Flowers from Afghanistan

by Suzy Parish

Two-by-four shelves I’d so carefully built along the wall collapsed, and bodybuilding supplements, books, first aid supplies, and movies crashed on top of me in a heap. Dust and smoke filled the tent, burning my eyes and lungs. I crawled out from under the debris, did a quick check to make sure I wasn’t wounded, and slung my vest and helmet on.

  Explosions came one after another. I checked my magazines. The guys in our tent yelled to one another, checking for casualties, reassuring each other we were OK.

  Where was Travis?

  I jumped across the mess on my floor and barreled down the hallway. Travis wasn’t in his room.

  I reached the outside T-wall and Travis was there, his M-9 drawn. His back was against the wall, but he didn’t have his helmet or vest. He hadn’t run to the tent with the rest of us.

  Guys yelled for everyone to head to the bunker. Travis’s gaze met mine, and we knew. No bunker for us.

  Glenn planted himself against the wall. He wouldn’t be hanging out in that fortification either.

  “Secure the front gate!” Travis yelled. “Taliban will attack the guard towers. They’ll try to blow the gate and swarm in.”

  I was determined no enemy would make it through the gate. I gripped my M-9. Time compressed. Jets screeched overhead. Dust and shrapnel blew through the compound with each explosion. I glanced at Travis ahead of me on the wall. He should be in his vest and helmet. Glenn and I’d cover him so he could make it back to the tent.

  “Kit up,” I yelled above the constant explosions, motioning Travis toward the tent.

  Travis took off at a run and made it into the tent. The door slammed behind him. I moved forward to cover Travis’s position, waving behind me for Glenn to follow.

  Glenn ambled casually along the wall as if it were a drill. He took up my former position. I would have been amused if I hadn’t been riveted on the front gate. At first, I thought Glenn was checking for magazines until I saw him retrieve a cigar tube from a pocket. He unscrewed it and produced a fat cigar. Glenn fumbled in another pocket and grabbed a lighter. I marveled he could light the cigar without shaking. Every fiber in my body vibrated from adrenaline.

  I drew a sharp breath to calm my nerves, but before I could exhale, a sixty-two-millimeter recoilless rifle round slammed into the T-wall. A wave of energy clouded with dust and shards of concrete from the blast slammed me to the cement.

  My shin seared with pain. I ran my hand across it and pulled back with my own blood. I stared at it, watched it run across my palm. Not a large wound. I wiped my hand across my shorts.

  I turned to check on Glenn and froze. He writhed on the gravel. His face was white, and he clutched what was left of his calf. Blood spurted through his pants leg and between his fingers. His pants were scorched and torn where his leg should have been. The iron-like smell of blood mixed with the pungent odor of cordite suffocated me.

  “Oh, God!” Words clawed their way up from deep in my chest from a place I had not known before. It wasn’t a prayer, but a shout of anguish. I threw myself to my knees and immediately put pressure on the wound. Warm blood squeezed between my fingers, no matter how much pressure I applied. I stared in horror at Glenn’s life spilling between my fingers, over the ragged strips of pants leg, over the gray gravel. I placed Glenn’s hands over his leg and yelled next to his ear, “Keep pressure on it.”

  Glenn’s eyes were fixed off in the distance. His mind seemed to hover somewhere between earth and sky.

  I wasn’t sure he could hear me above the explosions, and even if he could, he looked as if he was in shock.

  I moved mechanically. The black tunnel of fear threatened to close in on me. The same tunnel from the day Little Mac died. The roar of jets and small arms fire dampened out until all I could hear was the bass drum pounding of blood in my ears. I stared at the blood on my hands and Glenn, but instead of Glenn, I saw Little Mac clinging to me.

  Cold tingling crept down my arms to my fingers. The ground and sky swirled into one dizzy picture.

  Glenn groaned again, and I jerked back to the present. My friend was dying. But he couldn’t die. Not Glenn. Glenn always seemed above the fray to me. He’d been so withdrawn from life it seemed he was out of reach of ordinary pain.

  I willed myself to take a deep breath and shook the mind-numbing fear out of my head. The tunnel would not win this time.

  Days of practicing first aid kicked in, and I went on autopilot. I broke out my IFAK and applied a tourniquet. Pulled out a field dressing and tore the plastic covering off with my teeth. I pulled the cloth pad out, pressed the pad to the stump of his calf. “Hold this,” I yelled once again above the roar of battle. I sounded more in control than I felt. I was amazed he was conscious with the extent of his wounds. If I could keep him awake, he stood a better chance.

  I yelled over the constant blasts to him as I worked to stop the bleeding. I wound an ’H’ bandage around Glenn’s stump.

  Glenn winced, but he ran his hand alongside mine and held the pad in place.

  A figure sprinted past me. Stockton. I jerked my head at him and yelled above another rocket blast.

  “Here. Take care of Glenn.” I needed someone to keep the pressure on Glenn’s wound so I could cover us in the event the enemy made it through the front gate, and Stockton carried no weapon. His help would free me up to keep watch.

  Stockton glanced nervously side-to-side as if he hoped I was addressing someone else. He didn’t attempt to slow down. If anything, he sped up. “Headed to the bunker to get a medic!” he yelled at me.

  My voice cut like shrapnel. “Now!”

  Stockton returned reluctantly to my side, and he placed his hands where I positioned them.

  “Keep pressure on the wound.” My eyes burned into his. “You let Glenn bleed out, it won’t go well for you,” I yelled above the blast of another explosion.

  I scanned the building to the southeast and traced the roofline with the barrel of my weapon.

  From the roof, they could look directly across the street into our camp. I suspected there were spotters.

  A head popped up, just along the roofline. I raised my M4 and tracked him through my sight. I was willing to bet he was visually ground-guiding rounds. Come on buddy, give me a reason to pull the trigger. Let me see a weapon. Someone would pay for this, but the head disappeared out of sight before I could get a shot off.

  Another explosion shook the ground, and I was hit with a dense concussion wave, unlike anything I’d experienced before. The invisible force shoved me into the T-wall. I dropped my weapon and scrambled to retrieve it from the gravel. From the trajectory of the rounds, I was pretty sure they were trying to hit the academy. It was almost impossible to hear the shots before they went ripping past me, and the roar of generators close by hampered my ability to determine the direction of the shooters.

  Seventy Afghan students were housed within the green sniper-fabric-covered fences of the academy. Seventy students put their lives on the line for peace. They deserved our protection.

  I heard a familiar shout, and as I turned, Travis ran at a full charge toward me from the tent. His helmet and vest were in place, his M-4 held at an angle to his chest. In my peripheral vision, Stockton jumped to his feet, abandoned Glenn and ran like a wild man toward the bunker.

  I cursed the coward.

  I motioned toward Travis, but he’d already assessed the situation and knelt, pressed on Glenn’s wounds. Good ole’ Travis. What I could have done with a hundred men like him at that moment.

  Soldiers barreled around the corner driving a Gator and hopped down. They swarmed like a nest of fire ants. Two of them sprinted alongside me and hauled Glenn on board the Gator.

  I followed alongside, providing cover in case we were fired upon.

  Detonations were closer to the academy.

  Glenn’s white face searched mine. He mouthed words. I leaned closer as they secured him in the Gator.

  I barely heard the words coming from his lips. I leaned a little closer. It must have
been important the way he struggled to be heard above the constant barrage of fire. Maybe he wanted me to get word back to a relative in the States. Maybe he wanted me to take care of his belongings. I leaned in, my ear almost touching his mouth.

  “Who won Manliest Beard?” A spark of mischief gleamed in his eyes. I knew then he’d make it.

  “You did,” I yelled into his ear, above the roar of incoming.

  He smiled and lay back in the Gator, satisfaction on his dust and sweat-smeared face.

  The Gator spun down the gravel path to a waiting helicopter. A silver glint of light flashed up at me from the bloody gravel. I bent closer. It was Glenn’s butane lighter. I rescued it from the dirt, wiped it on my shorts and dropped it in the pocket of my cargo shorts.

  The other pocket of my shorts vibrated. It was my cell phone.

  Without thinking, I automatically pulled the phone out and touched the screen under Sophie’s name.

  “Mac, I couldn’t get the Internet to pull up. Is everything OK?”

  My breath caught.

  “Soph!” My voice fought to be heard over the whump, whump of the helicopter that was evacuating Glenn. The mechanical bird lifted slowly, churned dust and debris in a whirlwind around me. I pressed the phone to my mouth as I watched the helicopter take wing, turn sharply and power away. I supposed they were taking him to Kandahar Air Field, though I wasn’t sure. From KAF Glenn would be airlifted to Germany, usually the first destination for wounded soldiers. I’d have to track Glenn down later. Emptiness settled into my gut when the metal bird pulled away. Glenn had begun as an enigma and turned out to be one of the closest friends I had in camp.

  “Are you all right?” Sophie’s voice went into that squeak it got when she was stressed. Her words broke into my thoughts.

  Take a deep breath, steady.

  “We’re under attack.”

  “Where are you?” The phone must have been pressed against her mouth because I could hear her breaths coming in short spurts.

  “I’m at the wall. Travis and I are watching the front gate. The guy behind me got hit. Pray for him. We had to medevac him.”

  “I’ll pray,” Sophie said.

  I could tell she was limiting her words. She knew I had to get off the phone. Sophie knew what it was like for me to be in danger, though this was the first time I’d ever asked her to pray. It surprised me when the words burst from my mouth. That word was foreign and comforting at the same time, but prayer was the one thing I knew Sophie could do for us. How had she put up with this stress for all these years? It came clear to me, like walking out of a fog bank into blinding sunshine. She made herself do it, for me.

  Sophie was my hidden police partner, the strength behind my badge. She was the one who kept our family together while I worked long hours.

  The phone connection was getting worse. Besides that, the distraction would put Travis and me in jeopardy. I had to hang up, though every fiber in my body rebelled against it. Her voice was my lifeline.

  Static took over and decided for me. The last words I heard from Sophie were “love you.”

  The line went dead.

  I didn’t get to say it back. I turned the phone off and stuffed it in my pocket.

  Travis and I had our backs to the wall, our weapons ready. We were able to talk between blasts from the mortars aimed at our camp.

  We stood guard for hours. The sun arched across the sky and threw shadows across the tents as it retreated. I was bone-weary of watching the gate, waiting for a suicide bomber we hoped would never materialize. I unscrewed the top of a bottle of water, took a long drink, and offered the bottle to Travis.

  “Drink?”

  “Thanks.” Travis turned up the bottle and almost drained it. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve and handed the bottle back to me.

  “That Sophie on the phone?”

  “Yeah, I brought the stupid phone out with me, forgot it was in my pocket.”

  “She OK?”

  “Sophie has seen me in tight situations before, on the force.”

  “But this is different.”

  “You’re not kidding. I’ve never had RPGs shot at me before.”

  “Tricia heard me come under attack lots of times.”

  It was the first time he’d mentioned her in a while.

  “How are things?”

  “The divorce finalized. It’s weird. Things don’t seem any different to me because I’m still in Afghanistan. I mean, other than not hearing from her. I guess the next leave I take, it will hit me.”

  “That’s tough.”

  “Yeah. Tricia pretty much cleaned me out. Had a good lawyer. I’m extending my tour. If I can’t stay here, I’ll get them to give me orders for some other place.” He removed his helmet and wiped the sweat from his forehead before putting the headgear back on.

  “I just don’t know what went wrong. I keep going over it in my head. Did I neglect to do something she needed? What would make her leave me?”

  “You’ve been more of an involved husband to Tricia than I’ve ever been to Sophie.”

  “Then what was it? I had a new book in my hands every other week. I thought I could fix me.”

  “Maybe you weren’t the one who needed fixing,” I said.

  Travis went silent on me, which was good. I knew he was considering what I’d just said.

  I tried to change the subject, but unfortunately, the only thing I could think about was Sophie. “I go home in a few weeks,” I said.

  “I know. It’ll be weird without you and Glenn.” Travis held out his hand, took my water bottle, and drained the last of it.

  “You can meet Sophie and me for dinner the next time you’re home on leave. We’ll pick a place somewhere between Brentwood and Huntsville.”

  “That’d be great.”

  There was a blast about a quarter of a mile from us, in the third-story building that overlooked the camp. Dust and smoke poured from the building, fragments showered the air. The ground shook under our feet, and we stopped talking. Come on in, boys, come get what I have waiting for you. But there was no movement.

  “Are they at it again?” Travis finally asked.

  “I think that was us,” I said. “That was the building all the firing has been coming from. Evidently, we pinpointed the source and took it out.”

  A few bursts of firing echoed inside the city. Shooting quieted down. Sirens took the place of gunfire.

  Quick Reactionary Force Vehicles patrolled our path. That was our cue we could return to our tent. We went out four, came back three.

  When we pushed open the tent door, dust and smoke swirled in.

  In Travis’s room movies, books, and trash were on the floor in a heap. Part of his shelves had pulled away from the wall and hung lopsidedly across the corner of the room.

  His eyes glazed over when he saw it.

  “I know what I’ll be doing for the next few hours.”

  I winced when I passed Glenn’s room. I’d get in there later and pack his stuff for him, find out where to ship it. The silence coming from his room only underscored our loss.

  I surveyed my room then called down the hallway, “Same mess here.” I slung my vest off and hung it on the hook I’d made on the wall. Placed my helmet nearby and anything else I might need quickly. There was no assurance the enemy wouldn’t hit us again tonight.

  I bent over and picked up movies, books, and papers and put them back on my shelves. I didn’t want to trip over stuff if I had to jump up in the middle of the night. I turned on my laptop and found the Internet was running, so I wrote Sophie a quick e-mail. I promised if we ever had an attack I’d write SAFE in the subject line. I kept my word.

  The Internet had been shut down until now. They always closed access to it when there was a casualty. Families were finding out on the internet about the death of their loved one before officials could contact them. The thought made me tense, to think of Sophie finding out about my death from social media. That’s why I tried not to compla
in when I couldn’t get online.

  I hit “send” and closed my laptop. I found a water bottle, dampened a paper towe,l and pressed it to my shrapnel wound. I changed into long pants. I’d sleep in them, just in case…

  30

  Mac,

  I didn’t sleep until I saw your name in my inbox.

  I pulled up the account of the attack online and read it. I want you to know, we prayed for you here and the guy who got hit. I thank God you’re safe.

  How are you?

  I felt so helpless, holding onto the phone and hearing explosions going off all around you, and me not being able to do anything. I could only listen and pray, but I did pray.

  We are one, Mac. When you walk the dusty roads of Afghanistan, so do I. You were not meant for that place. You were meant for green lawns and thunderstorms that spring up without warning on hot summer days. You were meant for backyard grills and Fourth of July fireworks. Not mortar attacks. Not IEDs.

  Come home to me soon,

  Your Sophie

  ~*~

  After breakfast, Travis and I toured the camp to see what kind of destruction we’d taken. Our concern was the academy. As we approached the building, the first thing I noticed was the green sniper fabric torn in strips. Right near the door. Fabric flapped eerily in the wind. Any other time of day, this area would have been filled with soldiers. We were fortunate. A tree at the front of the building was shredded like a giant weed eater had gotten hold of it. It reminded me of destruction from tornadoes back home.

  We entered the building to find Thorstad doing the same thing, checking on damage.

  “What did you see?” I asked.

  “Pretty weird, an RPG went through the exterior door and all the way down the hallway. If a class had been in session, someone would have been killed. Other than the damage outside you’ve probably already seen, I didn’t find anything new.”

  “Did you see the pickup?” Travis asked.

  “The roof caved in. Another instance of, ‘thank goodness no one was in there,’” Thorstad said.” We were pretty lucky all in all. Except for that interpreter in his cot.”

  Travis and I looked at each other.