Crossings

by Jon Kerstetter

  Soldiers’ children sent handmade Christmas cards and letters with smiley-face stickers. The soldiers pinned them to makeshift walls or to the sides of tents, or folded them neatly and kept them in their pockets, as if the cards were rare books or holy artifacts. They were. My kids sent handwritten letters and cards that I read over and over. I touched every word and every stray mark of ink with my fingertips. I smelled the paper. Held it close to my chest. When I could, I read the letters every night. I finally had to stop because the love hurt so much and I wanted to be with my family instead of with soldiers. That feeling made for guilt and sadness and loneliness, all wrapped up tight—like a Christmas package of its own. I would eventually spend three consecutive winters in Iraq, and each one would become harder than the one before it. During each one, the letters from my kids would become harder to read. They always brought me close to the edge of too much love in the midst of too much war. I wanted to touch love and smell it, wrap my arms around it, sit in a room with my wife and sons and daughters, and say nothing at all, just watch them breathe, watch them love.

  The winter desert brought many good things; packages and cards from home, phone calls to loved ones, memories and reminders of what it meant to be human. The good things were hard and soft like the winter desert. They reminded us of the hardness of war; they reminded us of the softness of love. Soldiers tried to keep them both alive—war and love. And that was harder than fighting the war itself.

  October and November 2004 were hard months. Insurgent attacks and IED explosions mounted in all sectors of Iraq. Combat activity in the northern sectors around Mosul and Key West demanded a significant uptick in aviation missions. U.S. infantry and aviation forces engaged Iraqi insurgents in firefights in and around Mosul. Army medical assets responded by moving field units to provide quick access to emergency care.

  In early November, Operation Phantom Fury (Second Battle of Fallujah) dominated combat action in southern Iraq. Insurgents had been steadily infiltrating Fallujah, and by November their estimated strength exceeded three thousand. Coalition forces initiated the attack on Fallujah on November 7. Within a week they routed the insurgents and captured nearly three-quarters of the city. Combat support hospitals and field medical units flexed to accommodate the influx of wounded Marines and soldiers.

  On November 8, the second day of the Fallujah battle, I flew with one of my medics from Key West to FOB Anaconda, north of Baghdad, to transfer a patient to the Air Force Theater Hospital there. Our chopper flew off to refuel and as we waited near the ER for its return, a Marine helicopter landed. Three Navy corpsmen and a hospital crew unloaded four wounded Marines and carried them into the emergency triage area on litters. They left a trail of blood from the landing pad to the front door of the ER. My medic stepped over the fresh blood and followed it all the way to the edge of the landing zone. He said he’d never seen blood like that before. I said I had and told him to get off the trail because he was being disrespectful. He looked at me rather puzzled but did as I said. Later I told him the blood reminded me of the “Trail of Tears” where thousands of Cherokee Indians died in a forced march under the authority of the Indian Removal Act. He didn’t know anything about that bit of history. As best I could, I told him about the government’s use of the military to force tribes from their land. I explained how I viewed the hospital blood trail as a soldier’s Trail of Tears and how it was holy ground.

  While the Battle of Fallujah occupied southern Iraq, insurgents mounted attacks in the north during the first week of November in the Battle of Mosul. Coalition forces, as well as Kurdish Peshmerga fighters, responded to the attacks and by mid-November had secured Mosul from insurgents. During one of the missions in support of the northern offensive, an Apache gunship took small-arms fire and an armor-piercing bullet hit the cockpit. The Apache cockpits had a thick high-tech plastic panel located right in front of the pilot’s face. The bullet pierced more than halfway through that panel before it stopped. The mechanics dug it out and gave it to the pilot as a good-luck charm. A week later the same pilot was flying a mission near Mosul; another bullet hit his helicopter on the left side. I was at Mosul flight ops with some other battalion officers when the pilot radioed that he was hit. The copilot took control of the aircraft and landed in the center of the runway. I drove out to midfield with four other soldiers and pulled the pilot out of the aircraft. Blood covered the front of his flight suit. Some medics brought a stretcher and four of us put him on it and ran toward the hospital on the edge of the tarmac. I had broken my foot the week before, so I could hardly run with the extra load. A flight ops lieutenant helped me. In the ER, I evaluated the pilot with the other hospital physicians. An armor-piercing round had struck the helicopter, entered through his left wrist, exited, scythed the skin of his belly without causing internal injury, and then finally lodged in the opposite side of the aircraft. The mechanics dug that bullet out too, and gave it to him.

  Those two months gave me the kind of engagement for which soldiers and Army doctors trained. Rigorous action. Intensity of attack. Critical decisions and procedures. It was a time when I sensed deep fulfillment as a capable soldier and doctor entrusted by command to do the kinds of tasks that few other physicians outside of the military, and even some within the military, ever experience. It was a time when I felt utterly confident and sure of myself, even to the point of thinking I could do my particular tasks better than anybody else in the whole damn Army. It wasn’t a feeling of arrogance but rather self-assurance from crossing a threshold that defined combat expertise. When I graduated from medical school, I had felt that same confidence, that same bold spirit of having crossed from one side of knowledge and achievement to the other side. That kind of crossing allowed me to look back and see that I had done something important, even critical, in my life. And that mattered to me more than all the demands of the mission and the hardship of being at war.

  —

  The operational tempo of November extended into December. Whatever respite I expected after the Battles of Fallujah and Mosul came only sporadically and in small doses. Aviators flew, physicians treated wounds, artillery batteries shelled, and infantry platoons fought throughout Iraq. In the midst of all that action, Thanksgiving was celebrated at every forward operating base. “Celebrate” was a tough word to use in the context of war. It referenced all the activities of home and family and made us acutely aware of our own fragility—quite the opposite of a reason to celebrate. Regardless, soldiers were thankful to be alive and without injury.

  For the most part, Thanksgiving was a remarkable day. Battles still needed fighting and patients still needed doctors, but soldiers tweaked the mission assignments to allow almost everybody to have dinner together at one of the serving times. The Army had flown in turkeys and all the trimmings, and the DFAC staff spent the larger part of two days preparing. The large center serving table even sported an ice carving and music played in the background. I ate dinner with several of the pilots and my medics. We relaxed long enough to talk about our families and how we missed them. After dinner, I threw a football on the tarmac with a lieutenant named Michaels and a couple of the medics. Michaels was loved by everybody. He constantly studied his craft and his faith and his career with an eye toward improving everything he did. He possessed the kind of zeal that was rare. Even when he talked about boot camp he made it sound so exciting that soldiers thought they should go back because they might have missed something. When I talked to him he made me conscious of my commitment to the mission. We occasionally sat next to each other at chapel services.

  I spent my evening writing letters home and reading a book a friend had sent, The Valley of Vision, a book of Puritan prayers. As I read it, I realized the Puritans prayed for everything without ceasing. I wondered if they would have found reasons to pray if they had been deployed to Iraq. The only thing I and other soldiers did without ceasing were missions.

  Thanksgiving passed. In the span of a day or two, it had taken on the aura of j
ust another day at war—a memorable day for sure, but a day gone missing on a calendar of memorable days. On December 9, in the late afternoon, I met with the chaplain to discuss the combat stress program and a patient who was referred to him for counseling. After the meeting I sent all the medics to dinner and stayed on call in the aid station for emergencies. At 1900 hours I left the aid station and went to my quarters. I was going to rest for a while, then go to the gym, but I fell asleep on my cot.

  Sometime later I heard a loud rap on the door that jarred me from a light sleep.

  “Doc! Open up! There’s an emergency,” someone shouted. “Doc!”

  “Just a minute!” I shouted back as I made my way from my cot to the door. When I opened the door I saw one of the flight ops lieutenants. His face was drawn into a serious frown, his speech on the verge of panic.

  “Sir, there’s been an accident. We have aircraft down. The commander needs you in the TOC immediately.”

  The seriousness and near panic in the lieutenant’s face told me that whatever was happening was not routine.

  “How many casualties?”

  “We’re not sure yet, sir. The commander will brief you.”

  I gathered my medic bag and rushed to the ops center. On the way I stopped briefly at the medics’ quarters and alerted them. I wanted them to be prepared for the worst of all possible missions. “You need to prep for a disaster response and multiple casualties,” I ordered the NCO in charge.

  In the TOC, I learned that a Black Hawk helicopter had collided with an Apache gunship over the FARP (Forward Area Refueling Point) at the Mosul airfield. The initial details were conflicting. We didn’t know if the crash resulted from a fuel explosion or enemy fire. As the commander and his staff in flight ops communicated with personnel at Mosul, it became evident that there were at least two dead, Lieutenant Michaels and Captain Finch. “These are our soldiers,” the commander said to the officers gathered. “Get a response team ready for a flight to Mosul.”

  When I heard his words, my gut tightened. The mission now took on more emotion than a routine launch and recovery. The battalion would have to face the deaths of fellow aviators and I knew that would shake some of the soldiers. I had seen multiple casualties from my first tour, but these casualties were the first for the battalion, and it happened within just two months after arrival in theater.

  It was a cold night, and a light rain made the helicopters on the flight line look darker than usual. Aircraft crew scurried about, removing wheel chocks and going through their checklists. They moved precisely and deliberately yet with a contagion of speed. The crew chiefs flashed hand signals to the pilots for the engine start sequence and the deep whoosh of fuel ignition resonated throughout the flight line. The raspy whine of the jet engines flooded the scene as high-velocity exhaust hit the cold air. In less than a minute, rapidly accelerating rotor blades generated the familiar whap whap whap of a Black Hawk helicopter. As we approached our assigned aircraft, the crew chiefs snapped a quick salute. I grabbed the handhold on the side of the aircraft, pulled myself up and through the open doors and buckled in. I plugged my headset into the intercom panel.

  “COM check. Doc is up on six.”

  “Doc, you’re loud and clear. Monitor six for updates.”

  My medic and I secured our medic bags to the frames of the seats. We exchanged an affirmative thumbs-up. In a matter of seconds the helicopter rose to a hover, pitched slightly nose down, then began to fly forward with increasing speed and altitude. Elapsed time for takeoff—less than sixty seconds.

  From my seat next to the door, I glanced at the disappearing runway. The intercom popped with short, clipped updates and aviator code talk about the weather at Mosul and the current situation there. Forward observers reported small-arms fire in the area. Rain obscured the runway visibility. Airport security forces had secured the crash site.

  As we flew toward Mosul, I lost myself in the possible scenarios at the scene. Would we take fire? Crash like the helicopters at Mosul? How many soldiers could I handle at once? What if the crew members were burned or trapped in the wreckage? Momentarily, I forgot where the hospital was located, although I had been there many times. The scenarios got me stirred up and edgy. I coached myself into focusing on the known details: two aircraft down; two, possibly more killed; several injured, all presumably at the crash site or the hospital. I told myself to calm down and read the mission as it developed. I countered my emotions and the adrenaline by consciously tightening and then relaxing my arms and legs and taking deep breaths. I visualized my heart rate slowing and my muscles on standby.

  “Doc…Doc…Come up on channel one. We’re ten minutes out and the commander has an update for you.”

  I fumbled with the channel selector and checked myself back into reality. Focus. “Ghost Rider Five Zero up on one.”

  “FiveZero—ZeroThree. We confirm two KIA. Nine WIA with burns. You copy, Doc?”

  “FiveZero copies two KIA, nine WIA.”

  The next ten minutes vanished like spent rounds of ammunition. I sensed the warping of time as if the laws of physics and flight no longer applied to our mission; time jumped like a coded message frequency hopping on secure radio channels. I clipped my speech, movements, and thoughts like I always did in a crisis. I could hear the rotor blades thunder against the air and feel their vibration against my body. As I anticipated what might lie ahead, I remembered throwing a baseball with my sons and going to a soccer game with my daughters. We were laughing and the sun was warm. I could hear the slap of a catcher’s mitt and see the puff of dust from its pocket. Then the memory vanished.

  The pilot keyed the intercom: “Five minutes to the crash site.”

  I felt for my medic bag and placed my hand on my weapon just to make sure it was secure. The situation on the ground was not a firefight. If it were, an Apache gunship would have engaged and we would have diverted to land elsewhere. There would be no need to fight or shoot or kill. Our only mission was to find the wounded and the dead and secure the crash site. The tension of the mission wasn’t in the threat of enemy contact but in the enormity of dealing with soldiers who had been injured and killed—soldiers whom I knew and cared for.

  I loosened my seat harness, thinking it gave me an edge for moving faster. It didn’t. My medic did the same. One of the soldiers across from me closed his eyes and made the sign of the cross. Silently, I prayed for strength, although I wasn’t sure that’s what I needed. I needed a clear head and decisive actions.

  The downed aircraft came into view as we maneuvered toward the tarmac at the end of the runway near the refueling point. I could see soldiers near the crash site and they appeared to form a loose perimeter. The wreckage smoldered and fragments of airframe were heaped together and smaller pieces were scattered about. It dawned on me that my role as a flight surgeon was one of putting fragments back together.

  Our Black Hawk hovered briefly over the crash before we began our landing about midfield, halfway between the wreckage and the hospital at the far end of the runway. Gusts of wind buffeted the helicopter as we finally touched down. A crew chief flung the doors open. I grabbed my gear and crouched low as I cleared the rotors and ran toward the crash with the safety officer and my medic.

  The helicopter rotors whipped a light rain at hurricane speeds and the drops stung my face. In the distance, away from the airfield, I could see illumination rounds against the overcast sky. As we approached the downed aircraft, the first impressions were shocking in a way that only war can truly display. Shards of metal and high-tech carbon fiber littered the scene. Aircraft wiring dangled from the wreckage. Pieces of aircraft lay blackened; some were molten, their lingering smoke still acrid. Slicks of burned oil contaminated the ground. The rotor blades from the Apache had fractured. One detached blade of a rotor had spun through the air and embedded itself thirty yards away in the sides of a Hesco barrier filled with sand. The fuel technicians standing outside at the time of the collision had felt the wind from the rot
or as it flew over their heads and hit the barrier. The heat of the burning wreckage had cooked off rounds of ammunition from the Apache, and as we assessed the site, we wondered if any rounds might still explode.

  I felt stunned as I evaluated the scene, as though I had never seen the remnants of a bomb explosion or an IED or a Humvee shredded and its occupants torn or burned. I had seen all that and more, but this bit of war was personal, it involved a helicopter I had flown in, one that held the bodies of soldiers I felt responsible for because I was their flight surgeon. I had always been able to react to trauma objectively, yet when I saw the wreckage all heaped up the way it was, the Apache frame upside down, smoldering fragments scattered about, I lost any professional objectivity I had. I considered myself more as a soldier who had lost two battle companions than an Army medical officer. I knew the dead personally. One was Lieutenant Michaels, who had thrown a football with me and the medics after Thanksgiving dinner. The other pilot, Captain Finch, was an older soldier with a family. We had talked and joked about our children together. I was in awe of his career as an instructor pilot and his leadership in the battalion. Both were the kind of aviators everyone respected for their skills and faith and leadership. Even though I wasn’t close friends with them, I had looked up to them and they to me, and that counted as being close in the way that soldiers become friends in war. So, instead of professional objectivity, I felt sorrow and loss, two emotions that Army doctors needed to hold at a distance, especially in the immediacy of a crisis.