Carrying

by Theodore Weesner

  I consider making notes with which, like a teacher, to question one thing and another, though I probably won’t get that involved. (This no matter him sending me the journals as his mentor, presumably to read and critique.) It’s what I imagined doing with Bert’s teenage daughter before I came to know her better. It’s one thing I do well and a role in which I’ve always taken satisfaction: Seeing a young person’s mind open to things new and enabling, instructive and helpful.

  What remains true is that I’ll continue supporting Jimmy as I fantasized about supporting Haley before I discovered her instinctive dislike of me as a human being. What a pity it is that women, young and old, may regard any friendship with males as suspect. Is it the by-product of shallow educations? Myopic grasping after personal leverage in the battle of the sexes?

  It’s strange and bewildering, in any case. So many are so quick on the draw, when a little added thinking might better serve the interests of all. What to do except think things through myself? It’s time, in any case, to let the dust settle, to allow Bert’s feelings to return to earth, to see if I ever visit Bristol again.

  October 1990

  Even after Iraq seized Kuwait and the U.S. government awoke, many in the West were ready to accept Saddam’s aggression. Part of the intelligentsia was still obsessed by the idea that America–not dictators, communism, or terrorism–was the world’s cancer. Bush’s domestic critics–Democrats, liberals, and isolationist conservatives alike–complained that he was being too tough, urging patience and a deal with a tyrant they should have been the first to oppose. From them came dangerous bad counsel: bribe Iraq to withdraw, expect Arab states to leave the coalition, refuse to destroy Saddam or to help the Kurds.

  If Iraq had given these faint-hearted Americans some encouragement, it might still own part or the whole of Kuwait. To its credit, the White House rejected defeatist advice. Drawing on experience with other dictators, it insisted that aggression be thwarted.

  –Barry Rubin, Cauldron of Turmoil

  Official word of our deployment to Kuwait by way of Saudi Arabia is broadcast live on AFN TV on November 8, 1990. VII Corps will deploy to the Gulf to provide “an offensive option” for forces already present (XVIII Airborne Corps) in Saudi Arabia. 2nd Armored Cav, as noted by every Officer and NCO in the Regiment, will serve as the tip of the spear. It will be the first to deploy and, in time, will meet head-on the Elite Iraqi Republican Guard, the army against which so many commentators at home don’t believe the U.S. Army stands a chance.

  Word is confirmed by a door tap at 2330 by the first sergeant himself! “We’re going. It was just on TV. Secretary of Defense says VII Corps is going from Germany. Mentioned 2nd Cav by name! Didn’t say when, only that we’ll be the first to deploy…and soon!”

  The first sergeant. A man of indisputable authority in his troop moving from room to room with news of 2nd Cav’s deployment to the Persian Gulf!

  “You hear that?” I say across the shadowed space to Sherman Killibrew.

  “Heard it. Was thinking of getting out,” Sherman adds. “Now they’re going to nail our ass to the wall. Bet you anything discharges will be frozen, including Sergeant Noordwink, no matter that he’s filed for separation!”

  Surprised by Sherman’s response, I realize that my own first hope is that I do well. That 2nd Armored Cav will perform bravely and score big. That the time I’ve given to firing, and to practice on the simulator, will give me an edge that will clobber the enemy.

  Throughout the days following–as we load vehicles and equipment onto rail cars and into Sealand containers headed for trains, barges, road convoys–the news keeps breaking in the media. Over and over CNN and AFN and Washington, DC take knocks from soldiers who will compose the head of the spear. We’re offended that our order of deployment came by way of TV, before which screens knots of soldiers continue to pause, stare, smirk, spit in disgust.

  What we have to swallow, along with our pride, is that our discipline, training and teamwork, our code of risking our lives, is not encapsulated by the command master sergeant or the regimental commander, each of whom we respect, but is being judged (and diminished) by news conferences attended by politicians and often by military haters and doubters, media figures with glossy hair who call marines and sailors “soldiers” and who believe everyone in uniform, male or female, will be facing enemy savages who resemble figures in comic books. Their ignorance of things military is often comic and occasionally breathtaking.

  Countless profiles of women in uniform are provided, as if to say the combat troops and jarheads who will do the actual fighting are no longer able to get it up. If we were a high school football team facing a big game, these observers would be focused on the cheerleaders, as if, come game time, they will be the ones grabbing helmets and rushing onto the field. Women soldiers are liked by all, to be sure, but it’s disrespectful of and insulting to combat troops facing battle to see the attention given to a handful of female soldiers who work in supporting roles behind the lines. The colonel issues an apology to tankers, dismount scouts, family dependents at Bamberg, Bindlach, Amberg, Feucht, in case any have been rattled by reports coming in over the airwaves. “Don’t worry,” he says. “We love our female soldiers, but it’s still the guys who will be going hand to hand with the enemy.”

  Lotte occupies my mind, but I make no move throughout these frantic days to let her know I’m too pressed with duties to hike to the telephone exchange to place a call. I could explain, if I were more experienced in such things, that I know but little of relationships or of a girl’s expectations, that I am what I am: A recently turned nineteen-year-old who has never had a girlfriend and who, as taken as I am with her, has assumed all things to be on hold until I’m able once more to wander off base and into town.

  Due to an announcement on November 9, all recreational activity is canceled, including all overnight passes. Lieutenant Kline’s 2nd Tank Platoon draws an assignment to accompany, six days hence, Geo Troop’s fifty armored vehicles and trucks to Amsterdam for shipment to the Gulf. 2nd Cav’s mud-bellies, as long promised (among thousands of vehicles being readied and shipped) will serve in combat (we keep hearing) as the force of initial contact! Death will claim a percentage, as we know without being reminded.

  Our order of deployment is to road-march our M1A1s, Bradleys, and other vehicles to our railhead, with one platoon per troop assigned to overnight trips of seeing the mud-bellies tied down and transported, protected and unloaded, driven aboard freighters waiting in a harbor in Amsterdam. Train time to Amsterdam, sitting beside long windows, becomes an occasion during which the realities of war begin to sink in for me. While little talk is given to the near future and the risks, each mind has to be considering the actions scheduled to follow.

  Copies of the International Herald Tribune and Stars & Stripes are available to read on the train. As in a dream during the night, our delivery is quickly accomplished and we return to Bindlach feeling an absence of the heavy armor that had provided a blanket of security we had come to take for granted. What good are soldiers without machine guns mounted on their Humvees, or cannons on Bradley Fighting Vehicles and M1A1s? More than hand-to-hand combat, we see at once that war carries a threat of losing the armor on which we’ve come to rely.

  Double-time marches to training fields, huts, auditoriums. Every movement becomes tense, as it does for thousands of troops throughout Germany and the ZI, not to mention divisions from Coalition countries and National Guard units also being readied for deployment. Well-rehearsed in our movements (absentee equipment notwithstanding) and despite attending lectures from medics about wounds, chemical warfare, and PTSD, most soldiers bring a positive attitude to the threats we’re facing. Fear visits necks and knees at the prospect of engaging in combat (not unlike climbing into a ring against an opponent known for ferocity!) while terror recedes with training exercises and reassurances from experienced NCOs. The Vietnam vets know their stuff, and more than a few stride about saying, “Bring
it on!”

  Training builds confidence as well as an understated eagerness to undertake battle. We know we’re good, and we know we’re ready. One impulse is to show non-believers at home what we believe we can do. Persuaded by rational officers of our superior equipment and training, we believe we can defeat armored forces anywhere, not least of all those of which so many commentators at home are either enamored or frightened: The thousands of soldiers that make up the Elite Republican Guard.

  “Wanna see some elite?” a master sergeant who served in Vietnam remarks to us half-dozen rosy-cheeked tankers. “I’ll show you some elite. Look at our firepower. Our manpower. Our preparation. Our troops oiling their weapons, their muscles and psyches, upgrading their computers and marching orders. Walk quietly and carry a big stick. Let the dickheads bloviate all they want on TV at home. Time comes, the Iraqi Elite Republican Guard is going to wish it had never been born.”

  Day after day, new rumors swirl and add tension to the charged air. Our training (on chalk boards, computers, walk-throughs) goes to maneuvering in open spaces, newly refined gunnery skills, NBC warfare procedures, night fighting, and foul weather assaults, especially those in concert with chemical agents. Every soldier’s medical profile is upgraded, as are shots and personnel records, including beneficiaries, wills, and next-of-kin addresses and telephone numbers.

  Training schedules are routinely altered in response to military adjustments. NCOs bring a new air of reality to what was performed by rote in the past. Longer sessions in classrooms. Getting things right. Doing them again. Being in top shape on the simulators, in top physical shape, too. Going to the Gulf to fight an actual enemy of size and strength, a brushfire that keeps burning before us only to be shouted down by platoon leaders. “HEAR THIS, SOLDIER! WE’RE GOING TO WAR! PEOPLE ARE GOING TO DIE! KEEP YOUR HEAD IN THE GAME!”

  So it goes, day by day and hour by hour. VII Corps armored units may be inexperienced in desert maneuvering (like convoys of fat steel ships at sea), while we continue to receive still more state-of-the-art equipment, including GPS technology, that has to be incorporated by fast learners in the ranks. Make it work and do it well. All the practicing and training that’s been undertaken; it’s time to put it together and make it run, as one NCO has it, “like a goddamn Mercedes Benz!”

  One rumor isn’t a rumor at all: There will be NO alcohol in Saudi Arabia or Kuwait. Nor will female soldiers be allowed to drive or to be present in any Arab locations unaccompanied by male soldiers. No matter that we are going there to save their Arab asses–so the line goes–women’s faces will remain covered in every public setting, and booze and other western decadence will remain forbidden.

  Anecdotes have it that filthy rich Saudis are bragging around the gaming tables of Europe that their U.S. retainers will be fighting and dying for them in the Middle East. “Forget that baloney,” the lieutenant tells us. “Nothing is sacred in the end but the integrity within yourselves. Know who you are. Be who you are! Don’t let any of that psychological warfare get into your system.”

  I question my courage and for the first time I believe I understand what dying in Vietnam meant to my father. Like every soldier and Marine, he would have known of the debate raging at home, the scorn he would face on returning after risking his life for his country. To be looked down on by know-it-all smart-ass students, male and female, persons his age who believed they were superior…if they hadn’t fled to Canada, and even if they had. Or, unable to dodge the draft, they performed with arrogance and cynicism while in uniform. If my father knew he was going to die, had he regarded his death as honorable and worthwhile, or as an existence as wasted as smoke from a cigarette?

  Death in war may or may not be pure in meaning, as it seems to have been during World War II. All the same, before a decade has passed, those who die will be forgotten and/or ridiculed by the following generation. It’s an odd thing that a soldier needs to process in his heart. He (or she) may deserve honor, but will be taken for granted and soon forgotten.

  By selecting dereliction, a person can live a longer life. An honorable life may be worthy of praise (if shortened by half or two-thirds), while graduate student cynics with the final word will say it was a waste and what good is honor if all it does is kill you off before your time?

  Myself, I’m not sure how I feel. Not yet. I’m alive; I’m happy. I believe in happiness and feel no resentment. I know that soldiers are happier if they adopt a personal code. I also know that they’ll need to swallow cynicism if they’re going to exist. They’ll need to be willing, within their code, to accept their fate without growing bitter and resentful.

  Our desert survival training centers on the likelihood (some NCOs say the certainty) that we’ll be facing chemical, biological, and/or nuclear agents. Nerve and mustard gas, anthrax and botulism germs, radioactive fields created by nuclear weapons. The word in our training is that Saddam used gas against his own people and, facing death, will use every last canister against us. Additional word is that survivors will be the ones who pay attention in class. So it is that I pay even more attention.

  When my thoughts stray during these days packed with training, they always go to Lotte Lengemann. Should I contrive a way to steal an hour, to hustle to the telephone exchange and call her at work? It’s her only number I know; I wouldn’t risk calling her at home in any case, not knowing how to convey to her mother or father that a U.S. soldier is on the line. At the same time, stealing an hour is easier said than done; all movements are monitored and being AWOL from a training session is out of the question.

  Should I forget I ever met Lotte Lengemann? She’ll know from local news reports that crucial military moves are underway at Christensen Barracks and will see soon enough that things did not work out for us…even as she has to know that I’m taken with her and believe they can. Is deployment as large for her as it is for me, and looming like the sky? An unknown number of months away? A year or more? A debilitating injury and endless hospitalization like something in a movie? Death? Is that what I want to inflict on her when all she did was go out with a young soldier who didn’t quite know what he was doing?

  Or might I write a note to let her know I like her still? That if I come back in one piece I’d like nothing more than to go out with her again? That I turned nineteen only recently and am not sure what I wish to do? That I’ve never been smitten like this before?

  I also think of DeMarcus and Magdalena, which has me grinning in friendship. What a pair. We bonded, and I regard each as a friend as true as any I’ve known. She’s a handful, no doubt about it, but on getting through to her, respecting her smarts as well as her quirks (as I admitted to DeMarcus) she’s like one of the best teachers a person ever had, one who knows her stuff and is willing to say so. An aristocratic lush out to take America to task for its racial flaws, no matter her realities being a hundred years behind the times and assigning no responsibility at all to African Americans!

  (The chip on so many black shoulders. Criminal offenses, gangbanging, narrow-minded prejudice against whites for being white so many years later. An inability to live and let live. How will peace ever be possible if black kids don’t open their eyes and ears to what that African American command master sergeant at Rhein/Main was trying to say about maturity?)

  DeMarcus as a best friend, a buddy? What can I say? It’s true. There may be few instances of sharing time during our hectic training for deployment, while I keep coming around to seeing that he is like me when I was younger and isn’t so bad. He’s what I was five years ago, no matter that I’m younger by several years. Thugs, each of us, trying to find ourselves whether we knew it or not. His shank. His dumb throat-cutting threats. Like many immature habits, aren’t those forgotten in the army by now, like other embarrassments of adolescence? Do I deserve any credit for calling him on things and opening the door to friendship? I know that we can discuss just about anything, that after having fought like mad dogs, he will respect my judgment if I respect his. Yeah, he
’s become an army buddy. A thug from streets not unlike the ones I walked myself, each of us out for growth and meaning, for a life that will allow us to know some pride and self-respect. In short, I know the son of a bitch and I’ve come to like him as a friend.

  An announcement is made that deployment orders are in but will not be disclosed (for security reasons) until manifests are confirmed, within days. “Maybe you can get the skinny on CNN,” the first sergeant jokes. (What I think again is that maybe I can still work in a call to Lotte, slipping away to use her office number, which office will be closed over the coming weekend.)

  “Will we be flying?” someone asks the first sergeant.

  “Did I say anything about flying?” the man replies. “Maybe we’ll go over land, by train, through Italy, Greece, and Turkey. Maybe we’ll go to Bremerhaven and sail on troop ships. This ain’t your daddy’s army, numbskull. Use your head. Of course we’ll be flying. What the hell are you thinking?”

  Out of the blue on Friday a letter arrives from Lotte. On returning from night-training exercises in brisk November air, an unfamiliar cream-colored envelope is in my mail slot with “Lotte Lengemann” written on the back in blue ink. I believe, in my confused infatuation, that I had decided to let her fade into an oblivion of impossible experience, assuming her to be going on in her job and doing the same with me. Still, I’ve never received a letter from a girl before and the tiny envelope carries a feeling of far greater weight than the manila paper alone.

  I sit on my bunk to read the precious message, not knowing what to expect. Is she angry with me for leaving her hanging? Is that what I’ve done? Did she expect me to be mature with her when I’m only learning how to be mature with myself? I know only that her words, as I settle in to read them, are friendly, no less than loving and flowing like wine into an area within me that has been standing empty.