The hospital will be open in a few days.
WEEK 2, DAY 5, IRAQ
2000 HOURS, AUDITORIUM
“This better be good!” Denti says to Reto and me as we enter the auditorium. There's a talent show scheduled for tonight, and I had to convince these two to come with me.
“First up, we will have John and Blake singing and playing the guitar,” the emcee announces. Two Marines get on stage and they begin singing and playing the song “Cold” by Crossfade.
2030 HOURS, AUDITORIUM
“Next up we have Captain Tarr singing a song by Janis Joplin.”
Reto, Denti, and I laugh as five Marines in the back of the room begin hollering and calling Captain Tarr by her first name — which the emcee hadn't mentioned.
Captain Tarr sings, and she's as good as last time. The emcee then gets back on the mic and announces the next performer.
“And next up we have Colonel Lessly, who will be singing ‘Baby One More Time’ by Britney Spears and ‘Any Way You Want It’ by Journey.”
Colonel Lessly gets on stage and looks in the audience at Reto, Denti, and me. We are the only other members of our unit that are here.
“This song goes out to a friend of mine, Larry,” Lessly says. Larry is Specialist Wilson's first name.
Reto and I look at each other and a chill goes up my spine. Those are the same songs Wilson sang at the last talent show. Lessly begins singing and dancing just the way Wilson danced on stage when everyone cheered him on.
“Let's get the hell out of here,” Denti says.
It's too creepy to watch an old man sing a song dedicated to a mentally challenged kid whose dick he tried to suck, so the three of us grab our weapons and leave the auditorium.
WEEK 3, DAY 1, IRAQ
1300 HOURS, OUR NEW HOSPITAL
“Our hospital is now officially open and ready for business… . We have a fully functioning four-bed OR that is ready to go … along with… .”
Actually that's BS.
Colonel Jelly is standing on a makeshift stage in front of a crowd of three hundred people. Everyone from our unit is here as well as dozens of military commanders — from one-, two-, and three-star generals to colonels and sergeant majors from all the bases in Iraq.
I look over at Reto, then at Denti, Torres, Chandler, and Hudge; down the line everyone shakes their head no to me. Colonel Jelly is lying to everyone here, but we were told to keep our mouths shut. Jelly and the GOBs want to open the hospital early so they will look good — that's why we're having this ceremony. The fact of the matter, however, is that we only have two OR beds. We're still waiting on parts for the fourth, and the third one is only partially set up. Colonel Jelly knows this, but instead he has chosen to lie.
I know I should say something, but I can't. Who would I talk to? I only know that if we have more than two patients at a time we're screwed. It's been a while since I've done this, but I close my eyes and pray. I pray and I don't ask for an end to the war. I simply ask that we don't get more than two surgical patients at a time.
In his speech, Command Sergeant Major Lavaled says, “I'd like to thank all the soldiers out there who helped make this possible. I know we couldn't have gotten the chance to open this hospital if we hadn't done such a great job in Mosul. We deserve this, and I'm glad with our hard work we can open this hospital early.”
Even though Command Sergeant Major Lavaled has only been in our unit for a few days, already he is acting as though he has been with us the whole time, as if he was in all those surgeries with us. He's another one I'll try to give the benefit of the doubt.
WEEK 3, DAY 2, IRAQ
0900 HOURS, OR
I can handle doing surgeries on Iraqis and Americans because we put ourselves in this mess … but a dog? After seeing it lying on the table, brought over from the K-9 unit, its big brown eyes wide open, I almost start crying. I forget to block my emotions. Then a nine-year-old Iraqi child is brought in. She's got shrapnel wounds to the stomach and leg. I wasn't prepared for this.
WEEK 3, DAY 7, IRAQ
1600 HOURS, OUTSIDE THE OR
As Laveled approaches, I get into the position of parade rest — hands behind my back, legs shoulder-width apart.
“Good evening, command sergeant major.”
“Good evening, soldier. Hot day out today. Good thing I'm not wearing any underwear.”
I know that I should laugh as a sign of respect, but I can't. Command Sergeant Major Lavaled says nothing. We both stare at each other, holding the other's eye contact. I'm in no mood to play this game.
Twenty seconds goes by: What the hell is going on? Is he going to just stand here staring at me?
Thirty seconds: Why didn't I just laugh at his stupid joke?
Forty-five seconds: It's too late now. I can't laugh; I'll just look like an idiot.
Fifty-five seconds: I'm insane. I need to do something.
“At least I don't get any wedgies this way,” he says after almost a minute of eye contact.
I continue to stare at him. Why is he just staring at me?
Twenty seconds: What is this guy's fucking problem? Leave me alone you freak show!
Thirty seconds: Maybe I don't understand the joke.
Forty-five seconds: I wonder what he's thinking. Is the whole underwear wedgie thing some type of gay code?
One minute: If it is some type of code, then maybe I shouldn't be staring at him. He'll think I'm leading him on. I'm sure Gagney will love that. The CSM will think I'm a tease.
“I mean sometimes I get swamp ass, so I just do lunges and dry it up,” he says.
What the fuck is going on? This doesn't even make sense. I don't think he's gay.
Ten seconds: I can't believe I'm having a staring contest with the new CSM.
Twenty seconds: Does this fucking guy really need my approval that bad that he'd have a staring contest with me until I act subservient and laugh?
Thirty seconds: Oh my god, my eyes are watering. I can't let him see me cry or avert eye contact. I heard somewhere that in prison that means you're someone's bitch.
Thirty-five seconds: I've got to do something.
Forty seconds: I've got it!
I move the right side of my mouth up a half centimeter into what could be called a smirk.
Five seconds….
Lavaled looks at me and smiles.
“All right, very well, soldier; carry on with the day's work.”
Oh dear God, I need to get out of here.
WEEK 4, DAY 4, IRAQ
1400 HOURS, OR
I notice that if I smoke four Camel Light cigarettes one after the other and try to walk, I get all woozy and I feel like I'm drunk. Although it's been a while since I bought my first pack of cigarettes, I just bought my first carton. The feeling that I get when I down four Camel Lights is amazing. It relaxes me and puts me in my head — but there's really no point unless you're going to smoke a few right in a row.
“Hey, you want to go grab a smoke?” Reto asks me, already knowing the answer. I love smoking a cigarette and writing in my journal. I love smoking during smoke breaks. I love smoking after a good meal. I love smoking before I go to bed. I love smoking in the morning.
Reto and I take a ladder outside at the back of the OR and go up on the roof.
“Hey, someone give me a hand up,” Denti yells up to Reto and me. We help him up and finish our cigarettes. We call this our clubhouse.
1445 HOURS, OR
“Did you step in something?” Reto looks.
“I didn't step in anything.”
We're emptying a small trash bucket from the bathroom into a larger one.
“Eww — ”
“What is that, toilet paper?”
Inside the trash barrel there are dozens of rolled up pieces of toilet paper with shit on them.
“Who's been throwing their toilet paper into the trash? Why don't they just flush it?”
MONTH 6
“WE ARE IN THE MIDDLE OF FIGHTING
A WAR AND OUR LEADER HAS GIVEN HIMSELF A MONTH-LONG VACATION.”
WEEK 1, DAY 4, IRAQ
1445 HOURS, OR
A conversation between Dr. Bill and Colonel Reke:
“Are you sure they're the right patients?” Colonel Reke's face is stone, but her wavering voice gives her away: She's concerned about something.
“No, they're all dead. Every single one of them. Routine wounds and we saved their lives.”
Dr. Bill has just finished a follow-up call on nine of his Iraqi patients that he's done surgery on.
WEEK 1, DAY 6, IRAQ
1450 HOURS, OR
“You have got to be kidding me. Not again.” Reto holds up a trash bag and inside there are rolled up pieces of toilet paper with shit on them.
“What the hell is going on here?”
“I don't know, man, but whenever we empty out the trash — I'm sick of smelling this.”
Reto and I grab the trash and double bag it, vowing to catch whoever is doing this. We know it's neither of us, because, A, we're the ones who have to clean it up, and, B, we both agreed that if we had to take a shit we'd go in another section's bathroom so we wouldn't smell up ours.
Reto and I throw the trash in the trash bin and walk back into the hospital.
I go into the bathroom and put on a teeth-whitening strip. I bought a box of thirty-day teeth whiteners, and I use them at the end of every shift to counter the effects of cigarettes and coffee. Some of the top strips have gone missing. Who would steal teeth-whitening strips? I make it my mission to notice who has noticeably whiter teeth.
WEEK 2, DAY 2, IRAQ
144 HOURS, OR
Today: three surgeries, four amputations, and two GSWs. Reto and I are vegging in the break room.
Lieutenant Hamilton sticks her head in the door.
“Hey, have you guys seen Colonel Jelly?”
Reto's eyes are closed and his head is nodding up and down.
He's trying not to fall asleep.
“There was a huge herpes sore across Lieutenant Hamilton's lips,” I say.
“You're crazy, man. I didn't see anything,” Reto says. His eyelids fall back down and he starts lightly snoring.
WEEK 3, DAY 1, IRAQ
2230 HOURS, SLEEPING AREA
I put down the book that I'm reading. It's A Long Walk to Freedom, by Nelson Mandela. I need to take a break; it's the longest book I've ever read, and it's too much to take in all at once.
I look over at my roommates. Markham is sitting on his bed. He's got huge earmuff headphones on and he's playing the guitar. I stand up and look over at Denti. He's lying in bed with tiny headphones on watching Family Guy. Denti is laughing, and as he laughs I check out his teeth to see if they possibly look whiter than normal. I turn toward Torres. He and Cardoza are snuggled up together on his bed. Neither Torres nor Cardoza have headphones on, and I can hear that they're watching a movie. I look once more at the three of my roommates. I need something to do.
Markham is jamming on the guitar now and I don't want to disturb him. I look at Denti; he's laughing at an episode of Family Guy and I don't want him to disturb me. I walk over toward Torres and Cardoza; Cardoza is talking and Torres is listening intently. I think for being at war, we all haven't lost our senses of humor.
“What are you guys watching?”
“Hey, Michael,” Cardoza is smiling. She's always smiling. “We're watching Wedding Crashers. But hey … I was just telling Torres something about Colonel Jelly. You'll appreciate this story….”
It's been happening more and more: I'm getting tired of hearing stories about everyone. I just don't care. I'm sick of hearing about husbands cheating on their wives and wives cheating on their husbands.
“You know Lieutenant Hamilton, right?” Cardoza begins.
“All right, all right, tell me.”
“Well, yesterday….”
Someone begins knocking on the door.
“It's pretty late for someone to be knocking.”
I get up and open the door.
“AANNTTHHOONNYY.” Standing in front of me is Specialist Fangell. I give him a hug and bring him into my room. Torres and Cardoza see him and jump up to give him hugs as well.
Fangell is an OR medic from our southern hospital, and he's been allowed to come up here for a few days and train with us. Fangell is six feet tall, twenty years old, and is a former Banana Republic model. He is wearing a cutoff tank top that shows off a tattoo on his right shoulder. It's an Army Special Forces tattoo. He got the tattoo when he was eighteen and full of dreams to join the Special Forces, just like his uncle. But Fangell isn't in the Special Forces. He's an operating room medic in an Army Reserve unit, and now he has a tattoo on his shoulder of a unit he was never in.
Fangell starts talking, but after a few minutes I start to daydream.
“Anyways, I was wondering if you guys could help me out. I wanted to say hi to Colonel Jelly — ”
“I thought he was down south, visiting you guys,” I say, coming out of my daydream.
“Haha,” Cardoza laughs. “You guys don't know where he's been?”
“Well, we're not his personal secretaries,” I say sarcastically, looking at Cardoza. She is one of Jelly's secretaries so she is privy to information that only Jelly and the GOBs know.
“He sure as hell isn't at our southern hospital. I was told he was up here,” Fangell jumps in.
“That's because he's not,” Cardoza replies. “He just wants everyone up north to think that he's visiting the southern hospital. And he wants everyone down south to think that he's up north. In actuality he's back in the States going to war college. He has to go if he wants to be promoted to general or something.”
“Baby, are you kidding me?” Torres says as he grabs Cardoza by the waist and spins her around.
“He doesn't want anyone to know, though. The school lasts for about a month and he's already been there for two weeks.”
“We are in the middle of a fucking WAR. In the middle of this Goddamn dessert and our ‘leader’ is back home in the States.”
“No wonder why he lied to everyone. He doesn't want everyone to know that he gave himself a month-long vacation,” Fangell says.
I start to feel nauseous — we are in the middle of fighting a war and our leader has given himself a month-long VACATION. We don't even have a leader in this GODFORSAKEN COUNTRY!
2300 HOURS, SLEEPING AREA
By the time I come back inside the room I've had three cigarettes, and Cardoza, Torres, and Fangell have changed the topic of conversation.
I lay down on my bed.
“So, I am outside of my room a few days ago,” I hear Cardoza finishing the story she started telling me, “and I'm waiting for Hudge so we can go to the gym together. Well, she was late and as I'm outside waiting I see Lieutenant Hamilton and a guy knocking on someone's door. The door opens and one of the doctors from the ER comes out. Hamilton and the guy go inside. Two minutes later Hamilton and the guy walk by me. They both have these herpes sores all over their mouths and lips.”
I turn over in my bed and throw the pillow over my ears as Cardoza — continues talking about all the people in our unit who've gotten STDs.
WEEK 4, DAY 1, IRAQ
1430 HOURS, OR
We now have the pieces to all four of our OR beds, so now we officially have the four beds operational. It's been a month since Jelly gave that speech. Although we had a mini mass casualty, it wasn't anything we couldn't handle and it was mostly taken care of in the ER. I don't know what I would have done, though, if commanders sent us patients thinking we had four beds when we only had two. People probably would have died and it would have been my fault for not speaking up. I'm glad I don't have to worry about it anymore.
Reto and I grab the trash from the bathroom and again there is toilet paper with huge chunks of shit loaded in there. It sucks, but we've come up with a plan to catch the person, or at least stop him, and tonight we are going to implement it.
R
eto picks up the bathroom trashcan and places it outside the bathroom, three feet away against the wall. He looks at me and I smile in approval. Our trap is set. Whoever is throwing their shitty toilet paper into the garbage will have to open the bathroom door, walk out, and place it into the trash. Reto takes the bags and heads outside to put them in the dumpster. I head back into the bathroom and put on a teeth-whitening strip.
I've been using my teeth-whitening strips for about three weeks now and I have one week left of lower strips, but I only have one single upper strip left. I'm still not sure who is taking them, but now I spend all day looking at my coworkers' teeth to see if the top ones look any brighter from day to day. I have no idea who, but right now my attention is on Sergeant Sellers. She also bought teeth whiteners, and she keeps her box in a wide-open area whereas I keep my box hidden in the bathroom. I suspect that the culprit may initially be stealing from her and that she in turn steals the ones that she's missing from me.
Fangell is there waiting for me. I don't know how long he's been there, but he gives me a hug.
“Well, this is it, man. I've got to go back down to the southern hospital. It's been good. Take care.”
“You too, man. It was great to see you,” I reply.
Fangell turns and I watch him walk away. It's always sad to see a friend leave, and as he walks away I think back on all the stories he's told me since he's been up here. Men and women cheating on their husbands, wives, boyfriends, and girlfriends. I think of all the people he's told me about that are getting alcohol, and even cocaine and heroin, shipped to them. As Fangell turns a corner and leaves my view, I think of the worst stories that he told me. A male doctor was running the sick call for the southern hospital. Sick call is where people go who aren't seriously injured but just sick, like the flu or stomach problems. They can come in and get care and medicine. A female soldier came in with complaints of flu-like symptoms, runny nose, fever, and headache. The doctor told her to lie down on the bed and he begins giving her a medical exam, but the doctor wasn't wearing any gloves. The exam consisted of him caressing her breasts and asking her to get naked, bend over, and cough. The female patient did what the doctor asked. When she left she immediately filed a complaint. Soon another woman came forward saying a few days earlier the same doctor did the same thing when she only came in for a headache.
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