The Long Walk: A Story of War and the Life That Follows

by Brian Castner

When the trail became too tight even for Kurdish pickups, Castleman and I dismounted and followed our guide into a maze of covered markets and shops half buried at the base of the crowded concrete apartments that rose like cliff walls around us and smothered the neighborhood. I looked at Castleman, and he looked at me, and we both checked our rifles before we ducked our heads and descended into the dim cavern.

  The tunnel-like nature of the market had ensured the death of many. I stepped over broken benches, ripped and torn merchandise, and ankle-deep sticky puddles of people for a hundred meters before we got to the chai shop itself. In the narrow covered confines the blast wave had echoed and reverberated, bounced and doubled back on itself and multiplied until it produced a freight train of agony that scoured this path red. Worse, the chai shop itself had plate-glass windows separating the kitchen and brewing area from public space where patrons sat on benches and at tables to sip their tea. I saw little shattered glass on the ground; I assumed most of it was now at the hospital, embedded in victims.

  Castleman spotted a slight depression in the concrete floor where the IED had been placed. So small a dent, so small a device, so much damage in such an enclosed place. The target was a meeting of Kurdish elders, old men with long beards who sat here each morning with their tea and discussed their troubles, and the troubles of their families, and the troubles of their people. The device was disguised, probably in a plastic crate or a tomato can or olive-oil tin. All of the elders died, as did the workers at the chai shop and the shoppers and vendors at the few market stalls I passed on my way in. I never got a full body count. Fifteen? Twenty?

  Castleman and I searched for evidence, pieces of the bomb, but it quickly proved useless. The pesh had evacuated the scene and stood respectfully back, but there was little left to grab. Even the discarded body parts of the victims were mostly liquefied—an unidentifiable organ here, half a scalp there, but mostly a ruddy smear across the ceiling, walls, and floor of the concrete market tube.

  An eerie quiet permeated, unfamiliar to our ears. I noticed an erect table to one side, out of place among the destruction, with an intact cardboard box on top. The box had to have been put there after the detonation; there was no way it could have survived the blast intact. I looked inside, and did not know immediately what I saw. The thing, it had been human at one time, or at least part of one. There was a sandal, but the flesh inside of it didn’t bear any resemblance to a body part I knew. At the top the thing was flayed, opening like a meat flower, muscle petals and a bone central stigma. At its base was a purple engorgement, and this lumpy bag was stuffed into straining leather straps, ten pounds in a five-pound bag.

  Was that a foot, in the sandal? I peered closer, and got my first whiff as flies started to buzz around me. I found toenails on the lumpy bag, and a tuft or two of hair, and eventually counted five protrusions. That made the upper splayed-open portion a leg, or the former lower half of one. I eventually found something I would call a tibia and fibula and charred calf muscle in the surrounding skin, holding the mass together in a hollow open cone.

  Yes, I had figured it out. It was definitely a foot lying in this cardboard box.

  A foot in a box.

  Someone had put a foot in a box. I laughed. I couldn’t help it. They must have found the foot at the scene, and stuck it in the box for safekeeping. It makes sense, right? Why not put the foot in the box?

  I called over to Castleman to look, to show him the joke, but he was distracted by a conversation with our terp and a Kurdish witness. Oh well, his loss.

  “Does anyone know how this foot got in the box?” I called out. But few of the pesh knew much English, and with our terp otherwise engaged, I got mostly blank stares back. Never mind.

  I took a picture of the foot in the box to save for the report. The guys at headquarters in Baghdad would get a kick out of it.

  Before I walked away from the table I looked down at my own foot. My formerly tan boots were darkly stained halfway up to the laces, a consequence of doing missions like this one. Buried in those laces on the right boot I had a dog tag: my name, Social Security number, branch of service, blood type, and religious affiliation so they could find me a Catholic priest at the end. Up around the top of each of my boots I had written NKA and O+ in dark black permanent marker: a directive to the medic working on me that I had no allergies and what blood to give me so the priest would not be required.

  You put this information on boots because feet survive detonations. They pop off and live to tell the tale, though the rest of you ceases to exist. If I was at the chai shop, I would be a victim, but at least I would not be nameless, like this foot in this box. If I was at the chai shop, they would know it was part of me they were putting in the ground. If I was at the chai shop … I looked at the box again.

  How easily my own foot slips into that box.

  The foot sat in the box. My foot sat in the box.

  I stopped laughing. No. No, it’s not. It’s not my foot in the box. My foot is staying where it is. Whole and recognizable and pink and warm and intact. I’m alive. I’m not scared of the soft sand. I’m living behind my weapon.

  I checked my rifle. I’m not scared of the soft sand.

  Fuck this place. Fuck that foot in the box. I’m going home.

  I have a picture of the dead suicide bomber, sitting upright in the driver’s seat of the small silver car, brain smeared across the window, a black hole in his head.

  I have a picture, but I don’t need a picture, you understand. I see the hole in his head right now. I’ve memorized every speck of dust clinging to his eyelashes. I could relate every detail today.

  “How do you remember everything?” my wife asks, as she stands over my shoulder while I type this book. She has noted the lack of research, journals, annotations, personal effects, and mementos piled on the writing desk.

  “You can’t remember the children’s first words. You can’t remember them being born, family vacations, or preschool graduation. How do you remember all of this, to be able to go back and write it all down now?” my wife asks again, frustration and emotion in her voice.

  I don’t try to remember. I don’t need to. I’m surrounded by reminders; the images simply emerge in the front of my thoughts. I’m not talking about trite, superficial reminders, like fireworks at the Fourth of July. Oh, to be startled at fireworks again! That is so temporary. The same for the slamming of car doors, or spotting bags and tires on the side of the road, appearing as IEDs on Interstate 90.

  It’s the small, everyday reminders that are insidious. The rumble of a diesel engine. The smell of gasoline. A large tin can of tomatoes. Traffic circles. Putting on a life jacket. Lacing up a pair of winter boots. Unrolling a sleeping bag.

  I’d just as soon forget it all. Replace a dead body or two with a birthday party. But I can’t, not while I’m surrounded by the war every day.

  When dressing my son before his hockey games, I am always careful with the gear, with each legging, each strap and buckle. But today is special, and I am particularly deliberate for the big game, the championship in Mite Hockey.

  First, the cotton socks and undergarments. Then the padded shorts, plates covering his thin thighs, and his skates, extra tight, around the back of his ankle, double-knotted in front, just as he likes. Next, the large, bulky goalie pads, with their complicated laces around the skate blade housing. Then a series of nylon braces and clips along the back of his leg. He looks so skinny, patiently lying on the locker-room floor while I meticulously check each fitting point. Not only are his slight legs swallowed by the wide pads, but his chest and arms are covered only by a tight shirt, accentuating the contrast. Next the puffy upper-body protector, insulated sleeves, and jersey overtop. The final step is the helmet. I start crying as I place it on his head, cinch down the chin cup, and close the cage over his face.

  The tears come all the time now. Bedtime stories, movies, the Olympics, news events, and long-form NPR radio pieces, a discordant and unassociated conglome
ration of triggers. But those tears are usually in private, in my home, my car, in my son’s bed, snuggled up with his back to me so he can’t see. These tears, on the other hand, the ones currently blurring my vision, are in the locker room at the arena, and in front of the other children, parents, and coaches, with no filter of privacy. My Crazy is running down my face for all to see.

  I’ve developed some strategies for this kind of moment. You can rub your nose and pull out your handkerchief like you have allergies or a cold. That sometimes works. Or you can make a show of cleaning your glasses, and try to throw in a discreet wipe of the eyes. But under no circumstances can you speak, because your voice will catch and the game will be up. You will be forced to explain why you are crying while putting on your son’s goalie equipment.

  I just put my seven-year-old son in a bomb suit and sent him on the Long Walk.

  Everyone deals with it differently. Many of my brothers that have come home get angry. Angry at themselves. Angry at the world.

  I can see it on Bill’s face as we stand in line together at the grocery checkout. The store is crowded and busy, and the consolidated feeder line wraps back on itself twice before arriving at our place in the queue. Children cry and tug at their mother’s sleeve to buy them a candy bar. A teenage girl talks loudly on a cell phone about some upcoming event and which of her friends will be attending. At one nearby register, a retiree has created congestion by asking the checkout girl to call a manager regarding the use of a particular coupon. The line has not moved in four minutes.

  Bill’s jaw is set, his knuckles white on the shopping-cart handle. I can see the rage behind his eyes. How can everyone not realize all of the time we are wasting here? Just tell your kids to shut up! They don’t need a candy bar. They should be happy there is food on the table. And who cares about the coupons? Are these the problems you have in your life? Candy bars and coupons and who is going to be at the school dance?

  The line is a target for a suicide bomber. The line is sucking precious minutes away from his life. All of these little people and all of their little problems. They don’t understand what real problems are, or how precious are the minutes that they thoughtlessly dribble away.

  “How can you be so calm?” Bill asks as we stand unmoving.

  “Why shouldn’t I be? It won’t make the line move faster,” I respond.

  “Don’t you get angry at how fat and ignorant they all are?” Bill presses.

  “I’m not angry. I’m jealous,” I say. “I remember when I was ignorant. That was better.”

  I admire Bill for being angry. When you’re angry, you still care. You’re still passionate, and engaged, and find meaning in righting a wrong. The line reminds Bill that life is too precious to waste in trivial things.

  Not me. The incessant chattering and self-importance of the line reminds me of the priceless ignorance I lost. It reminds me of what I previously considered a problem. Would I graduate from EOD school? Would I get a chance to go back to Iraq and redeem myself? The line reminds me that now I’m just a stupid Crazy vet with a blown-up brain. I’m jealous of the unaware masses I stand with.

  When you are Crazy, it’s not the war movies, or fireworks, or the nightly news that bother you, as the unafflicted often think. It’s the thoughts that come unbidden from grocery lines.

  When I get sick of standing in a grocery line, I make a detailed plan to kill those I am surrounded by, allowing me to leave the store.

  When I get sick of standing in a grocery line, I’m reminded life is a futile drudgery, and then it will end.

  Even now I can see Ewbank’s laughing face, streaked brown from the swirling dust stuck to his dripping sweat, as the gunfire opened up in the downtown roundabout. The whistles and pings filled the air, followed shortly by the answering thump-thump of our security’s .50-caliber machine gun. Ewbank laughed through it all.

  “Civilian life, sir!” Ewbank yelled at me over the din. “It lacks punctuation!”

  In World War I they called it shell shock. In Vietnam they called it the thousand-yard stare. In World War II they didn’t talk about it at all.

  The name that best describes what I feel comes from the Civil War: Soldier’s Heart. In 1871, Jacob Mendes Da Costa published his report on three hundred veterans who complained of “irritable heart.” The colloquialism “Soldier’s Heart” was soon born, and remained in popular usage until the early twentieth century. Da Costa’s Syndrome, the official new name for the disease, consisted of palpitations, left-side pain, swelling of the chest, breathlessness, mental distraction, and a reduction in physical endurance and lust for life. Dr. Da Costa attributed the disorder to the prolonged wearing of heavy, restrictive gear, overtight straps on black powder bags, and packs carrying spare clothes and food. Since the Civil War, a soldier’s physical load has only grown more burdensome, though the mental toll is timeless.

  Today we call it Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. PTSD. That’s what the Crazy feeling is. My Old Counselor has just diagnosed it so.

  Now that I have a verdict, a documented disorder, my Old Counselor is energized. I need a shrink. I need the mental-health clinic. I need a month-long retreat in a rehab facility in the country. Most of all, I need drugs.

  The wheels of the VA kick into overdrive. My Old Counselor works the phones. She has an emergency PTSD case. Can I be seen right away? Yes, an emergency walk-in. She is going to escort me now.

  We rush out of her fussy closet office to the patient transport elevators segregated for hospital staff priority use. To the tenth floor my Old Counselor hurries me, arm in arm, past the check-in window, past the waiting room filled with hushed sad faces, to a back office where my New Shrink awaits.

  “Thank you so much for seeing him right away,” my Old Counselor says, out of breath from the rushed transfer.

  “He has PTSD and I am very concerned,” my Old Counselor repeats, several times.

  The blond woman at a small desk decorated with green house plants slowly turns from the computer screen she had been reviewing. She smiles at me, a serene, reassuring smile.

  “We’ll take a look at him, thank you,” my New Shrink says as she leads my Old Counselor from the office, easing her out with a slowly closing door.

  A quiet stillness settles over the blue, airy office with the click of the door latch. My New Shrink, younger, calmer, gestures for me to sit near her desk. I take a deep breath, sit in the chair, and await my sentence.

  “Brian,” my New Shrink begins, “why do you think you’re here?”

  “Because I’m Crazy. And because my Old Counselor says I need drugs.” I thought this was self-evident.

  “Do you think you need medication?” she asks.

  “I don’t know if I need them. I know I don’t want them.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’m scared. I’m scared to not be myself. I’d rather be Crazy than be someone else.”

  “Well, you aren’t Crazy,” my New Shrink gently corrects. “We don’t use that word here. Are you going to kill yourself, Brian?”

  No one has ever asked me that before. I have to really think about it.

  “No, I don’t think so. Maybe before, but I’m not going to now.”

  “Then, if you aren’t going to kill yourself, I’m not going to prescribe anything today either,” my New Shrink says.

  “You’re not?”

  “No,” she says. “I’ll respect your wish for now. Until we aren’t able to make progress without them. Until there is no other way.”

  She turns toward her computer, pulls up my chart, and briefly scans the various cardiac tests I’ve had, my regular visits to the ER, the months with the Old Counselor endlessly rehashing Jeff, and Kermit, and rifles, and the hole in the bomber’s head. She looks back at me with a hint of sadness.

  “Tell me, Brian,” she begins, “about the day you lost all hope, saw your foreshortened future, and realized life had no meaning.”

  Metallic airport terminals, a succession of fast-
food peddlers and superficial bookstores, consistent and interchangeable. Dulles, O’Hare, Charlotte. Same restaurants. Same newspapers, piled on wooden stands outside the same convenience stores. Same rushing businessmen, flight attendants and pilots, young families, and visiting Chinese tourists.

  I swim against this sea regularly, on my way from one EOD unit to another, training another deploying crew, a repeated timeless cycle on a grueling schedule. The airports have melded into a blur; plug-and-play passengers, overpriced burritos. My layovers are on autopilot, endured to the next flight.

  But once in a while, my subconscious notes an anomaly.

  A tingle on the nerves that something is different, a fly in the soup of the otherwise homogeneous and busy crowd.

  I’ve been walking from one terminal to the next, burning off adrenaline, bypassing the automated walkways, taking the stairs up and down, working up a sweat under my coat and flannel shirt. The Crazy feeling won’t let me sit at a gate anymore, and with a long layover, my wanderings have taken me farther afield. I pace in a cloud of my overactive mind’s self-reflections and distractions until that nerve tingle pushes aside the muddled haze. I come alert to find myself in the international terminal, at the gate of Ethiopian Airlines and a flight bound for Addis Ababa.

  I scan the waiting travelers, to find the source of my unbidden arousal. Which one of these is not like the others? Dark East African families with children, lighter Somali graduate students, white European businessmen with multinational firms. Everyone and everything is in place. Everyone, except for the three trim men sitting a bit to the side, backs to the wall, trying to blend in. They may be innocuous to most, but to anyone who does the job, they might as well have a strobe light above their heads.

  Their team leader is older than me by a couple of years, short brown hair graying slightly, all khaki safari shirt and cargo pants, high-end hiking boots. His Oakley sunglasses are perched on his head, his watch face covers almost his entire wrist, and the laptop on his knees came out of a black, hardened, over-engineered waterproof case. His two companions, one black and one white, share the athletic physique, the overpriced sunglasses, the choice in footwear. But both are younger, listening to iPods, assault packs tossed at their feet. Beards are starting on all their faces—the call for the job must have been last minute. All appear ready to run five miles uphill at a moment’s notice. Contractors. Mercenaries. Like me, but going overseas, for more money, most likely for a three-letter agency. Ethiopia is probably not their final destination. Somalia? Sudan?