I marveled again — as I moved past the front lobby area and navigated the shadowy passageway by my tiny blue beam — how pitch-black and genuinely spooky Iraq could be. This hospital was especially scary with its thick, gray concrete walls crumbling at the edges and cracking at the foundation, allowing a wide variety of undesirables to crawl or fly in through the holes.
The doctors, nurses, and corpsmen who took care of the Iraqi air force worked here not long ago. They performed surgery, assessed trauma, started IVs, and administered morphine, all within the confines of these same deteriorating walls. As our days in Iraq marched on and as our nights in Iraq became blacker and louder, those ghost stories we concocted when we first arrived seemed likely to be true.
I rounded the corner and noticed a hint of blue light peeking under a closed wood door. I knocked quietly.
“Come in,” called a loud voice.
I smiled around the door. Bill sat with his feet up on a makeshift table, listening to music.
“Hey-hey!” Bill called in a manner far too jovial for the middle of the night. He removed his iPod earpieces and swung his boots to the deck. “How’s it going, Heidi?”
“Dark. Still waiting for my eyes to adjust. How goes the night of duty?”
“Really busy about two hours ago. Three in from Al Qa’im. Tony and Tom just took the last one to the OR. The other two are in the ward, stable. Routine medevacs have been called for them. I’m just standing by now for when the third gets done.”
“You hanging in there?”
“Sure. I’ll sleep later.”
I closed the door to the duty room and moved on.
Finally reaching the wide passageway along the back of the building, I advanced by the blue glow I pointed at the cracking tile deck — recently mopped, but filthy again. I was surprised to see an intense white light ahead, radiating from the open doorway of the medical ward. Alarmed, I called down the hall, not remembering which of my nurse roommates was on duty that night.
“Karen? Katie?”
As I neared the hatch, the silhouette of a tall young man appeared in the blinding light of the doorway. He wore the standard garb of our patients — olive green shorts and an olive green T-shirt. A thick gauze bandage, more red than white, bound his head. He raised an IV bag in his right hand above the level of his heart.
I hurried to reach him.
“Hey, Marine,” I called loudly. “What do you need? I’ll get your nurse. First, though, let’s get these lights off and get you back to bed.” I reached out and touched his shoulder. Feeling my touch, he turned to face me.
His swollen eyes — grotesque, purple globes — protruded from his face. A thick red teardrop slid down his blackened cheek. He opened his lids in my direction.
A piercing pain shot through me. I saw straight through his skin, to the end of the darkened hall.
I gasped for a breath that refused to come.
I bolted straight up on my hard, olive green cot, my breathing shallow and fast and my heart thumping relentlessly in my throat. I glanced around at the concrete walls, at the chipped white paint and the hole in one corner of the ceiling. A beam of moonlight peeked over the sandbags outside my window and cast a hazy spotlight on the American flag thumbtacked to my wall.
A helicopter roared over our barracks. I held my breath, waiting to hear it make the base turn to the hospital. It didn’t. The distinctive chop of the blades against the hot desert air faded into the night.
I collapsed against my thin pillow and struggled to remember techniques I had taught to patients with anxiety to help control breathing and slow heart rate. The swamp coolers in our barracks building blew only semicomfortable air into our rooms, making it far too hot for any type of blanket. Better than nothing, I reminded myself, and certainly far superior to anything the Marine infantrymen at the Syrian border had. I counted to ten and inhaled slowly.
I was drenched in the sweat of sleeping, if only for a short time, in a concrete oven in the middle of the desert.
I was drenched in the sweat of the third nightmare in as many nights about a dead Marine.
Friday Night Fights
“Is Cat coming with us to dinner?” I asked Katie, sitting on my cot and extending a leg. I laced my boots, tucked the laces behind the tongue, and folded the edges of my pants under green blousing bands.
“She’s at the gym with Sergeant Snow,” Katie told me, rummaging through the care package that had arrived for her. She smiled as she pulled out a package of Oreos. “Score.”
She stood up, strapped her pistol to her thigh, and grabbed her cover from her cot. “She’s training on the bag with him. I guess she’s going to fight on Friday.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You haven’t heard about Friday Night Fights?”
“Friday night what?”
“Friday Night Fights. One of the squadrons apparently brought this full-size boxing ring out here with them. Cat says it’s just like the pros use. So they’ve finally gotten the green light to use it, and Friday Night Fights are starting this week. They’ve organized weight categories, refs, intro music — everything. I guess there are twenty fighters signed up already. Even women! They’re going to do it in the big hangar.” She smiled. “You ready to go to chow?”
I blinked. “Sure,” I said, grabbing my own floppy cover and sunglasses and following her out the door.
There were several distinct moments during my long visit to this strange desert land when I was dramatically struck by how bizarre an existence we had here. One moment was the first time I noticed the high-dive platform overlooking the decrepit blue swimming pool near the base exchange. The Marines used it as a water treatment facility. But at that moment, I had to physically shake my head to clear the bizarre image of skinny, mustached Iraqi soldiers in swimming trunks climbing up the ladder to that diving board. Another moment was hearing that a helicopter squadron in the United States Marine Corps had actually packed up a boxing ring and hauled it around the world to a combat zone.
That was before Friday Night Fights. It took only that first Friday night to make me realize there was nothing bizarre about it. The fact that a boxing ring made the trip to Iraq was actually one of the sanest things to happen in that place.
The hood of one of our ambulances provided the best seats in the house for the crew that was assigned as medical backup for the fights. The hangar was a short walk from our barracks, so a large group from the hospital went to the event together. Everyone carried the canvas stadium chair he or she had bought from the exchange early on when it had become obvious there was nowhere to sit in Iraq. We entered the huge helicopter hangar built into the side of a dirt hill and found a place, among the many hundreds of other men and women, to set up our chairs.
The electricity in the air was palpable. The ring was beautifully illuminated by hanging spotlights. Referees and announcers had been chosen out of the civilian MWR (Morale, Welfare, and Recreation) employees, and they hovered near the ring. There was even a microphone and speaker system. And they worked.
“Ladies and gentlemen . . . welcome to MCAS Al Asad Friday Night Fights!”
The crowd roared.
“In the first category, weighing in this morning at one hundred forty-nine pounds, from Marine Aviation Logistics Squadron, please welcome — Corporal Jiiiiiiim Iveeeeeeey!” A section of the crowd sitting together near the ring cheered, and another group booed loudly. Jason and I grinned at each other. Immediately following the announcer’s introduction, music blared over the speaker so loudly I had no idea what song it was. It was a Mötley Crüe tune, Jason informed me. The people in the crowd craned their necks to see Corporal Ivey as he entered the hangar wearing a red groin protector, red padded helmet, and red gloves. Huge tattoos of Japanese characters graced his thin, muscular back. He danced up to the ring with an entourage of people who strode in with him in a long line. One massaged his shoulders, one carried a towel, and another carried a water bottle. Several of them held th
eir arms up with clenched fists in premature victory.
Twelve matches lasted nearly three hours and ended with the heavyweight fight, which was won handily by the hospital’s own Sergeant Snow. The voices of our small band of surgical company staff were hoarse by then. Our attempt at a show of force was hindered by the loss of two ambulance drivers, one nurse, and several corpsmen. They had had to leave early with a Marine in one of the middleweight categories who forfeited the fight when his right shoulder was dislocated.
The last fight of the evening was supposed to be the women. Cat won by forfeit when her opponent did not show. The crowd murmured that Cat would have competition next Friday. It was widely rumored that a tough, petite staff sergeant — and mother of two-year-old twin boys — had put her name on the list.
As we folded our chairs and made our way down the short road to the hospital, I surveyed the swarm of Marines around us as they loaded into trucks and Humvees. They grinned and talked loudly as they recalled the best moments of that Friday night’s fight — the surprise upsets, the obvious champions — and speculated about the women’s match, which would be the highlighted event next week.*
It lasted only five weeks. The general canceled Friday Night Fights when he learned that we had medevaced five Marines, one each week, five Fridays in a row, with fight-related injuries.
But those five Fridays brought intense magic to our little corner of Iraq. For three totally enthralling hours each week, we were not Marines and Sailors in a combat zone. We were simply spectators at a boxing match. And with the exception of baseball, it is difficult to find anything more American than boxing.
We had been transported home.
HEIDI KRAFT
HOME
My baby needed surgery.
The placement of tubes to relieve Brian’s chronic ear infections constituted minor surgery only, and the pediatric surgeon told Mike the whole thing would last five minutes. But despite intellectually knowing these facts, I ached with the intense sadness of not being there the moment he went under anesthesia and the moment he came out.
Everything about the situation felt wrong. When Mike wrote to tell me the surgery had been scheduled, I felt a powerful need to cry. I willed the tears to come. They refused. During the time I knew Brian was at the hospital, I sat in the dark, dry-eyed and alone.
The phones went down for operational security (OPSEC) reasons that day. (Phones and nonsecret Internet access were shut down after a fatality or a classified incident until next of kin were notified or other operational planning took place.)
They stayed down for nearly a week.
Up the Stairs
“Oscar Four Kilo, this is Echo Five Golf.”
“Go ahead,” I answered my radio, walking out of the barracks in the direction of the hospital. As always, the brilliant sun blinded me in that first moment outside, despite the protection of the full-coverage sunglasses we were issued.
“Ma’am, the front desk sent a staff sergeant over, a little while ago. He’s escorting a patient.”
“I’m on my way,” I said.
I strode across the field to our office. Intense sandstorms, with howling wind and tiny pelting rocks, had rendered our entire universe a shade of red during the past two days. Now everything nestled under a blanket of fine dirt.
The door to our tiny office was padlocked, and the paper sign hanging on the nail in its center was flipped to the side that said COMBAT STRESS PLATOON . . . AFTER-HOURS EMERGENCIES GO TO MAIN HOSPITAL.
I surveyed the collars of the men milling about nearby for the chevrons of a staff sergeant and for the unmistakable look of annoyance and concern often seen on the face of a staff noncommissioned officer tasked to escort one of his Marines to the shrink.
He found me. “Excuse me, ma’am, are you the doc?”
“That’s me. Heidi Kraft.” I extended my hand.
“Staff Sergeant Martin.”
“What can you tell me?”
“Well, ma’am, Lance Corporal Adams has started worrying people in our shop. She’s always been quiet, but for the last few days, she’s crying all the time. She won’t talk at all, to anyone. She just sits and stares, and cries. She’s started not coming to work. She’s gotten in trouble, but it’s like she doesn’t care.”
“Has she mentioned to anyone that she might want to hurt herself or anyone else?”
“No, but then again, she really doesn’t talk to anyone anymore.”
“Okay, thanks. Where is she?” We walked out into the passageway together. He looked around briefly and said, “I guess she’s still in the head.”
“Still? When did she go up there?” The marginally functional restrooms were upstairs in the theater, where an Iraqi vendor sold bootlegged DVDs for eight U.S. dollars.
“Oh, about thirty minutes ago, I guess.”
The words had barely escaped his lips when I was bounding up the stairs by twos. I felt my chest tightening and was aware of my pulse in my throat. “Shit,” I breathed to no one in particular. Shit, shit, shit.
I reached the open restroom door. There were two small stalls inside. One door was closed. A desert utility floppy hat lay upside down on the tile outside of the door. A folded piece of paper rested inside it. I picked up the paper and pounded on the door.
“Lance Corporal Adams?” Nothing. I pounded louder.
“Lance Corporal Adams? Are you in there?” Silence. I tried the handle and it was locked. A wave of nausea washed over me as I opened the piece of paper.
I am sorry.
Shit. I pounded again, not exactly sure why.
“Lance Corporal Adams, I am Lieutenant Commander Kraft. I’m a psychologist. I need you to open this door right now. That is an order.” I heard a muffled cry beyond the splintered wood door, and the handle turned. I exhaled, realizing I hadn’t been breathing.
She sat on the closed toilet seat cover, her knees parted and her head down. Her blond hair was pulled in a tight bun at the nape of her neck. Her hands were wrapped around the barrel of her M16, upon which she rested her forehead. She looked up at me, raising her face away from her weapon and displaying bloodshot blue eyes and swollen red eyelids. Her pale skin was streaked with dust and tears. She stared at me, lips quivering. Fresh tears streamed down her cheeks.
“It’s okay,” I whispered. Certain she could hear the hammering of my heart, I took a cautious step toward her. Without changing her gaze, she handed her rifle to me in a slow, deliberate movement. I leaned it against the wall and bent over her. “It’s going to be okay.” I placed my hand under her elbow and helped her to her feet. She sobbed loudly as she stood up, crying out as if breathing were intensely painful. I handed her the note, which she clutched to her chest. I picked up her heavy weapon, and the two of us emerged from the bathroom.
I called my psych tech on the radio and told him in our special code that I was bringing another patient to the ward.
Staff Sergeant Martin waited for us at the exit closest to the hospital. I handed him her rifle as I opened the door for her. She walked out ahead of me, looking at the ground and shuffling her boots in the dirt, kicking up a cloud of fine dust.
I met his eyes. Neither of us spoke a word. He followed me out the door.
For two days, Lance Corporal Adams stayed on our ward. She did not speak a single word the entire time. Her outward emotional presence clearly indicated significant depression, but without her really speaking to us, it was difficult to ascertain anything else about her experience. The only thing clear to me was that my hands were tied. In a normal situation, I would have time to work with her and help her move toward the appropriate treatment. Out here, I knew only one thing: she needed to go home.
At the end of the two days, the lance corporal’s unit brought her a small bag of her personal items. She shook my hand, making eye contact for the first time, and together we walked down the passageway, out the back door, and across the field to the medevac helicopter. Jason had started her on an antidepressant medic
ation, but she knew her recovery would also include intensive therapy (which we had arranged) once she returned home. She spoke the only words I heard from her immediately before her departure. She told me she was ready to get better.
I believed her.
As she placed her bag between her boots and the flight medic helped her fasten her seat belt, she peered out the open hatch at me.
I am not sure, but I think I saw the faintest trace of hope in her small smile.
HOME
Jason’s baby was on the way within the month, and I hoped to make the day as wonderful as possible out here when his new son arrived. I needed help. I turned to the source. My sister, Stephanie, three years my junior and as different as possible from her older sister in every way, consistently sent the most terrific and thoughtful packages I received. She always included Victoria’s Secret pear lotion, so that I could “smell like myself” here. I did not tell her people laughed at me when I smelled like a pear. It didn’t even matter. I still loved putting it on once in a while.
I asked Steph to send us a baby shower in a box, complete with balloons, streamers, napkins, plates, candles, a gift bag, a card, and some wonderfully nonperishable Hostess cupcakes. She did. A card accompanied the box.
And you thought you were the only redhead in the family. Last weekend, in my spring fever state of needing to do something wild and different, I decided to dye my hair “dark auburn brown” — but to add extra red highlights, I mixed the box with a box of “sunset red.” Need I say more? Unfortunately, I did not read the part of the instructions that say “not to be used on blonde hair” and now all the blonde highlights by my face are an interesting shade of purple. Luckily, it washes out in 28 days, but I have to say, I’ve actually gotten a lot of compliments (out of pity maybe?). Anyway — you are not the only redhead in the family, just the only natural one. Speaking of hair, when you come back through San Diego, do you want to do a beauty day with me? I’ll take the day off work — I was thinking we could get our hair cut and have manicures/pedicures. Of course, Mark is still here and you know what an amazing hair designer he is — I’m sure he could have you looking positively normal again in no time.
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