by Dave Hnida
Rick and I twirled on the concrete roof, giddily celebrating our upcoming departure with a nice little dance number à la Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Except we couldn’t agree on who would be Fred and who would be Ginger—we were lucky we didn’t break each other’s toes as we fought over who would lead and who would follow. I never knew a burly Oklahoman could do such expert pirouettes.
The only near casualties of the night came during the wheelchair races. A chair pusher lost his grip after running over a group of toes, then watched in horror as the occupied chair teetered at the edge of our three-story rooftop. Both pusher and pushee needed a waterfall of drinks to quell their shaking. No harm, no foul. The night was a perfect goodbye to the staff we’d grown to love.
Besides freedom, our sole wish at this point was to leave on a high note. We’d had a good couple of weeks. No lost cases. No lost sons. No lost daughters.
It wasn’t to be.
Early the next morning, Sergeant David Heringes was slowly walking around a disabled Humvee on a lonely road about fifty miles from our CSH. It was a road much different than the one he was supposed to be on that day. Heringes had planned to be in Florida, enjoying a fun-filled vacation at Disney World with his wife, children, and parents. But six weeks before, Heringes and hundreds of other soldiers in the 82nd Airborne were told to unpack their bags. Instead of heading stateside on August 1, their deployment was being extended from twelve to fifteen months; it would be October before they’d set foot on American soil and hug their loved ones.
David had told his dad to go ahead and use the tickets even though he couldn’t be there; it would make him happy to know the family had a chance to get away and find distraction from their worries and fears.
So as his family was finishing a wonderful yet hollow day at the theme park often called the happiest place on earth, Heringes kept one eye on his men and used the other to scan for hidden danger. The morning was typical for an Iraq summer: baking heat, with swirling sand-filled air. Dripping with sweat, Heringes told his men to stay clear as he surveyed the disabled vehicle. As he cautiously checked for the cause of the breakdown, an insurgent hiding about a half mile away pressed some buttons on his cell phone. The sequence of numbers detonated a mortar shell buried near the vehicle.
It was a strange explosion, like many were. Most of the men in Heringes’ platoon came out of the blast with little more than scratches—they were shielded and protected by one man. And that one man took the brunt of the impact. As the medevac approached, Heringes still was alive, though barely, and drifting in and out of consciousness. He told his fellow soldiers he could hear angels coming as he lay on the ground.
His wounds were severe, and blood flowed freely. Pressure dressings, hemostatic bandages, IVs—the flight medic used every tool and trick to keep him alive until he got to us. Finally, she could do no more and simply held him and stroked his head as he quietly murmured the names of his family.
When we first heard the faint whirling of the helicopter, we still couldn’t see it, and could only pray there was hope for this young soldier. But miles before, the rapid loss of blood translated into the loss of his life. He fought death hard, and the medic fought with him. Talking to him. Encouraging him. Holding him. Importantly, he didn’t die alone. And his final thoughts were of his loved ones.
Back home, we probably just would have brought him in and closed the curtains around the stretcher. Instead, we kicked into high gear; there was a frantic scurry of medicine performed that day. Our chances of saving him were nonexistent, yet we had to try.
Blood was pumped into the large veins of his neck as the stretcher sped to the OR—there had been only a brief stop in the emergency room to get the IV lines started. In the OR, Bernard and Rick tried to surgically repair a man who had died fifteen minutes ago.
There’s often talk about how doctors try to play God, talk frequently uttered with a negative tone. I don’t know if our group tried to play God or battle God this particular morning; perhaps we were both on the same side, battling evil. Or maybe it was simply part of a painful plan that we mortals would never understand. The soldier had died peacefully. It was done. Close to two hours after first entering the OR, my two friends quietly stepped back from the table, and tore off their surgical gowns. And walked way.
It was hard on everyone; no harder than it would be on his family, but hard nonetheless. Every time a soldier dies, a small piece of us goes with him.
Bernard stumbled back to his room, and stayed inside for such a long time that we worried—so much so we checked on him every few hours, seeing if he needed food, or just a friendly face. Rick and I walked and talked for long periods, but really, it was more walking than talking. The hospital staff went into mourning and worried, in particular, about the flight medic who was the soldier’s sole companion during the final moments of his life. She was a great flight medic, and an even better person. Whenever I saw her walk in the door with a patient, I knew that patient had been lucky, and my job would be easier. Now she was in pain. A pain that had no remedy or cure. I asked God to bless her and give her peace. And later wondered if she was one of the many angels sent to accompany David on his final journey.
I don’t remember much more of the final days. The new docs followed us around, and we probably gave the same speeches and thoughts we got from Brent Smith and company when we first arrived. The day our flight was to carry us back to our loved ones was supposed to be a quiet one. We were officially relieved, and as of 0700 had turned the keys to the CSH over to the new guys. We packed and unpacked, then repeated the process again. Said a few goodbyes. Then made sure we all knew the truck to the airfield would be outside our quarters at four.
I wasn’t supposed to do a speck of work that final day, I just needed to wander over to the hospital to write a couple of final reports and check on our replacements as well as say goodbye to the medics and nurses who had held my hand while I made believe I knew what I was doing. I would miss them, and sadly, worried for them. They had seen far more than I in their year of deployment, and I wondered how much mental baggage they would carry home. I was old, they were young, and would have to live with their nightmares far longer than I would.
I was scribbling away in a corner of the ER—trying to stay out of the way—when word came over the radio that four seriously wounded Iraqi soldiers were on their way. A drainage pipe under a roadway had been packed with explosives and blew their large truck ten feet in the air. When the wounded arrived, you could hear some of them moaning over the whine of the helicopter blades. This would be the first major test for our replacements and they didn’t yet have the manpower on site to handle the wounded. I needed to stay.
It was a scary sixty minutes—blood everywhere—limbs pointing in every direction. In some ways, I was almost glad to hear the moans, because it meant the injured were getting enough air to moan. It was the quiet ones that scared me, and a couple were too quiet.
Most of the replacements seemed like quality guys, and they knew they were in for an experience unlike anything they’d ever had. Some eyes looked like mine the first day I showed up on the job: a mix of terror, confusion, and panic. It had taken months to evolve, but for me, this day, this mess was just another day.
During our briefings over the past few days, it was interesting to observe the mix of doctors who would replace us. Most knew they were in for a hell of a ride; they were full of questions and actually paid attention when we answered. Most importantly, they treated the staff and each other well. On the other hand, a couple of the newbies seemed a little too confident, in fact, outright cocky, talking about how they were going to do things differently, go by the book, and asking us why we didn’t follow the latest protocols. Now they would be hit in the face with reality—forced to learn that pure academic or “I’m smarter than you” bullshit doesn’t fly in a war zone. And protocols? Protocols, my ass. We had no choice but to make up our own protocols and realized that spaghetti-and-meatball surgery was
usually the best and only surgery.
Now they had to learn to interpret things like the moans and different sounds a wounded human makes. Realize that pieces of arms and legs bent toward all points of the compass were sometimes less important than the small easy-to-ignore wound that barely made a hole in the skin, yet tore apart vital organs inside. And not freak out over gushes of blood that sprayed the room, that it was sometimes more important to observe the small drips of blood that would fall to the floor without a sound.
Of the four wounded, three made it, one did not. The force of the blast had driven metal fragments into his brain and torn away parts of both arms and legs. We did everything we could, but it wasn’t enough. The new doctors learned quickly you couldn’t beat death by simply practicing good medicine; there are forces at work beyond our control, forces that are very humbling. Learn that, accept that, and you will cheat death 99 percent of the time. But the 1 percent will haunt you the rest of your life.
During the cases, I did little work, mainly going from trauma bay to trauma bay, watching for landmines, potholes, and errors obvious to an experienced eye, but not to a new one. All in all, the new group did well, especially the two family docs who were jumping into the same ER quicksand I had months ago. Bathed in sweat, their baptism of fire hadn’t singed them too badly—their beet red faces and stained uniforms now marked them as veterans.
As the cases finished and the wounded went to surgery, I made the rounds of the room, trying to squeeze in a few goodbyes to my medics and nurses. I had lots to say and thank-yous to give but it wasn’t to be. As the staff continued to scurry about, our conversations were rushed and clipped. My day, my deployment was done. Theirs flowed on like a torrent. As they slammed and hammered, each said a rushed goodbye, a thanks, and finally the universal farewell of soldiers: “Be safe.”
Then, as I turned to leave, they all added a short postscript with sly grins.
The words “See ya, Dave,” “Take care, Davy,” and “Great working with you, Dave-a-reeno” echoed through the ER.
It had taken months, but I had finally gotten something other than a “sir.” About time.
After wrapping things up, I trudged away—drained of the little energy left after four months in this shithole. As I reached the door, one of the new guys stopped me. He asked me how things had changed over the months we were there; the answer came without much thought.
“Choppers without an appointment, human jigsaw puzzles, temperatures that make hell seem chilly. No, nothing’s changed since the day I got here … except me.”
It was time to finish packing for the trip home.
24
HERO’S WELCOME
SOMEONE WATCHING FROM a distance would have thought it was a group of overgrown kids going to the circus or an amusement park. Eight doctors shouting, laughing, and stealing hats, getting ready to board our deuce-and-a-half-ton truck for a ride to the airstrip and the first leg of our journey home. The duffel bags, which seemed so overloaded when we arrived, were tossed onto the truck as if they contained nothing but air. Some of the guys were done for good, a few of us knew we’d be back, but it didn’t matter. We were all in one piece and heading home to our loved ones.
The ride to the airfield took fifteen minutes, bouncing the whole way over rough unpaved roads, goofing around and snapping pictures of each other’s funniest face. It seemed like the only memories in the truck with us were the comical ones: like the look on the insurgent’s face as he awoke from surgery to the sounds of Led Zeppelin blasting away in the OR, surrounded by a group of masked Americans singing “Stairway to Heaven.” Then there was the porta-john tipped over by a truck while some soldier was inside sitting reading Stars and Stripes. He looked like a dyed-blue Easter egg as he spit and sputtered his way into the ER. Then how much would we miss the salami-and-jelly sandwiches that broke up the culinary boredom?
It wasn’t until we looked at the hospital in the distance that the laughter softly died. Two medevacs with wounded were landing on the helipad. They were specks in the sky but we all knew the precious cargo on board. We were leaving the war, but the war couldn’t care less. All we could do was feel guilty about leaving the twenty-year-olds behind in a war that would not have a Hollywood ending. No war ever does.
As the distance between us and the base continued to grow, we realized we would never really leave. We’d revisit this place often in the years to come, traveling back in sweat-soaked dreams on our darkest nights. I now knew what my father, and every other man and woman who has seen the horrors of war, knew: you may leave the war, but it never leaves you. The only sounds during the rest of the ride came from the thumps and bangs of the truck meeting the rough road.
We sat at the airfield for hours, occasionally herded like cattle from one building to the next, going through each stage of the out-processing procedure at the usual hurry-up-and-wait pace of the military. Our flight to Kuwait wasn’t leaving until that night; we had started our check-in at five. But we didn’t mind the hurry-up-and- wait; if we missed this first connection to Kuwait, there would be more than a week’s delay for the next flight to the States. Admonished not to wander, our small group naturally huddled together in a protective cocoon, surrounded by a milling group of more than a hundred troops who were also ferrying out that night. Even our trips to the latrine were group events: we didn’t want anyone left behind in case the Army pulled a fast one and announced the plane was suddenly leaving in less than one minute.
Outside, the only thing visible in any direction was the vast empty desert that made up much of the base. I think we were stunned at its enormousness; the hospital wasn’t even visible over the horizon. It was as if we had lived the past few months on our own half-mile-square planet in the middle of a vast universe. In a compressed time, a lot of living happened on that half-mile patch, along with some dying.
Our stay in Kuwait was mercifully brief, a short coffee break compared to our last visit. Just three nights stuffed into an undersized tent filled with the smell of men who have worked too hard. We napped a lot, stood and waited in long phone lines, and told fewer jokes than we had all summer. The only prank was on the easiest of targets. As Bernard snoozed one afternoon, we stuck a piece of surgical tape on his crotch, proclaiming “Iraq’s Most Famous.” He wandered around in a nap-induced fog for close to an hour after awakening, wondering why everyone on the way to chow kept pointing and laughing at his groin.
The flight from Kuwait to Fort Benning also went much better than the trip over. We actually flew in a plane that wasn’t held together by duct tape, and Rick and I were able to snag a couple of seats together in the back. We slept most of the way, stopping briefly for a refuel in Leipzig, Germany, where we were told we could get off the plane, stretch our legs, and legally have one beer. We awaited the stampede to the bar but were surprised to find only a few soldiers standing around sipping their single brew at 2 A.M. I guess we were all too tired and too beaten up to drown whatever emotions were stuffed deep inside.
After many hours, and several startled wake-ups to imaginary beepers going off, we landed at Benning on a early Sunday morning. A small crowd gathered to meet us while a band played patriotic songs and salutes were thrown like confetti. We awaited a couple of generals to show up and call us “heroes.” Fortunately their speeches were short on words, long on patriotism, and we were herded to buses that would take us to what we hoped were patriotic barracks fit for sleep-deprived heroes.
Instead, we got shitholes worse than our makeshift plywood rooms in Iraq. Torn, bloodstained sheets and pillowcases; broken and bent blinds over cracked windows; and a warm refrigerator filled with mouse shit. The communal toilets were clogged and overflowing while the shower stalls had shit-smeared walls. We were pissed about how we were treated, but maniacally angry thinking that some of the troops we had cared for were stuck in hellholes like this. We’d heard the stories that had come out of Walter Reed in the months before we’d deployed, wounded warriors sharing beds
with cockroaches. It looked like the Army still hadn’t cleaned up its act.
We had busted our fucking humps keeping soldiers alive, worried ourselves through too many sleepless nights about how to keep them alive, and this is what their hero’s welcome would be?
Rick and I spent our first few hours in Horror Hotel trying to calm each other down, finally cooling to the point where we put a sign on our door saying “Fuck the Army,” locked the door, and tried to sleep off a four-month combat hangover.
All we really wanted was to go home, but before the Army took off its leash, we had to turn in equipment, get debriefed, and be screened for stress. It would take five days to complete the process—we probably could have knocked it out in one. Once again, our small group got caught up in the numbers game. We were itchy, but weren’t the only ones on our way home—a lot of soldiers and even more contractors needed to de-Surge as well. So most of each day was spent exercising or simply wandering around the base—alone. After spending months eating, sleeping, and working together, we needed space from each other and, perhaps, time to process the things we’d seen. We just couldn’t cold-turkey off the adrenaline injected by the CSH—the culture shock was too much for the body and mind.
I certainly wasn’t ready for the abrupt rules and regulations of a stateside post. The morning after arriving, I showed up for breakfast in my official Army regulation running shorts and T-shirt after a leisurely jog. I wasn’t prepared to be thrown out of the mess hall for being underdressed. I’d already gone through the line and piled high my tray with real eggs, fresh cereal, and honest-to-goodness cow’s milk. Pure heaven. As the spoon met my mouth, my arm met a tap. Excuse me, soldier, you’re out of uniform and have to leave. I was confused, if I could wear my exercise clothes to meals in Iraq, why couldn’t I do it here? Post rules, Major. No exceptions. You need to be in full uniform to enter a mess facility. I didn’t think the curses that followed originated from me—but they did. I always made a point to be courteous but ended this session with a loud “Fuck.” I shouldn’t have done it, but I was tired and pissed. I stormed back to my room with empty hands and an empty stomach. Yet over the course of the next hour came a series of knocks to my room—each knock accompanied by a Styrofoam container of food snuck out of the chow hall by my fellow physicians.