Invisible Wounds
“My father was a platoon sergeant in the Pennsylvania National Guard. But nobody ever thought I’d join the military. I was too sensitive. I was into painting and illustration and theater. Plus I was a total goofball. I barely finished high school. I didn’t have any direction. I got fired from TCBY for giving out too much ice cream. You’re supposed to scoop a certain amount every time and I was just scooping all I could. So nobody thought I’d join the military. But one day I walked into our living room and there was a kid sitting on our couch. My father was giving him advice about joining the military. This kid was a grade below me, and I barely knew him, but my father’s hand was on his shoulder. And I suddenly felt this territorial feeling. Like he had a connection with my dad that should have been mine. And I wanted that too. So I decided to enlist.”
“I was assigned to my father’s platoon. He worried that people would think I was getting preferential treatment so he put on a serious show. I got volunteered and ‘voluntold’ to do everything. He’d make me clean the shitters and the slop sinks and then at night we’d ride home together. I saw a new side of him. I'd always known him as my father. But now I was seeing him in a leadership position where he was respected by a large group of people. While we were training, he always told us to be ready for war, but we thought: ‘whatever.’ The running joke was that the Cub Scouts would get deployed before the National Guard. But in '04 we got our deployment notice for Iraq. They told my father that he couldn't come with us because he'd just turned sixty. It really killed him. He begged the colonel, and then the general, but everyone said 'no.' He followed us right to the door of the plane, and he was crying his eyes out, and he kept saluting us as the plane pulled away. He stood there until the ground crew made him leave.”
“We were based out of the Baghdad Airport. I drove armored Humvees. Mainly we transported detainees between the airport and the Green Zone. The road was known as ‘Route Irish.’ We called it the eight-minute heart attack. A lot of times there was sniper fire and almost every day an IED would explode. We’d drive through traffic as fast as we could. Sometimes it was like parting The Red Sea. We’d clear our way through traffic by pointing our rifles at drivers and waving them off the road. You can understand why they resented us. Imagine that happening on the streets of New York. I’ll never forget the looks we’d get. I’ve never seen that sort of hate. My worst day was when we had to transport this really bad prisoner to the hospital. He was 6’5” and completely shackled up because he’d beaten up six of our guys. When we got to the hospital I was ordered to guard his room. The hospital was tiny. Just a few rooms. And this truck pulled up with troops. They’d been hit by an IED and were covered in blood. And they’re being carried right in front of my face. And the first guy is dead. And the second guy has no leg and he’s spilling blood all over the floor. And the doctors and nurses are slipping around like penguins. And they’re carrying this guy’s leg in a garbage bag. And I can’t leave. I’m gripping this rosary that my girlfriend’s mom gave me, and I’m praying for this guy to live, and he’s bleeding out and dying in front of me. And what’s the point of prayer anyway if God brought me here to watch this sick shit. And behind me is this huge madman that I’m supposed to be guarding. And I’m trying not to cry and I’m not allowed to move. I was trapped. It’s like somebody was holding my head and forcing me to watch hell. And in front of me, this Iraqi janitor is mopping up the blood. And he’s smiling. He’s fucking smiling.”
“There was an old man who fished in the same spot every single day. He’d stand on the edge of a canal coming off the Tigris. We told him it was a bad idea. He sat on a village council, and he always voted with the coalition, so we told him it was a bad idea to fish in the same place every day. But he was seventy years old so he wouldn’t listen to anyone. And one day this fifteen-year-old kid rides by on a scooter and drops a bomb behind him. And I get called out to investigate the crime scene. My job is to take pictures, ask questions, things like that. And I get there right as the sun is going down. And a truck is lighting up the scene with its headlights. And the air smells like an old duffle bag. And I kneel down next to the crater and I start to take out my bag and I just freeze. The hole is filled with dusty, coagulated blood. And parts of this guy are floating in the canal. And it looks like somebody has thrown Smucker’s jelly all over the wall. And I just froze up. I couldn’t do it. I wasn’t supposed to be seeing this. I was an art student. I loved the human body. I always thought it was so beautiful. And not in a horny or freaky or weird way-- just in a beautiful way. I used to watch my sister dance ballet. I saw her dance in the Nutcracker five times. I loved seeing all these beautiful things that the human form could do. I always honored the human body. And now I’ve come to a place where the human body is shredded and stomped and blown to bits. And that just wasn’t me. I used to be jokey. I used to be goofy. I was Frank from North Scranton. And now I won’t ever be that again.”
“It’s the most embarrassing thing a grown man can experience. It’s like having a nightmare while awake. It happened not long after I’d moved to New York City. I’d been isolating myself a lot after I came back from Iraq. I was on edge all the time and I got nervous in crowds. So one day I decided that I was going to try to step outside my comfort zone and drive to the Queens Center Mall. And I was parking my car in the lot, and this traditionally dressed Muslim man starts walking behind me, and suddenly I was back in Iraq, and I started to get nervous. So I walked quickly into the mall and I start hearing the sound of 50-caliber machine guns all around me, and it’s getting louder and louder, and I know that nobody else is hearing it but I swear to fucking God it’s real. And the voices around me grew louder and suddenly I can’t remember where I am. And I walked outside and started hugging this aluminum lamppost, and I tried to call my girlfriend because I didn’t know how to get home, and it felt like the world was closing in on me and I wanted to die. I wanted to kill myself. It was the only way I knew how to end this. I had to get help. I lost a whole line of mentors to suicide and I didn’t want it to be me too. Maybe some guys can come home from war and go back to mowing their lawn or fixing their gutters-- good on them. But I had to get help. It took a lot of therapy to release this self-torment. It took a lot of therapy to stop hearing those 50-calibers. And therapy is the only reason I can talk about these things today. Because I’m finally starting to get through it.”
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