We Are Not Saints

by David M

  I returned to my detachment and assumed control of my section, and that’s when everything went to Hell in a hand basket. The 10th Mountain Division was going home. The unit taking over was the 34th Infantry Division, also known as the Red Bulls. They were the polar opposite of the 10th.

  The Red Bulls were by far the worst unit I had ever served with. It was not there incompetence which drove me insane, but their unwillingness to take any instructions from the unit they were replacing. The 10th Mountain Division tried to pass what they had learned on to the Red Bulls, but they refused to listen. Their motto was, ‘we are going to out-Army the Army. In my opinion, they couldn’t out-Army the Girl Scouts. After about a week the 10th just gave up and left Iraq. The Red Bulls simply wouldn’t take any advice.

  Daily operations all but screeched to a halt once the 10th Mountain Division was gone. Things which should have been easy were now impossible for the unit trying to out-Army the Army. Simple tasks like arranging transportation or funding a project became absolutely insurmountable.

  As my frustration grew, so did my outbursts. On one occasion, I was asked to attend an after-action review following an indirect-fire attack drill. The drill went terribly, and as usual the Red Bulls did everything wrong.

  The meeting opened when a senior officer asked the gaggle of young officers and NCOs how the drill went. As I expected, all of the young lieutenants began fawning over the skill and proficiency of the Red Bulls. I tried to be calm, but I just couldn’t let this travesty continue.

  “Everyone, just stop please,” I said a little too forcefully. “The Colonel asked a reasonable question and deserves an honest answer.”

  You could have heard a pin drop as everyone sat staring at me, but it only lasted a moment. Then as if nothing had been said at all, everyone continued kissing ass at the same time. I could only assume that no one in the room had any Idea what had been done wrong.

  “Stop, damn it,” I said more forcefully. “The drill was a nightmare. This is an after-action review. That means we talk about what went wrong and how to fix it.” We can’t do that if everyone keeps blowing smoke up the colonel’s ass.”

  This time the room went silent and all eyes stayed locked on me. No one looked very happy, but I had already learned that these people were passive-aggressive, so I didn’t think they would launch an attack. This time when the ass kissing resumed it came as a mumble rather than spoken with any conviction. The colonel raised his hand to silence everyone.

  “Staff Sergeant, perhaps you could tell us what you saw,” he said.

  I quickly relayed what I had seen and summarized standard-operating procedure. Then I explained the risks of how the Red Bulls planned to react to indirect fire. Finally, I said I had seen standard procedure followed in the past and that I felt it was the best way.

  The Colonel pondered this for a few seconds as his lackeys waited for a response. When he finally spoke, it was to the room and not directly to me.

  “The staff sergeant raises a good point,” he said, “but this is the way we practiced it at home and this is the way we will do it here. We’ll try the drill again in a few days.”

  “But Sir,” I interrupted. “You can’t have mass-accountability formations during an indirect-fire attack. It’s against procedure for a reason.”

  “Standard procedure is for the Army,” he replied. Our goal is to out-Army the Army.”

  “But sir, if a stray rocket or mortar round lands in one of those mass formations…do you know how many soldiers would be killed?”

  It was obvious we were both becoming frustrated, but as a Red Bull he was able to remain passive. I, on the other hand, was rapidly coming unglued. This unit was in charge of me, which meant I had to obey there policies. This simple, ridiculous policy put my soldiers in unnecessary danger. The Colonel needed a new approach if he was going to win this argument.

  “Staff Sergeant,” he calmly said, “we will consider your recommendations, but you’ve got to keep in mind that we are still in the crawl phase.”

  The Army conducts training in three phases: crawl, walk and run. In the crawl phase the leaders research standard operating procedure, develop plans and instruct soldiers. The next phase is a walk though. The final phase is a rehearsal at full speed. The common thread here is that this is all training. That time was past; we were in a war zone. I was unhinged.

  “CRAWL PHASE, ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME. THIS IS FUCKING IRAQ; THERE IS NO CRAWL PHASE IN FUCKING IRAQ.”

  “Sergeant, please,” urged the Colonel.

  But it was too late. I had lost it. I stood up and stormed toward the door. I just couldn’t be in this room with these people any longer. I ranted like a mad man as I stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind me. I continued to rave like a lunatic all the way down the hall and out of the building, occasionally stopping people at random to yell ‘did you know we were still in the fucking crawl phase.’

  It was clear that I needed to be medicated. I was sent to a shrink and prescribed medication to control my outbursts. I would like to say that at first I took my medication as prescribed, and then it got out of control, but that would be a lie. From the first day they were prescribed, I ate the pills like candy. It wasn’t long before I learned how to get all the pills I wanted.

  I traveled a lot throughout Iraq, and I would visit the medical clinic wherever I went. There was no information sharing system for the doctors in Iraq like there was back in the states, so if I walked into a clinic and said I was just passing through and had forgotten my medication; I was usually given what I asked for. In no time at all, I had a virtual drug store at my disposal.

  The pills didn’t have the desired effect, at least not the effect my psychiatrist and chain of command desired. They did very little to improve my mood, and at the same time removed my inhibitions. Now rather than lose my temper and think about breaking something, I simply broke something.

  One of my more notorious episodes involved stabbing a computer with a bowie knife. On another occasion, I destroyed a television set with a machete. When my roommate got home from work I had the television sitting outside with a sign on it that said ‘free TV, needs some work.’ He didn’t even bat an eye. He walked into the room and calmly inquired as to whether I was having a bad day.

  I knew something was seriously wrong. I had outbursts in the past, but I had never been this angry for such an extended period of time. The Red Bulls were clearly idiots, but even that shouldn’t have driven me half out of my mind. Why couldn’t I calm down? Why couldn’t I just be professional?

  I began to think back to another time my anger had boiled over. It was during my time in Hawaii. I was acting the same way I was acting now. What did these two situations have in common? It certainly wasn’t the ineptitude of the unit I was with. The 25th Infantry Division in Hawaii was one of the best unit’s in the Army.

  Then it came to me. I had been going to Alcoholics Anonymous in Hawaii, and I wasn’t drinking here. It suddenly all made sense. When I drank, I was a nice guy. When I didn’t drink, I was an asshole. I remembered the two words scribbled in the psychiatrist’s notes back in Hawaii. I had finally solved the puzzle. I wasn’t suffering from some obscure condition known as Dye Chunk. I was a dry drunk.

  Interlude:

  I finished chapter eighteen in the middle of February, 2012. I was just shy of two years sober. Although my recovery seemed to be going well, my life was falling apart. Every day when I got out of bed there seemed to be more bad news. I had just returned from a fourth tour overseas and wasn’t working full time. My shoe-string budget was more like dental floss.

  I went to the bank to make a withdraw one day and my regular paycheck wasn’t there. When I contacted the organization involved, I was told they were backed up and it could be a while before I would see any money. Under normal circumstances this was a good thing. All of that money would build into a nice savings account. I didn’t need a savings account right now though; I needed to pay my bills.<
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  I talked about this at meetings, but said I would pull through. It was nothing I was going to drink about. Then one night, I stopped by my apartment after a meeting because a friend I had been sponsoring needed to borrow some tools to hang curtains. When I walked in the door there was a note on the floor from the local sheriff.

  In the old days, I wouldn’t even have read the note. I simply would have packed my bags and moved because the sheriff knew where I lived. But things were different now. I was sober. I could handle this. Besides, he was probably just looking for donations.

  I took my friend to a store so he could pick up hardware for his curtains and I called the sheriff while he was inside. He told me he had stopped by to drop off a civil suit. I was being sued. My first thought was that Nikki was taking me to court for more child support. This wouldn’t have been very shocking; it happened all the time. But I nearly came unglued when he told me I was being sued for the telephone pole I had hit when I was still drinking.

  I dropped my friend off at home and turned the truck toward my apartment. That’s when I spotted the pizza shop. It was the place I went for many years to buy beer on Sundays. For the first time in many months I was overwhelmed with a desire to drink.

  To say I wanted to have a few beers would be a flat-out lie. I wanted to drive my truck right through the front doors of the pizza shop, smash the glass out of the cooler, grab an armful of twelve-packs, and chew through the first five or six cans. I wanted someone to call the police, because fighting for each beer would be more fun than simply drinking. I wanted to do some damage. I called my sponsor instead.

  He stayed on the phone with me until I was clear of town and the obsession subsided. By the time I got home I was feeling better, not great, but better. The next night I shared what happened in a meeting, but I left out one very important part; the obsession had passed, but the craving was still there.

  I was okay for a few days. Then one morning I walked out to my car with a laundry basket in my arms. I fucking hate doing laundry. That’s when I saw a trail of oil leading into the driveway running right to my car. I snapped. I threw the laundry in my old truck instead of the car and drove to the Laundromat. When I got there I stuffed my clothing in a washer and went outside to sit in the truck. This was the last straw.

  I looked at my watch and thought to myself, “I can get to the liquor store and back in time to throw my clothing in the drier.”

  I turned the key, and off I went. I was hoping they would be having a sale on battery acid, but no such luck. I bought a liter of vodka instead. I decided to drop the bottle off at home before going back to the laundromat, but I figured I would have at least one drink first. There was no orange juice or other mixers of any type in my house. I didn’t want them anyway. I poured a glass of straight vodka, then another, then another.

  About half way through the bottle I realized this wouldn’t be enough. I was out of money and only had a little change left for my wash. So I dumped out my change jar and went back to the liquor store. I bought a second bottle of vodka and opened it on the way home. I had forgotten all about the clothing at the laundromat.

  Around 9 pm that night my sponsor showed up at my apartment. I hadn’t returned any of his phone calls all day and he knew something was wrong. We talked for a short time and he made me promise to go to a meeting the next day. He had no sooner left the house when I half ran, half stumbled to the bathroom. I spent the next two hours throwing up.

  It’s amazing how fast a body could go into withdraw. I lay in bed until almost four in the morning feeling worse than I ever had in my life. I would have done anything for just one more drink, but both bottles of vodka were empty. There is no doubt in my mind that if I had the money for a third bottle I would have drank myself to death.

  My alarm went off at 7 am the next morning. I got out of bed and stumbled toward the bathroom, just ten feet away. I made it about half way before passing out on the floor. I tried to stand up, but couldn’t. So I just crawled into the corner and went back to sleep on a pile of dirty laundry that hadn’t been there the night before. It was midafternoon when I was finally able to move around the apartment. The mess I had caused in a single night was unbelievable.

  That night I managed to get to my home group. As hard as it was, I had to admit what I had done. I never expected the outpouring of support that followed. My phone didn’t stop ringing for days. It was nearly a week before my body was back to normal, and the heartburn took even longer to go away. I think I must have done some serious damage this time.

  I learned several very important things from this experience. The first is that telling the truth, and telling the whole truth are two very different things. If I had been honest about the lingering craving the wave of support would have come before the relapse rather than after. The second lesson learned is that I no longer drink to relieve suffering; I drink to inflict it.

  I’m back on the wagon and doing well now, but I nearly scrapped this book. After all, how can I help others to recover if I slip myself? But many of my friends convinced me that just because I slipped doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten everything about recovery. I just forgot to practice it for a short time.

  As one friend put it, “Life’s full of unexpected chapters. Now you have another one for your book.”

  Chapter nineteen:

  Finishing that tour in Iraq with both my career and health intact was nothing short of a miracle. By the end, I was taking pills with no regard whatsoever for my own safety. Most days at work I was too stoned to make any rational decisions, and I succeeded only because of the skill and professionalism of my staff.

  I would put myself to sleep at night with any combination of pills I had available. There were many nights I would lay in bed struggling to breathe, literally feeling my life slipping away, and certain I would die in my sleep. It was only by the grace of God that I managed to crawl out of bed most mornings with a heartbeat.

  When the tour was over, my unit assembled in Kuwait to catch a flight back to the states. Everyone I worked with was worried about me, so one night I collected every bag and bottle I had containing pills and dumped them into a coffee mug, and then I ceremoniously dumped them in a portable toilet. I knew my next drink was in sight so I didn’t need the pills anymore.

  I wasn’t worried about falling back into the heavy drinking I had done before the tour in Iraq. I had a foolproof plan. I would stick to beer and would no longer drink in the mornings at all. I would only go to the bar a few nights a week, and then I would never drink more than three beers. I knew it would be tough, but this time I would have the Mustang to keep me in line.

  I found the Mustang online. It was a monster. It was a 1994 Cobra with all the bells and whistles. When I originally looked at the listing for the car, I skipped over the two pages of small print at the end of the webpage. I assumed it was the sales jargon that’s common in online sales.

  But when I printed the advertisement and gave it to a friend to look over, he came rushing back to me waving the listing around like we had just hit the lottery. The two pages of small print at the bottom was not sales jargon; it was a list of upgrades the previous owner had made to the car. This thing was a rolling speed-shop.

  The guy who had owned the car had been building it to race. I couldn’t even guess how much money he had sunk into the car in the time he owned it. Eventually, the owner’s wife said the car had to go so he sold it to a local garage. After settling on a price, I sent a deposit and said I would pick it up in a few weeks when I got home.

  It was love at first sight. The Cobra looked like it would eat asphalt for breakfast. The car was high-gloss black with tinted windows, and there was just enough chrome to give it a sinister look. A small sticker in the side-view mirror read, “Objects in mirror are losing.”

  The mechanic at the garage climbed in the driver seat and gave the key a half turn. The dash board lit up and mechanical components came to life. The interior looked like the cockpit of a jet, and
sounded like a Blackhawk warming up on a helipad.

  But the real magic came when he depressed the clutch and turned the key. The sensation was like standing inside a volcano as it erupted. Even when the engine settled into an idle, the ground vibrated beneath my feet. I wanted nothing more in the world than to grab a twelve-pack of beer and celebrate the new love of my life.

  But I had made myself a promise. I would never drink more than three beers before getting behind the wheel of this car. I knew drinking and driving was a bad Idea in any car, but in this car it would be suicide. I was sure that the reason I had lost control of my drinking was that I no longer had anyone to behave for, and that protecting this Cobra would solve my drinking problem.

  The plan worked like a charm for at least a week, maybe two. I met with a lot of protest at first from my friends at the bar. Everyone wanted to buy me a drink since I had just gotten back from Iraq, and leaving the bar after only three beers put a serious damper on this. I started to amass a collection of beer chips. But most nights, willpower would prevail. I would fight my way through the protests and leave the bar after only three…or eight beers.

  I would usually grab a six pack or two on my way out of the bar. I figured that the limit I has set for myself was for the bar itself and not the drive home. I wasn’t really breaking my promise to myself if I was leaving the bar, right. Besides, in one of my go-rounds with Alcoholics Anonymous I had heard a reference to ‘progress, not perfection.’ This must be what they were referring to.

  Then the blackouts started again. It couldn’t have been more than a few weeks after my first drink. I know I went over my limit at the center of the universe, and grabbed a few six packs for the half-hour ride home. Then everything just went blank. In the morning I found a twelve pack of beer in the refrigerator, but it was cans; and I clearly remembered buying bottles when I left the bar. Where the hell did these come from?