by Brooke King
A few days later, after the market bombing, I saw Kyle Wotring, my first love, whom I thought I had long since forgotten. Perhaps I should have run to him and tried to touch him, like people do when they think they are seeing a mirage or a ghost. But with the knowledge that he was in the States, in the navy, and stationed in San Diego, I thought it couldn’t possibly be him. Yet, I sat there across from him outside in the parking lot of the PX on Camp Liberty studying the features in his face, hoping to find a sign of misconception. His face was the same: square-boned jawline, pointed short nose, and piercing blue eyes. I stared longer and longer, the heat rippling off the ground, waving his figure. He looked at me, and I swore for a second he smiled. It couldn’t have been him. I tried not to let myself think it. He walked toward me, and as a glimmer of hope crossed my face, he smiled again, and if this had been a mirage, the saunter in his step would have been swept away like dust flecks or sand being lifted up into the air, but he touched my arm, and I knew then that this was real.
He stood there in front of me, his smile playful as he stretched out his hand. I looked at him amazed. A moment ago I might have dreaded this moment, the realization that this might not be real, but there was a peaceful glint in the way his eyes met mine and it was as though the time apart, petty arguments, sad farewells, and moments of happiness blended together in an instant like water rippling off a brush as it touched the canvas. Neither one of us spoke, and for a split second I wondered if he thought the same as I, that this was some malicious prank, the universe converging to ruin our sanity by instilling false happiness in us.
The parking lot around us might as well have been empty, a desert, infinite, with no sound or shadow or person to interrupt, an intimate aloneness that between two lovers could spell out the word sacred. This man, the one I had once given my heart to, a piece of my soul, a prized section of my body—he carried it with him, and for some selfish reason I could not explain, I wanted it back. I needed him now.
As if by reflex, I stretched out my hand and touched his chest. The gesture was one of understanding that the body is living; the feel of his heartbeat against my palm reassured me again that this was real. The quick pulsations under my padded fingertips jolted my hand back, stopping it short of my own body. I feared if I reeled it back too far, I would lose the feeling entirely of what it was to touch him again. Was he a different man now? I didn’t know, but I clung to the memory I had of him like a saw palm clinging to life as it gasps for air during a controlled burn. I did not know why he was there, smiling at me, how he came to be in this war; his job escapes me, even now. All the same, I wonder now while writing this if I picked up the phone, would he answer with the same tone and familiarity as he did that day when he said my name; surely he would. His voice, the smooth yet leathery deep-throated timbre that mixed together perfectly like Irish cream into coffee, swirling endlessly in a circle until it blended caramel brown and melted naturally on the palate as you slowly sipped it. Our conversation was short, a break in silence staggered by reverent smiles and questionable gazes. Small talk was not enough to say all the things I wanted to say to him. How I wished that we had more time together. I would have told him how wrong I felt for leaving him behind to go into the army and that, even now, as he stood in front of me, I still remembered the first time we kissed at sunset on a rock in Mission Gorge, how cheesy we had felt as teenagers for doing it, but how much I longed for it now. Simpler days and moments like those were all I clung to now to make me smile in this place. The conversation never went past catching up. Each glance and smile felt as though there was a silent conversation happening, one that told of everything we wanted to say but couldn’t fashion into words. He told me he was there for only a short while, but it was long enough to tempt me into taking him inside me again, to breathe him in and exhale a piece of myself, a part that he took long ago, a part I desperately needed back, a part of me that I had let this war take.
I would never get the chance.
My crew walked out of the PX, bags in tow, and for a brief moment I looked at Sergeant Lippert, a sort of begging with the eyes that comes from months in combat with the same person, of knowing when they need more time. He stopped short and nodded. I looked over at my first love, contemplating touching his chest again, but I didn’t. I smiled at him and told him to be safe. I don’t know if it was something in the way I looked at him or maybe the expression on my face that made him straighten up. I think it was then that he realized I might not make it back to San Diego alive. He grabbed my arm and pulled me close. I wrapped my arms around his muscular frame, my hands gripping tight to his uniform. We clung to each other and in that moment it was everything we were and might not get to be again, or maybe it was simply a gesture between two people, a silent farewell. It seemed as though he too would soon be gone, back out to the war, back to a life where I did not exist.
Soon I would be surrounded by nothing but ghosts.
Abu Ghraib
Missions always seemed to vary in our battalion. Because we didn’t have a clear understanding of our reason for being in country, our battalion had a habit of being tasked out with the shit jobs, the ones no one else in theater really wanted to do, like water supply runs to Abu Ghraib.
I was ground guiding a forklift with the last pallet of water off our HEMTT’s flatbed, almost a successful supply run. Sergeant Lippert was driving and yelling at me to pay attention to the building in front of me, Abu Ghraib’s unit headquarters—the main entrance to the prison just beyond the door up ahead to my left. For months now, when there were no recovery missions, Sergeant Lippert and I ran water missions up to the prison once a week, with loads at least ten pallets deep, each pallet carrying at least one hundred bottles of water.
It took us less than twenty minutes and we were finished, but while I was standing next to the HEMTT I noticed a soldier walking over to the first pallet. He grabbed a case of water and disappeared back into the building. There were no prisoners out that day. I wondered if it was because it was too hot in the sun or if the warden had taken away their yard time. I watched Sergeant Lippert trying to lower the last pallet onto the ground. He was having trouble with the forklift gears. I chuckled as I thought about a scene from The Shawshank Redemption where Andy Dufresne hasn’t stepped out of his cell for morning head count and one of the guards is calling for him, but he’s already escaped the prison, vanished overnight. I looked over at Sergeant Lippert, who was still struggling, and yelled, “Damn it, Dufresne, you’re puttin’ me behind! I got a schedule to keep!” Sergeant Lippert flipped me off and continued mission.
I turned around, looking at this place that I’d overheard some of the Cav scouts at the chow hall call the pit of hell. It was sparse and nondescript with its decorations; its ornaments of war usually were displayed for all to see, but I supposed that day they were hidden inside the building handcuffed and caged, no doubt being tortured for information they probably didn’t know.
The outer walls, high and covered in barbed wire, were sporadically broken up with a guard tower. I looked up at the soldier standing watch with a rifle. His sheltered tower was covered in desert camo netting at the top. It dangled down a little on each corner edge. He walked from one side to the other. He must do it to keep from falling asleep. Guard duty—a job I did not envy. He noticed me staring at him and looked down at me. From behind his dark Wiley X sunglasses, I could not see the irises of his eyes. I could not see his nametape on his chest or his rank. He was covered. All I managed to make out was the American flag patch on his right shoulder, the sweat circles underneath his armpits, and the fact that he hadn’t taken in any water in the whole ten minutes I stared at him. I knew from experience that while on duty, you’re not allowed to leave your post for any reason unless relieved or ordered to do so. The dude had to have been baking in that tower, so I went to the cab of the truck, grabbed a bottle of water, and walked over to the tower. As I got closer, I could see he was sweating profusely. I yelled up to him, but he did no
t move from his post. I walked over to the edge of the tower where the ladder met the platform. I yelled up to him again. This time he walked over and looked down at me. I held up the water bottle. He shook his head no, but I knew he was thirsty. I knew he needed water. He was too proud. Fucking men. I shook my head, as I put the water bottle in my cargo pants pocket and climbed the ladder, hoping I was not breaking protocol and that this bit of humanity that I was feeling obliged to give would not get me into too much shit with his section sergeant. When I got to the top rung of the ladder climb, I knew instantly that I had made a mistake. My nose met the end of a rifle barrel. I apologized as many times as it took for me to pull the water bottle out of my pocket and place it on the floor of the tower. I started my climb down and made it to the bottom, but as I walked back over to the HEMTT and looked up at the tower, the soldier was opening the water bottle.
James
I was leaning over a technical manual, hoping to find the answer as to why the backup lights on the cargo HEMTT wouldn’t work, when Anderson walked up and asked me to go take a smoke break with her. Besides her, I was the only other female mechanic in Alpha Company, a feat in the eyes of the male soldiers. We walked to the smoke area just inside the motor pool walls when a Humvee pulled in, the occupants a former sergeant of mine and an officer. Called away from my smoke, Sergeant Lester introduced me to Capt. James Haislop. Anderson laughed at my helpless attempt to flirt with the handsome young captain. There was something about him I couldn’t put my finger on. Maybe it was the way he looked at me as though he and I were the only ones around. Or maybe it was because finally, I had felt something for someone, something inside me that hadn’t been there for a while, the feeling of being alive. Either way, I smiled, batted my eyelashes at him, and he stood there staring at me like a kid in a candy store, bewildered. A wave and a stumble, and the captain carried on toward his office. Sergeant Lester laughed at both of us, the ridiculousness that this place brought out in people. I laughed as well; I couldn’t help it. After the moment passed, I went back to smoking with Anderson and thought about the captain.
The days wore on like this: filing work orders as completed, taking smoke breaks, lunch breaks, shitter breaks, and any other break so that we did not have to work in the sun. Down the pipeline, friends of mine knew the captain and, soon, where he worked. I visited on occasion, making myself a presence he couldn’t forget, and soon it was more than obvious that the feeling was mutual, but there was Rob. In the back of my mind I knew what I was doing was wrong, that he was an officer and I was a married enlisted soldier, but war has a way of making you forget who you are, and soon after that first recovery mission, I had lost who I was completely. A numbness had taken over, the feeling of not giving a shit about much outside of your job and the soldiers in your section. The conversation with the captain had made me aware of that, and now all I wanted was to feel that again, so I started meeting him outside of work. At the chow hall, outside his hooch, at the smoking area next to battalion; I met him anywhere I could. All I wanted was a conversation and a friendly face, someone who didn’t know me well enough to know that part of me was missing. A friendship formed but didn’t last, and soon the darkness of the night that I used to fear became my friend. I used it to go see him.
The first time I fucked him, we only spoke of what our lives were like back home. Each night we were together brought me closer to someone who resembled me. I needed to feel like me again. The war was taking that away slowly, so I clung to James like an addict needing the next fix. I clung selfishly to these moments where I could forget the war and embrace passion and desire as though they were as necessary as air. And soon the war subsided in my mind, and each time I gave in, got my filler fix of drugs from my surrogate death dealer, the less I found I needed to fight back the urge to kill. I had found another sort of peace, and so the nights with him became something much more than sex, more than the need to forget the war; they became a piece of a dream, the hope for a normal life after all this death and killing, a day in my future that I might be able to will into reality. They became a life after this, a place where James and I would live happily ever after. We shared our dreams, aspirations for the future, and though I listened to him speak of his family in Florida, his upbringing, and countered with my own stories of growing up, I felt as though for once in this war I had connected to something alive, something that was tangible, that could grow into something better, so I allowed myself to fall in love with him, with the thought of what could be, and the possibility that I might have a shot at living after the war was over. He had given me that much.
*
“So why’d you do it?”
I looked up at him from where my face was buried into his pillow, shrugged my shoulders, and put my head back into the feather down indentation.
“Is that an ‘I don’t know’ or a ‘fuck you’?”
I knew eventually that this conversation was going to happen, the part where I’d have to open up about myself to James. So I told him something he didn’t want to hear. “I’m married.”
“I know.”
“That doesn’t bother you?”
“Not as much as you not answering my question.”
“He used to beat me. One good backhand across the face. He always used his left.”
James sat up a little in bed. “I was bored in college. Didn’t have a clue what I wanted to do after I was finished, so I did ROTC instead. Figured I’d do at least that.”
“He used to make sure the ring side was facing up.” I lifted my left hand. “To make sure I knew his place in my life.”
“You didn’t fight back?”
“Of course I did, but a guy like that, he only knows one thing—how to hurt someone.”
“Why didn’t you report him?”
“It’s a military base, a military couple; you think anyone would’ve given two shits if I came in complaining about my husband beating me?” I rolled over onto my back. “Every female soldier’s got something to complain about. I didn’t want to be one of them.”
“You’re not.”
“To you I’m not, but to every other swinging dick, I am.”
James looked at me, studied my face to see if I was lying. I knew the look of a skeptic. He thought I was full of shit, and most of the time I wished that I was.
“You going to stay with him?”
“My gramps was in the military. Navigation guy on a cargo plane or something like that. Nam.”
“My dad was navy.”
I crawled onto his chest. “You ever wonder if we’ll be able to do this tomorrow?”
He moved a piece of hair away from my face. “I hope so, but you still haven’t answered my question.”
I crawled out of his bed, slid my PT shorts and shirt back on, slipped into my running shoes, and grabbed my weapon. James swung his body over the side of the bed and reached out for me, but I had moved away toward the door. Before I opened the door and left, I answered his question, but it wasn’t the answer he wanted. I could see it in the way he looked back at me after I answered, a look of disenchantment.
“Drugs. I joined to get away from drugs.”
Dog Tags
Dog tags sway when you walk into the family house, fresh and new, minted and pressed, still warm where your name was printed, your religion pronounced, you blood type engraved, your serial number stamped. Down to their core, dog tags remind you that you’ve just signed your life away and are now the property of the United States Army. Dog tags slouch as you walk bent over from your friend’s car to the house you grew up in, a last farewell with your ex-boyfriend Kyle and your best friends Tony, Dan, and Holly before you ship out. A wave and a stumble into the house, dog tags slam up against the wall of the hallway as you trudge to the bathroom. Dog tags slap against the toilet after a late night of downing too many types of liquor, that last shot of vodka you swore up and down wouldn’t make you puke. Dog tags are silent as you sleep one last time in the house that you labeled on y
our emergency contact form as your permanent place of residence. Dog tags hide underneath your uniform at the airport the next day as Dad hugs and kisses you goodbye, tells you to be safe over there, while Nana sits in the front seat of the car crying and Grandpa stands by the driver’s side door staring at you as he holds back tears. Dog tags swing in unison against one another as you board the plane and leave everything familiar—the orders printed, your names recited, and only a one-word response given when you asked where you were going: Iraq. Dog tags hang around your neck as you stand in formation at dawn in a place unfamiliar, waiting for marching orders, the sound of your heart beating against the tin metal. The rubber ring around your dog tags, the only thing that hides the panic you feel in your chest. Dog tags break the silence of the quiet morning, the clanging sound of each soldier coming to attention, the orderly unison of dog tags ringing out their impending doom. Here in this line is where dog tags find you equal, but here is where they separate you. Here is where they strip your pride and force you out of the line. Here is where dog tags come in handy as you ask the chaplain to sit and pray with you before you exit through the gate on mission. Here is where dog tags fight the urge to leave your body as your convoy takes enemy fire. Here is where dog tags bang against your combat vest as you bag and tag the body of a soldier you do not know. Dog tags yank you away from the smell of burned flesh. Here, next to a burned-out Humvee in the middle of the street, is where they are guarded and hidden from sight. Here, dog tags equip you for death, prepare you for the inevitability of war, but you didn’t die today—today it is another soldier. Here is where dog tags are ripped off. Here is where you take one dog tag from him and put it in your pocket. Here is where dog tags give you no solace, as you and his fellow soldiers help you lift him into your truck. Here is where you hand the dog tag over to his commander when you return to the FOB. Dog tags clink in the shower as you try to rinse off the soldier’s blood crusted on your hands and buried in your cuticles. Dog tags feel cold against your skin in the morning as you walk to the chow hall, hoping for the quiet and peace of a warm meal. Here in formation is where a set of dog tags once stood. Here is where dog tags still stand silently waiting for the next mission. Dog tags bring you relief when you are not named off the roster for another day out the gate, but tomorrow it will be your turn again. Here is where dog tags drip with sweat from the searing heat of the midday summer sun. Here is where dog tags cook your flesh if left exposed for too long in 120 degree F heat. Here in the crowded streets of Baghdad is where dog tags have placed you. Here is where the familiar sound of dog tags bumping and clanking is replaced by a local merchant yelling the fresh cuts of meat he’s selling at his market stand and loud Arabic music blaring from a beat-up silver Mercedes Benz moseying down the street as if it weren’t congested with wall-to-wall people. Here is where dog tags redefine you as a target inside and outside the gate. At the end of the day, when you have fought as hard as you can to do the job they trained you for, dog tags drag you down, their weight unbearable around your neck. Here, in your hooch, after formations and chow, when the night has come is, when dog tags don’t mean shit. In here is where silent wars are fought, in the in-between hours when sleeping soldiers wake in fear. Here is where dog tags lie on the nightstand next to a green army watch. Here is where they separate and divide, placing reality in a box where compliance and devotion to the job do not exist. Here is where they are left while the rims around your eyelids fade slowly down to black. Here is where they watch you from their place next to your bed, hoping that one day the sleep you wish for will finally be called rest. Here is where dog tags don’t matter until the next morning, when they are lifted up and returned to their rightful place. Here is where they learn the meaning of death. Here is where a girl is made into a woman and then slowly into a man. Here is where dog tags sit and wait, hoping that the humanity in you appears again. Here is where dog tags see the wayward daughters and sons of America fight on the front lines. Here is where they notice the landscape is not what it seems. Here is where they find that war is not fought by soldiers on both sides but by farmers, young boys who are confused in faith, and women who are forced to fight. Here is where you leave the semblance of the person you once were. Here, dog tags listen to you sob as you lose your will to live. Here is where dog tags are collected in blown-out vehicles where no faces or bodies remain. Here is where dog tags are the only thing that distinguishes one soldier from another. Here is where they are divvied up, one to your family, one to your unit. Here is where nothing is left for you but the name God gave you, the number the government rendered you, the religion your family instilled in you, and the metal that the army issued you. You wear dog tags around your neck until the day you die. But still, dog tags do not leave you. Here in this metal coffin is where dog tags identify you and bring you a step closer toward the mouth of a politician who knows nothing of your name but uses the number around your neck as a statistical reference to his ambiguous claim about the war he isn’t supporting and the troops he doesn’t know. Here is where dog tags sustain a memory, a lasting image of a soldier who once was a woman or a man. Here, on marked graves, among the rows of white headstones, is where dog tags no longer trouble the dead.