by Izzy Ezagui
I must've been thirteen. I dreamt that my father had passed away. It was unclear how, just that he was wearing a tacky, green button-down shirt—something he'd never wear in real life—when he died. The dream spanned the many months that followed, months that I lived fatherless. When I awoke, I found him alive at my bedside, trying to wake me up for school. From that day on, my demeanor toward my dad shifted from that of a recently pubescent douche to a dedicated son. The day prior to that dream may well have been the last time I ever truly disrespected him. That one long, dark night granted me a deep appreciation for how lucky I was—and still am. You have to go through the long, dark night to find the dawn.
My parents are mysteriously gone now from my bedside. I don't need any more gifts or the platitudes from nurses. I don't need all the undeserved praise. Now that doctors have done what they can to save me, I need to find the thing inside me that makes me Izzy, that will do for a soul.
Then it hits me.
Match and point: Izzy, one. God, zip.
Sheets rustle beyond the partition. “Izzy?” It's Rabbi, startled awake. “Did you say something?” he asks.
I did. “Ach sheli,” I try to whisper in his direction. My throat, devoid of moisture, manages only a painful croak. “Brother,” I repeat. And doing my best to hide all emotion from my voice, I state unequivocally, “I'm going back.”
“Back?”
“I'm going back to combat.”
The trooper is still moaning lowly.
This is my faith. My deepest conviction.
It's been days since a mortar took my arm, and I've decided somehow without even realizing I've decided, that this is not the end. This here is just the beginning. There is the meaning. I must go back to the fight. I won't ever be satisfied playing the extra in someone else's movie. “You fall asleep over there, Rabbi?”
“No. Just thinking.”
“Thinking…”
“I'll be there with you, Izzy.”
“With me?”
“Guarding your six, brother. I promise.”
I hear my friend roll over. Slowly he starts to snore.
January–March 2009. So here I am, not quite swimming, in the sweat-laced pool at the Orthopedic Rehab Center of Sheba Hospital in Tel HaShomer. I'm paddling in circles, feeling entirely sorry for myself. I can imagine the relief of letting go, simply sinking. Of course I'm a master at holding my breath, so these do-gooders would rescue me before I could drown.
I can just see how the scene plays out: There she is, the hottest nurse in rehab. She notices me go under, and now she's stripping out of her scrubs. Dear Lord, she's got on a matching bra and panties. Frilly blue. Nice. She's getting ready to dive in after me, her breasts barely contained by Victoria's Secret as she sprints in slow motion toward the edge. But here comes…Vlad. Oh, God. The male nurse, balding with a beer gut, shoves Nurse Frills roughly out of frame and—revert to normal speed—“Cannonball!” We're on the deck now. Oh, geez. Vlad's giving me mouth-to-mouth, cursing in Russian between each nauseating gust of Marlboro breath. I can taste the tooth-rot in his molars. And there's Phantom slow-clapping as I cough up toxic pool water like the whole thing's an ’80s teen drama.
Anyway, I guess it says something that I dived right in, despite the nurse's warnings. As soon as I decided-without-deciding that I would go back into combat, I grew entirely impatient about this interminable “journey” I'd have to undertake to get there. I'm a destination kinda guy—Screw the journey, I say. I'd rather not go batty waiting in line. Israelis can't even comprehend the concept of queuing up. Just try boarding a bus anywhere—Eilat, Jerusalem, the Golan Heights—you'll see what I mean.
Anyone who's been in the military will relate to how hard it is for me and the other wounded vets to reintegrate so suddenly into civilian life. The first few days, my roommate, Benny, and I both wake up at dawn, wanting to be useful, expecting there isn't a choice. But, for all intents and purposes, the military no longer has any use for us. We “report” to the nearly empty “mess hall” (the hospital caf) when the nurses say it's time. We show up wherever and whenever we're “ordered to”—as if our leave might get revoked otherwise. Our bodies might be broken. Our “uniforms” might now consist of shorts and track shirts that bare our respective unit logos. Our transport might be wheelchairs or weak knees. But our brains and autonomic nervous systems still belong to the IDF.
And then, after a couple of days, all that structure collapses. And it's like you're in the middle of a deflated bounce house. It feels more confining than the rigid discipline you're used to. All of a sudden, this new normal comes through loud and clear. You realize you're obsolete. Despite how great the staff is at Sheba, no one really gives a damn if we show up or not for our various appointments. Lives are not at stake. No comrade will be forced into an extra eight-hour shift of guard duty if we're not there to relieve him. It feels like coming out into a wide-open field, scarecrow and all, after marching through a narrow tunnel. You expect it will be a relief, the ability to turn left or right. But it scares the stuffing out of you. Maybe I get a little glimpse of what goes wrong with so many American soldiers when they get home. Maybe I understand just a little bit why an average of twenty-two of them each day wind up committing suicide.
Every kid can't wait for school to end, but within a few days, most kids grow unsettled, bored—liberty weighs heavy.
Everyone, from the doctors and nurses to the rehab staff and visitors—even the janitor—offers wise, well-meaning advice on my psychological and physical recovery. Most of this counsel falls into the take-it-one-step-at-a-time variety. But I know myself—and the pre-military Izzy starts itching to spread his wing. I've never been the kid who likes to color within the lines.
On top of that, every dose of morphine feels like a concussion grenade lobbed into the tank turret of my mind. Ka-boom! Lots of white noise. Hard to focus. Paradox: I know these people want to help me, yet I can't seem to get myself to be a good, “compliant” patient who does what they advise. They're all starting to remind me of the Mole.
My mood can change faster than a recruit can load a mag into his rifle. It started back at Soroka Hospital, where I spent my first five days. One night, I was dozing alone in my room when a Red Alert went off—rockets had followed me from the border and now they were landing near the hospital grounds. As soon as I heard the explosions, I started chuckling. By the time the explosions reached a crescendo, I was cackling so hard I tore my stitches. I laughed the whole time they rolled us veterans down to the bunkers.
Three days into one-armed life, I sat up and got out of bed for the first time. That was the day my father first walked into my room—not a moment before. In his embrace, I can't really explain, I felt some sort of electrical transfer. Like he was recharging my power source. For hours after, I buzzed all over. My father got out of house arrest to fly overseas and see me.
Just five days after the injury, the doctor announced he was moving me to Sheba in Tel HaShomer. They brought a wheelchair to roll me to the ambulance. I insisted on walking out of the hospital on my own two feet. Two of my favorite nurses cried. They drew a heart on my hospital gown, using a thick, red marker. Enclosed within were both their names.
Now I've been here at Sheba a few weeks. I've already done three push-ups on the drab, tiled floor of my room. I'm ready to be out. They say I'll need to stay at least several months. Might as well make the best of it.
I rarely show up to occupational therapy. The acute phase starts with range of motion, pain control, and training in “adaptive techniques” for basic living. Enough with the spoons and strings and balls already—when are you going to put a rifle back in my hand? A grenade? I declare OT “boring” and refuse to keep going. But not before picking up perhaps the only useful thing I learned there: How to tie my shoes one-handed with a “straight lace,” same as we were taught to lace up combat boots. This is my first big accomplishment. With the straight lace, when medics need to slice off your shoelaces q
uickly, they're cutting through only half the amount of lace—no X at each pass. In basic training, you learn to thread a single lace like a snake back and forth until we got to the top of the boot, where a couple of loops later, your boot is tied. Now, because there's only one string at the top instead of two, I don't need to fumble around trying to tie a bow with one hand. I can just make a simple loop that sits snugly and can be released with a quick yank. Works in combat and works for a one-armed civilian. Probably seems like a small thing, but, to me, it means a lot that I can tie my own laces and don't have to buy Velcro shoes like some old fart in the pro shop.
And what if I did need Velcro? No one here's making fun of me, no one's aiming for the jugular. Of course, I slip into the class-clown routine anyway; except this time, I'm not trying to protect myself. I'm just enjoying life, lightening the mood. Not a little of this attitude do I attribute to the fact that I'm heavily doped on every prescription painkiller known to man. Druuugs!
Every morning, way too early, the doctors come to do their rounds. A gaggle of white-coated sheep trail the head doctor, Zivner. They all shuffle in with their clipboards and stethoscopes, their spectacles and foam cups of what I can only presume must be terrible coffee. Zivner quizzes them relentlessly. “What are the usual indications for nerve injury after amputation, Doctor Mizrahi?”
“Development of uncontrolled…trophic ulcers…in an anesthetic upper extremity?”
“Was that a question?”
“No, sir.”
“Very good then. Onward.”
On my good days, I jump into the herd of lab coats in my shorts and flip-flops, following them from room to room, cracking jokes all the while. Zivner doesn't exactly play along, but that doesn't stop me.
“Dr. Taubin,” Zivner asks. “What course do you recommend for the private here, after his recent above-the-knee amputation?”
“Oh, wait!” I cut in. “I know, I know! Is it dropping acid and taking a salsa class?”
“Dr. Rivlin, this next patient, a gunnery sergeant, has lost his sight after an IED exploded in front of his patrol. Would you—”
“Lots and lots of Internet porn is my prescription,” I interrupt again.
Why doesn't Zivner kick this pesky patient to the curb? Maybe because I never fail—OK, I rarely fail—to crack up the other veterans. And maybe he gets that this is good for me as well. If you're looking to lift the spirits, laughter really is the best medicine. Of course, when you put a bunch of mostly young, mostly male, mostly immature soldiers in a tight space, they're going to laugh at one thing more than any other. That one thing is dick jokes. But the second thing is tasteless antics about their disabilities. We go after each other like it's an Olympic sport.
“Hey, Netanel, before losing the leg, you were an expert in Krav Maga, right?”
“Yeah, yeah, Bloom. What about it?”
“You must be stoked you can continue your service.”
“What? There's no way I—”
“Because now you can practice partial arts.”
“Partial—you better run for your life, nudnik; I'll practice partial arts all over your ass. Izzy, help me catch this bastard. Don't just stare at me, all stumped.”
I enjoy every moment of this rhetoric, even love when the spotlight swivels my way. In my Jewish school, they pinpointed your embarrassing difference and niggled you there with cruel jabs intended to hurt. Here in rehab, everyone pokes fun at the very thing that makes you part of our unique family, the thing that gives you membership into this elite unit. The idea here, one we never had to verbalize, is to diminish hurt you might otherwise feel if you felt alone.
Early on, a vet asked me to hold onto his prosthetic leg, and directed me to pull it so he could “adjust” the fit. Turns out all he really wanted was to click the release latch so that I'd go hurling backward with his appendage in hand, landing hard on my ass—but only after toppling a food cart. Zivner happened to be strolling past, a carrot in hand. He opened his mouth to say something but, instead, took a chomp out of his veggie and walked away muttering. “Prescribe myself morphine…pain in my ass…”
My and Benny's room becomes the default party central. Most days, the other vets swing by with the latest—“Can you give me a hand, Izzy?”—or stay there to hang out and talk about nothing. You learn a lot about people in rehab. Maybe even more than you do in a barracks, and out on patrol. Take, for example, innocent country boy, Benny. Grew up on a moshav up north. Total sweetheart. Not a drop of black in his heart—too much soul to leave any space for it. Reedy like a stork, even more so than Oren, though I've never seen Benny standing, of course. He talks softly and never scowls, despite extensive injuries. There's an old adage in the IDF (which rhymes better in Hebrew): Rockets target the first sergeant. Meaning that it's always the guys in the last few months of their service who get hit the worst. Benny was one of those guys. He was one month from turning in his uniform when Cast Lead launched. Worse than the mortar that tore up his limbs is that his own battalion took the shot. It was “friendly fire.” Whenever there's a crowd in the room, I look over furtively at Benny to make sure he's not too tired or mentally stirred up. Looking out for him is a good excuse for not attending the skirmishes raging among the gnomes in my own mind.
A good portion of everyone's visitors camp out in our room, too—especially the foreign, English-speaking teens. A parade of socially conscious, often stunning females looking to bring cheer to us sorry lot. At night, we all head down to the raucous lobby to play poker.
“Nice hand, Izzy.”
“I'm still twice the man you are, Fuks.”
Some nights, it feels as though all of Israel has shown up to serenade us with cookies, cakes, music, and laughter. One thing I have to say about Israelis and the people who travel here—they're great at keeping in touch with their wounded vets. In my experience, not one injured soldier ever had a day without visitors, many total strangers.
In the first three months after my injury, every single senior officer or politician who comes to visit me in rehab—and all of those I encounter in the lobby—hear my simple request: “Sir, can you help me get back to combat?”
“You've done enough.”
“You should be very proud of your sacrifice.”
“Look—be realistic, Izzy.”
And more than once: “Are you insane?”
DEALT A BAD HAND
March 2009. Rehab's not all fun. My roommate, Benny, is a radio operator. He lost his legs. But the rocket took his balls, too. The entire region down there's a total mess. We're not at the point where we're making jokes about it yet.
One night, Benny shits his bed. I wake up to him moaning, “Oh, man. Oh, man. What's the matter with me?” The nurses are already here to change him. I stumble over to his bed. My face wants to scrunch up from the stench, but I force it to relax. I'm looking in Benny's eyes, and I can see he's in a tailspin of abject hopelessness. My territory. There's feces covering his entire lower half, but his contorted face tells me the situation upstairs is far more of a muddle. So I sit with him while the nurses clean up. I hold Benny's hand the whole time, trying not to shift the IV needle protruding from somewhere above his knuckles.
“There's nothing the matter with you, Benny. You're a goddamn hero, man. A flippin’ rock star. Don't you forget that for a second. This…” and I motion with my eyes…“this is no big deal, I promise. You've survived worse…crap.”
Benny snaps out of it. Smiles wanly. He sighs a few times and we sit there, waiting for the clean slate. When it's done and I look away from Benny for the first time, I see the nurses are staring right at me. I can't read their eyes. Is it respect? Pride? But in that moment, I'm not thinking about my own pain, my drug-addled brain, my troubles at home. My Phantom. I'm thinking only that I still have this capacity, I have one hand left to hold Benny's—or any brother's. I can do what the nurses do, and think of others before myself. Which makes me experience a little surge of something nice, something famili
ar. Yes, this is exactly what my parents would do. What they have done their whole lives. Tzedakah.
Back in my own bed, though, I can't help thinking, “There, but for the grace of God, go I.” It's hard to feel sorry for yourself with a missing arm when the guy beside you lost his legs and his ability to leave behind a legacy. Benny's talking quietly to his mother now over the phone while I open a letter from…Curls, the ambulance medic, wishing me well. Wow. Her words comfort me, and I can almost hear her voice again. And I hear Benny's soft voice, comforting his mom; he bolsters her the way I did him. I just spent umpteen months worried I had no balls, and here was Benny, proving it takes something far deeper inside to be a man.
The next day, and from then on, the nurses smile at me in a new way. No matter how loopy the drugs make me, no matter how temperamental and morose I can get, they treat me with patience and kindness.
Despite that, I, too, have very bad days. Days I can't manage the usual dance. Nights I'm covered in my own metaphysical feces, keeping Benny awake. Mornings when I can't rise for the agony. When the shades have to stay closed, and no one can make a sound without stirring my ire. Afternoons that belong to Phantom. Whatever doesn't kill you, Izzy, simply makes you…stranger.
There are days upon days when I ignore every doctor, nurse, rehab specialist, and visitor. I can tell Benny's parents despise me for this person I sometimes am. How bad an influence I am on their optimistic son. They must be thinking, What the hell is this guy's problem? All he lost was one goddamn arm—and their beloved son lost his ability to ever walk again. I want to be there for him. To bust his…chops. To aid his recovery. I just can't. Not always. After a few weeks, they stop talking to me altogether. When they come in to visit Benny, they ignore me.
No problem. I can turn and face the wall. Give them the cold shoulder, too.
THE LADIES LEND A HAND
Everything below my belt is still intact, thank all that is merciful in the universe. In fact, as a more-or-less normal twenty-year-old guy, I'm constantly reminded of my junk. First day here at Sheba, this super babe of a nurse—I'm talking a straight ten—asked if she could help me shower. Her exact words were, “Can I give you a hand, Izzy?” Of course my shorts almost tore open at the seams, and I very quickly refused, simultaneously cursing myself and clearing my throat overmuch. Something similar had happened a few days earlier, at Soroka on the third day after my injury. I was taking my first shower in weeks, and two nurses were rattling the door handle, urging me in earnest to open up and let them in, so they could—and I quote again—“Help scrub those hard-to-reach places.” I've never had so many tantalizing offers. You know that Muppet lab assistant, Beaker? His was the voice I heard as I responded lamely, “No, thanks! I, uh, think I've got everything covered.” My heart thudded, like back in the old days when I feared the gremlins would get me in the bathroom while I was naked and most vulnerable. This might've been worse.