to bed and in the darkness the images returned. One by one, each horrid memory swelled into focus, a moment with no context, a word with no meaning.
INTERMISSION
If You Thought I Could Write, You Should See the US Army Spin a Yarn
SILVER STAR NARRATIVE
FOR SGT LEVI HARTWIG (1-128TH INF-BN)
SGT Levi Hartwig displayed uncommon gallantry in action against the enemy on May 15th, 2005 in the vicinity of Ad Dujayl, Iraq, while acting as a dismounted team leader and vehicle commander. His heroic actions after an improvised explosive device attack and complex ambush enabled a successful counterattack that resulted in 11 confirmed enemy killed. SGT Hartwig’s stalwart leadership, quick thinking, and aggressive approach directly saved the lives of two fellow infantrymen while keeping three American dead from the hands of Anti-Iraqi Forces seeking to exploit them.
On the morning of May 15th, 2005, SGT Hartwig and 19 other members of 1st Platoon, A Company conducted a movement to contact on Main Supply Route Tampa in the vicinity of Ad Dujayl and other supply routes critical to the continued operation of Forward Operating Base O’Ryan, Logistical Support Area Anaconda, and Balad Air Base. During the patrol, 1st Platoon sustained a direct IED attack and heavy small arms fire. After directing a successful counterattack in pursuit of a fleeing enemy, SGT Hartwig and his team detained two enemy fighters directly responsible for the IED attack.
While returning to Forward Operating Base O’Ryan with the detainees, the lead vehicle of the patrol suffered another catastrophic IED strike. The blast was so large, it flipped the Up-Armored HMMWV on its side, setting it on fire. The blast threw two members from the vehicle and trapped three more inside. Immediately after the strike, a band of no less than 20 enemy fighters unleashed a coordinated attack of effective small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades.
Leaving his own position of safety, SGT Hartwig ran into the heart of the ambush to draw enemy fire away from his platoon and to aid his wounded comrades. Exposing himself to heavy enemy fire, SGT Hartwig retrieved a squad member who had been thrown from his vehicle, and dragged him to a position of minimal cover where SGT Hartwig immediately performed combat lifesaving procedures on the traumatically amputated leg of his fellow Soldier.
As the rest of 1st Platoon engaged the main group of enemy fighters to the southeast, SGT Hartwig recognized an enemy fighter advancing on the disabled vehicle and the fallen members of 1st Platoon. SGT Hartwig destroyed the advancing enemy with well-aimed fire, preventing the enemy from apprehending and exploiting fallen American Soldiers for propaganda purposes. SGT Hartwig once again exposed himself to enemy fire to enter the burning HMMWV to extricate another wounded Soldier, exposing himself to further danger in the form of flame, smoke, and exploding small arms ammunition.
Then SGT Hartwig led his team into the kill zone where the ambush had initiated to search and clear the enemy dead. While clearing the tall grasses, SGT Hartwig was surprised by an enemy fighter armed with an AK-47. He engaged the enemy at a close range of 5 meters, ensuring he, too, was eliminated.
SGT Hartwig’s tactical prowess, selfless disregard for his own safety, and courage in the face of unimaginable danger directly saved two American lives and enabled three fallen Americans to return home to their families with dignity. Intelligence reports would later show that the tales of SGT Hartwig and the warrior ethos of the 1-128th IN BN would have a chilling effect on future insurgents planning attacks in the region. SGT Hartwig’s bold leadership, selfless assumption of risk, and gallantry in combat were clearly decisive in the successful outcome of the ambush on May 15th, 2005 and to the entire Spring Campaign in Saladin Province, Iraq.
•••
Before deploying, he had always wanted a medal. Nothing prestigious, just something to recognize his time and sacrifice. Something to put in a box for his kids to find in the attic. Something for them to ask about someday. But then he had seen real combat, and he had left Iraq in 2005 with no medals. All he had earned was a small rock. Just a small pebble as a souvenir. An incisive reminder to do better next time. By the time he left, he was fine with that. He had come to accept that. He was just happy to be going home at all.
[But that’s not entirely true either. I expected to be happy, but let me tell you something. Anticipating happiness and being happy are two entirely different things. I told myself that all I wanted to do was go to the mall. I wanted to look at the pretty girls, ogle the Victoria’s Secret billboards, and hit on girls at the Sam Goody record store. I wanted to sit in the food court and gorge on junk food. I wanted to go to Bath and Body Works, stand in the middle of the store, and breathe. I wanted to stand there with my eyes closed and just smell, man. I wanted to lose myself in the total capitalism and consumerism of it all, the pure greediness, the pure indulgence, the pure American-ness of it all. I never made it that far. I didn’t even make it out of the airport in Baltimore with all its Cinnabons, Starbucks, Brooks Brothers, and Brookstones before realizing that after where we’d been, after what we’d seen, home would never be home again.]
After the beer started flowing on that first night in an Applebee’s near Fort McCoy, Levi tried to believe that maybe, just maybe, he could be happy going back to real life. The second day was spent in bed. He spent day three on the computer Googling news for FOB O’Ryan and Ad Dujayl. He searched YouTube videos for video montages of photos and explosions and the green-tinted videos of night missions that could have been one of his own night missions. And that was day four, day five, and day six.
By day seven, he had set aside the war porn to barter and negotiate with the Reenlistments NCO with the hope of getting a second taste of the real thing. He waived his dwell time, signed a new contract to go regular army again, and days later he was active with the 10th Mountain. He was headed to Afghanistan, and he was fine with that.
[Truth be told, I was better than fine with that. It was the very raison d’être for our initial enlistment, back when there were still such things as the right reasons. And if I tried hard enough I could rationalize with myself; I somehow convinced myself that those reasons still existed.]
Then after a few months in country, when the Korengal Valley pass had made the canal roads in Iraq look like I-90 through farmland, when he had started smoking again, when the low ground was starting to make Ad Dujayl look like Disney, and when he had nearly forgotten that Lieutenant Colonel Bradford had made a promise—or a veiled threat—that Levi would get exactly what he deserved, his company commander materialized at their wilderness combat outpost. The man was a pale bowling ball of a captain from Mississippi by the name of Chambers. Levi had only seen him a handful of times during pre-deployment training. He flew to their little COP on a bird that wasn’t part of the scheduled ring route, and he told Levi to pack his bags; he was going home on R&R early. Some big shot general in the Wisconsin National Guard had demanded his presence.
All the old thoughts, fears, and guilt that Levi had buried to focus on the immediate task of staying alive came bubbling back to the surface, and as he packed his bags—certain he wouldn’t return—he knew his reckoning had finally come.
When Levi got on the bird, which waited just for him, Captain Chambe
rs smacked chewing gum and stared at Levi without speaking. It was all Levi could do to ignore the smug smile on the captain’s face as he looked out the gunner’s door at the foothills blending into vast desert below.
When they landed on Bagram and waited for transport to the PAX terminal, the captain finally broke the silence. “So what did you do?”
Levi’s stomach dropped into his balls. “What did I do?”
“You deaf?”
“I don’t know what you mean, sir.” The thought actually crossed Levi’s mind that he should contact an attorney.
“Your bit of pomp and circumstance is messing up my perfectly coordinated R&R schedule. The least you can do is stop playing the aw shucks bit and tell me whatchya did.” The look on Levi’s face must have betrayed his confusion because Captain Chambers blew a bubble and said, “By golly, you really didn’t know?”
Levi shook his head slowly. “Didn’t know what?”
Captain Chambers shook his own head, mirroring Levi. “Well let me, as your proud and somewhat envious commander, inform you of what I am amazed you did not know. You have earned the Silver Star Medal, and some Yankee general in your old Yankee guard unit told our BC that your presence is required in whatever Yankee state you come from so they can give your Yankee ass your medal in front of all your Yankee buddies.”
So after four days of flying and waiting in airport terminals, more than a year since the battle in question, Levi stood in full service dress between his parents at the base theater on Fort McCoy, Wisconsin. His father wore an understated black suit with miniature Bronze Star and Purple Heart ribbon lapel pins that Levi had never seen before. His mother held a glass of juice, and she took little nibbles of a sugar cookie as if she hoped it would last forever because once it was gone, then what would she do with her hands and nervous energy?
Lieutenant Colonel Bradford—like a proud kid at show and tell—led Levi around and introduced him to three different mayors, the lieutenant governor, various county and city officials from the local area, and a boatload of flag and field officers he had never seen before. With each handshake, Levi had a new unit’s challenge coin pressed into his right palm, which he had to drop into his pocket before shaking the next hand of the next officer who also felt obligated to personally honor Levi with his own personal coin to show his own personal gratitude for Levi’s service and bravery. Meanwhile, Levi’s vacuous thank yous rang hollow in his own ears, and his forced smile felt to him like the grimace before the tears. These people were throwing a party to celebrate the worst day of his life.
A Hard and Heavy Thing Page 19