Black Knights, Dark Days

by Fisk, J. Matthew;

  Hamilton, Georgia – 2009

  I’ve got Carl Wild’s number, but I don’t call. We’ve been texting back and forth, so I know where he’s been and his assorted shenanigans. I know that he deployed to Iraq again from 2007 to 2008 and got hit with a rocket two months into his 2009 tour of Afghanistan. For some reason I can’t bring myself to hear his voice. Maybe it’s because I feel guilty for having spent the last six years in school and in non-combat units when I should have been watching his back. He asked how the book is coming, and I lied and said that it’s almost done. Truth is I couldn’t bear to look at it most days.

  About that same time, I ran into newly promoted Sergeant First Class Trevor Davis while shopping at the Sam’s Club in Columbus, Georgia. He looked exactly the same except more serious. We clasped hands vigorously while we congratulated each other on recent promotions. He called me “sir” which made me feel like an imposter. I would have been more comfortable going to parade rest while speaking to him. His words of congratulation were kind but they nailed me to the floor like accusations. Before we parted company he asked me how the book was coming along. I lied and said it was almost done.

  The bright spot in my world was the imminent deployment of my battalion to Iraq. I had been languishing in a maintenance company for over a year, first as the executive officer and then as a warehouse supervisor. The gig out at the warehouse was not that bad. It was isolated, and I could shut my door when the anxiety started to overwhelm me, which began to happen more and more. I sat at my desk and tried to work as my racing mind attempted to fixate on shiny objects.

  My commander at the time was also a prior-enlisted man who was a little older than me. He sported one of the new Combat Action Badges that were created for all of the non-infantry guys who saw varying levels of enemy contact, which varied wildly from case to case. I asked him how he earned his and kept waiting for the punch line before I realized that he had finished the story. He began to exhibit PTSD behavior not long after and was eventually removed from command to seek further treatment. The whole affair left me shaking my head as I tried to envision how the events that he had described could have driven him over the edge. It made me wonder how close to the edge I might have drawn.

  As my boss began the transition process with his replacement, a female West Point graduate, I was promised to the battalion headquarters for the upcoming deployment. Deep down in my bones I longed to return to the devil’s sand box, even as I told my wife how upset I was at leaving again. The truth was that I couldn’t wait to go. All of my old comrades had been at least once while I enjoyed the soft life. I was a junkie hooked on combat. A grave error had been made by the Death Angel, and I sought to give him a second go at it as though Death were a child who couldn’t quite hit the ball off the tee. So I grabbed hold of the opportunity to go ‘once more unto the breach’ at the expense of my health, my marriage and—most likely—my sanity.

  Joint Base Balad, Iraq – 2010

  Out of the darkness, a man’s pre-recorded, metallic voice called the warning, “Incoming. Incoming. Incoming. Take cover. Take cover. Take cover.”

  I was back in Iraq and felt alive for the first time in five years. I threw myself into the gravel and covered my head. A rocket split the night sky and slammed into a concrete barrier in front of me. I waited briefly for a second or third strike before springing to my feet and sprinting toward the impact to help the wounded. In that moment, I felt buoyant as adrenaline, my long lost friend of battles past, slid through my bloodstream like children on a water slide. The complete absence of a weapon—checked into the arms room—and body armor—locked in my trailer—no longer bothered me as it had in previous days. I felt like taking on all comers with a spork if necessary.

  A small group of soldiers had gathered around the point of impact. In the dim illumination of the portable lights, I could see plenty of dust though no one appeared to be hurt. I looked up with my fists on my hips searching the skies for more indirect fire. After a few minutes of silence, I threw my hands up in disgust. I stalked off toward the ops center where I worked to find out what was happening.

  Nothing interesting, as it turned out. In fact, one could characterize the entire deployment to Joint Base Balad as such. That single incident on the third night in theater was the pinnacle of excitement. Although plenty more salvos were fired our way by the local model rocket enthusiasts, few caused any damage at all. A typical attack might follow this script:

  Soldier 1 (lounging by the Olympic-sized outdoor pool): What was that?

  Soldier 2 (also lounging, too engrossed in tanning to lift head and remove sunglasses): Indirect Fire. (Yawns)

  Soldier 1 (sips from a can of Monster energy drink): Oh. Belch. Think we ought to go report in?

  Soldier 2: If you want. I’m just getting crispy, though.

  Joint Base Balad was like Candyland compared to Sadr City. Two swimming pools and a movie theater were just a few of the perks for living alongside the Air Force. I was continually thrown off balance by the memories in my head and the reality I was living. Danger was too bored to rear its ugly head. The only deaths that happened during that deployment was the accidental death of an Air Force demolition tech and an older National Guardsman who suffered a heart attack while walking around the track. I had fought so hard to return to this Allah-forsaken piece of real estate to find what my Viking ancestors called ‘a good death,’ yet I would have had better odds attending what my more recent kin called a tractor pull.

  I must confess that I went a little crazy that year. Not crazy like your drunk uncle who tries on the lamp shade as a hat. I mean not right in the head. It began after that first hohum rocket attack and built in intensity the more I delved into writing this book. As I began to process my memories onto the written page, my mind began to kick and buck so hard that my body felt it. For years I had managed to keep the vehicle that was my psyche, if not safely in my lane, at least between the ditches. Now anxiety wrapped around me like a back seat-driving mother-in-law off her meds, threatening to squeeze my heart out of my chest. I was short of temper, withdrawn, and deeply depressed. When the stress levels began to redline, I developed a tick and would hear little noises escape my lips as if my subconscious mind was sending me Morse code messages. I sought the help of an on-base counselor several times until the Prozac quieted the voices enough to help me finish my memoir without undue collateral damage.

  Fort Benning, Georgia – 2011

  The temporary euphoria of completing a task that I hoped would serve as a magic wand sort of treatment, banishing all my dark thoughts to the abyss, worked for a while. I finished the rough draft of our exploits in the early hours of New Year’s Day. Redeployment a few months later helped, too. It’s a really great feeling to return to the Land of the Free after a year in the Land of the Sand. I rode that emotional wave until the autumn leaves fell and the nightmares and depression returned. My marriage was washing up, so in a desperate attempt to save what was irretrievably broken—that was on the Petition for Divorce; a rare moment of poetry in the legal system—I called a military hotline to get a counselor.

  Operator: Are you contemplating harming yourself?

  The woman approached us, advanced upon me, with hands painted red by my will to stay alive.

  Me: No…

  Operator: Are you contemplating harming someone other than yourself?

  Me: Not just right now…

  Operator: OK, we’ll try to get you in to see a counselor. It looks like their earliest appointment is six weeks from now.

  Me: Ma’am, my marriage will be past the point of return by then. I can’t sleep and I am so, so tired of living like an extra from a zombie apocalypse movie.

  Operator: (Not without sympathy) There is a Family Life Center on Fort Benning. They have chaplains on standby that could see you with no waiting…

  For a brief second I compiled a mental short-list of individuals to whom I wouldn’t mind threatening bodily harm. Se
nsing that this would be a poor career move, I agreed and found my way the next morning to the counseling center. It was nested in a dilapidated building that was once a World War II barracks. I signed in on a clip board and sat in a comfortable chair next to a small, plastic Zen fountain. The water burbled at me cheerily and with sanguine assurance until I thought I must surely go mad.

  Children in the alley who played at war with unparalleled enthusiasm. See how he dips his head into the lane begging for a baptism in lead.

  A few toe-tapping minutes in the silence of the waiting room later, a large, slightly overweight chaplain welcomed me into his office. We exchanged pleasantries as he settled behind his laptop computer and began to build a file on me. “What are your goals for treatment? What do you want to achieve?”

  “Let go of the goddam door, Denney! I’m going down there to take that little pecker out! Let go!”

  “Well, Sir, my marriage is on the skids, I can’t concentrate, can’t sleep, I’m irritable and constantly depressed. I want that to all go away. I need help and quick.”

  The Chaplain observed me for a second over his glasses. “Yeah, we can help you but it won’t be overnight. There’s no magic bullet that will make it go away. You know someone who loses an arm in combat will never get the arm back. They just have to learn to live with their new normal. The best we might be able to do for you is help you learn how to live with it.”

  The bullet in a slow motion slalom from wall to wall like a living thing with metal teeth seeking me out; the dull impact.

  “Anything is better than where I’m at now.”

  He continued to type for a minute longer then came over to a seat across from me with a pad of paper and a pen. “Tell me about your deployment history.”

  “Sergeant Bourquin, he’s dead.”

  The tall, young man covered with tattoos. Too young to believe that we can die. “No, he’s NOT!”

  “I’ve deployed three times. The first was in support of Task Force Hawk during the Kosovo Conflict in 1999. We didn’t see any action then. Most recently I deployed to Balad, Iraq when we turned out the lights and pulled out but that was quiet, too. A rocket landed about a hundred meters away from me, but that was it. Barely raised my pulse. Everything that’s bothering me came from my first deployment to Iraq in 2004. Sadr City was—interesting.”

  Swope, the platoon sergeant who spoke so quietly that you thought he was slightly mad and, thus, terrifying. “Red 1, this is Red 4, Charlie one-two and Charlie one-three are mobility kill. I say again, both victors will not roll!”

  The pen scribbled. “What was your job then? You were a lieutenant?”

  “No, I was enlisted then. A specialist in the infantry. I’m in the Ordnance Corps now. Desk Jockey extraordinaire. Back then I was a rifleman, designated marksman and recorder for the Platoon Leader. We had a lot of interesting missions. On the same patrol we could hand out bread and lead in equal measure.”

  The never-ending swarm of Charles Dickens dirt-orphans always quick with a ‘you giff me’ this and ‘shokalata’ that until you wanted to gouge out your own eyes to quiet your heart.

  The scribble of pen like rat claws scratching, scratching. “How often would you say you had an experience so traumatic that you try not to think about it?”

  “I counted over two hundred and ten combat missions that I participated in over the course of a year. We left the base at least twice a day, sometimes three. Except for Thanksgiving Day. I remember we had that day off. I was shot in the leg, blown up by a mortar, struck by so many improvised explosive devices that it became mundane, hit in the head with rocks. A grenade once landed at my feet and exploded. But everything I’m dealing with today started on the 4th of April.” In that damn street. In that damn alley.

  The chaplain put down the pen and began to explain a procedure that he would like to try. It was called ERT which I think he said was Emotional Replacement Therapy or some such. It essentially used eye movement in coordination with sound and vibration while discussing a disturbing event. There was, of course, more to it than that. I had to construct an imaginary safe house that I could go to when I became overwhelmed. I also had to construct an imaginary container for the negative emotions in between visits. It struck me as bunch of New Age hippy crap, but I was at the end of my rope and willing to try everything up to and including coed naked bocci ball if it would work.

  And let me tell you something; it worked. It worked like a charm in that the therapy replaced my typically emotionless state with good old-fashioned rage. As I began to recount for the good chaplain the sequence of events up to and including the children used as human shields, I felt the anger begin to well to the surface. On and on I went, my voice shaking, my heart pounding as I begin to tell about how I got shot.

  Completely Lost – 2012

  The infantry soldier learns to fight on when everything around him says that the battle is over. He learns to ignore reality and continue to put one foot in front of another past the point where, to paraphrase Kipling, nerve and joint and sinew have long served their turn. This is a great mindset to have in the heat of combat. But when separated from wisdom, it can be a wrecking ball to your personal life.

  My health was shot because I refused to hear what my body was telling me. The timeless exhortation of Drill Sergeants everywhere is to suck it up and drive on. Well, I sucked up the deteriorating vertebrae until I could barely tolerate standing. After pursuing physical therapy and epidural injections to no avail, I elected to risk a spinal fusion. I was fortunate enough to have Colonel Devine, the top spinal surgeon in the Army, successfully perform the procedure. In April of 2012 I began the laborious process of recovery. Drive on.

  Then, after 12 years of marriage, I threw in the towel. It had been over for at least a year, but I couldn’t allow myself to quit. Suck it up. I just put one foot in front of the other until exhaustion won out. If fault is to be found, I can definitely claim my portion. The decree stated that the bonds were irretrievably broken and that is apt in every way. Even without my confounded mental issues I’m not sure that we would have lasted, though I’m positive that my numbness, irritability, and anger hastened our relationship’s demise. Drive on.

  Now that I had a lot of alone time to contemplate life, the universe, and everything in it, I began to take inventory. As a husband I had failed. Surrender is not a Ranger word, but I was no Ranger. I was a quitter who couldn’t hack it. As a soldier I no longer had anything to offer my country except my intellect. That was a painful admission to make. Not only was I pushing 40, but I realized that combat, my drug of choice, was forever beyond my reach. The very thought of having children terrified me, where it had once been a fervent hope. I could no longer look at a kid without remembering the ones I had put in the ground; I failed fatherhood before I even began. The math did not lie. I needed professional help.

  How long had it been since I felt anything beyond the paralyzing numbness? Specialist Chapman, a Bradley driver in our platoon, lost his leg to an IED later on in 2004. He recounted what almost every amputee experiences, that he still felt the missing limb. PTSD is like that. Any emotion you express is not because you feel that emotion but rather you feel the ghost of it. The only exception would be rage. Rage is always there, separated by the thinnest layer of ingrained societal norms of behavior. My rage is a muzzled, rabid dog longing to be let off the chain.

  My session with the chaplain had tapped into that fury so deeply that I decided not to try that route again. Instead I called up the Behavioral Health clinic and got on the waiting list to see a provider. Eight weeks later, I sat down with who I assumed was a therapist. After spending the first 15 minutes of our session watching her fiddle with her printer and listening to her prattle on about nothing, I asked to take a break so that I could walk off the frustration. When I returned she asked the normal questions I had come to anticipate: are you thinking about hurting yourself or someone else? How was your childhood? Did you get al
ong with your parents? Do you have trouble sleeping? Did you ever experience anything so terrible that you can’t stop thinking about it? On and on it went for half an hour as I relayed my first experience with combat and described the effect it was having on me currently.

  The woman, though ditzy to a suspiciously high degree, was nice and informed me that their therapists were overwhelmed with large caseloads and wouldn’t be able to see me for a few months. Apparently she wasn’t a therapist but a social worker, another layer in the seemingly endless behavioral health cake. Suddenly I wondered if I had ever seen anyone qualified to deal with the issues I was experiencing. When I expressed frustration with the delays, the social worker was sympathetic and offered to enroll me for some sort of video-conference group therapy. In addition she recommended that I see the Traumatic Brain Injury clinic to receive a thorough battery of tests. They should be able to get me in sometime next year.

  Apparently I had to try to kill myself or give in to my infrequent road rage impulses before I had any hope of receiving prompt treatment. The thought occurred to me that I could disingenuously claim to want to die. The sequence of events flowing from that would, I was sure, inevitably lead to summary dismissal from the service. I didn’t want to quit being a soldier; it was what I had wanted to do since I was eight years old. For years I had avoided seeking treatment because I instinctively feared that it would end my career. I just wanted to get patched up and put back in the fight. They had repaired my spine, why not my mind?

  Fort Lee, Virginia – 2013

  At about the same time as the beginning of the Mayan Apocalypse I sat with a yellow legal pad in front of me with a ballpoint pen clutched in my rebellious right hand. The fate of the free world was not in the balance, thank God, or all would have been lost. Recently I had watched a Science channel show about a German woman who had been awakened in the middle of a deep sleep only to find that her own left hand was attempting to strangle her. I was having a similar episode, though not quite so dire. My hand was refusing to write the letter ‘L.’ No matter how I pled, reasoned, and cajoled with what, up to this point in my young life, had been a generally reliable and subservient appendage, it simply would not commit the simple letter, a line bent in half, to the page.