It turned out to be hard work to nurture that hope. I was stationed in a camp completely cut off from instant communication, so I couldn’t get updates on Brian’s recovery. I wondered constantly if he ever thought of me, but there was nothing I could do to find out.
At last I was sent to a new location, one that had electricity, running water, and Internet access—absolute luxury. One day I logged on and was astonished to see a message from him:
I am guessing this is your email. And by now you probably know what happened to me with getting blown up and all. I am ok, I am in DC at Walter Reed and will go on convo [convalescent] leave pretty soon, so I guess that is ok. I got some big ass scars on my head but oh well. Take it easy and be safe over there.
I was ecstatic to hear from him and immediately sent a lengthy response. His short answer came back soon:
I am doing good. I got some nasty scars but Oh well. I dont much care if people dig em or not. Some scars are made to be worn with pride. Congrats on your E-5. Its good they fixed your foot. I remmeber you getting shots into it. I got my e-6 but never got my orders yet.1 They are in Iraq. Well stay safe and hang in there. My number is ### or ###. I’ll still have them both when you guys return. Later.
I was so happy to hear from him that I barely even noticed the repetition or how short and choppy the sentences were compared to how articulately he had always spoken. And I assumed the spelling and punctuation errors were a result of the laziness many slip into in email. After all, I knew next to nothing about traumatic brain injuries (TBIs), and when he told me he was going to be okay, I took that at face value. Even when he wrote that they were considering additional surgeries to put a plate over the hole in his skull, it didn’t fully register with me how seriously he had been injured.
Our messages got shyly flirtatious, and I gushed about it to my best friend Zoe, my roommate back home. “Do you remember McGough, from the mountain? He emailed me from the hospital! He’s going to be okay! I think he’s flirting with me.”
“That’s awesome! Do you think you’ll hang out with him when we get home?” she asked.
“I hope so, if he’s home from the hospital,” I answered. “This probably sounds ridiculous, but I feel like a teenager. Twenty-seven fucking years old, and whenever I see an email from him, I feel all giddy and excited.” I covered my face with my hands, blushing.
“Dude, he’s hot! And super smart. I don’t blame you at all. Hope it works out.”
IN JANUARY 2004 Brian bumped into one of his case managers in the hall at Walter Reed. “Why are you still here?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Shouldn’t you know?
His mom had gone home weeks before. The doctors didn’t see any reason for her to stay, and Peggy had to get back to work. Brian was going to appointments by himself and seemed to be doing well. President Bush had presented him with a Purple Heart. But despite how well he had been doing, Brian’s parents were still surprised at what came next: he was released from Walter Reed and sent back to Fort Campbell.
The only explanation he got was, “Well, you can walk, talk, and wipe your own ass—you don’t belong here.” After a couple of months getting occasional art therapy sessions, hanging out with other patients (including amputees who called the sex they had “bumping stumps”), going out in D.C. to drink, going to follow-up appointments, and showing that he could indeed wipe his own ass, he was being sent home. He never got the other surgeries they had mentioned earlier. He still had a hole in the back of his skull where the shrapnel had entered and later where a shunt had been placed to relieve pressure and drain fluid, but they had decided it wasn’t worth patching, telling him instead to just avoid activities that seemed dangerous. He couldn’t ride his beloved dirt bike anymore, and was discouraged from skiing or snowboarding, too. He wasn’t sent to an inpatient TBI rehab center—in fact, he never got any PT or OT to speak of. Without rehabilitation or a coherent plan for consistent follow-up care, without confirming there would be any kind of support system in place after he left, they simply cut him orders back to Fort Campbell and sent him off.
Brian got home not long before the rest of our division returned from the Middle East. I’d called him a few times while we were in Kuwait, awkwardly chatting in a room full of other troops talking to those they missed back home, trying to flirt without assuming too much, hoping he felt as excited as I did, not wanting to read too much into anything.
Zoe and I sat together on the plane back to Fort Campbell, clutching each other in a combination of nervousness and elation. Neither of us had family there waiting for us, but we had each other. We’d both asked our families to stay away to allow time for decompression, but it still ached a bit to be alone in a sea of joyous reunions.
She got the battery in her car hooked back up, got a jump, and we drove home, giddy and a bit overwhelmed. Every store—every Burger King and mattress store, everything—had signs up saying “Welcome Home, Troops!” Fluorescent lights, cars following traffic laws—everything seemed a little surreal. “Shower, pizza, beer—those are the top priorities!” we agreed. But there was one more for me: Brian.
The house was spotless when we walked in. My father had come to get it ready, and had even washed Zoe’s laundry and folded it neatly. It was our house, but not as we’d left it . . . familiar, but strange. I’d let a couple of people stay there when they redeployed before us to PCS or because their enlistments were up, and the garage was full of furniture I’d never seen before.
Our phones couldn’t be reactivated immediately. While Zoe was showering, I walked over to the house next door and rang the bell. A big dude with dreadlocks opened the door and stared at me. I tripped awkwardly over my words. “Um, hi, I’m your neighbor, I guess you moved in while I was gone? We were in Iraq, you know, and we just got back.” He just stared at me, so I pushed on, “Well, anyway, I called Sprint and they can’t get my phone turned back on until tomorrow, but I really want to call my friend, he got blown up over there and I want to make sure he’s okay.” Still just staring at me silently, no smile, no nod; my heart pounding as I started wondering if someone would really be this rude to a soldier just off the plane coming home from war. Deep breath: “Anyway, can I just use your phone for a minute?” After a long beat, he pulled out his phone and handed it to me. “Sure.”
I thanked him and called Brian. “Hey! It’s Kayla. We’re back! I just got home. My neighbor let me use his phone; mine won’t be on until tomorrow. Um, do you want to hang out?” My neighbor stood in his doorway watching me.
“Oh, yeah, cool, but you’ll have to come pick me up; I don’t have my car—it’s at my parents’ house. Can you come get me?”
“Sure, how do I get to your house?” I asked, eyeing my neighbor, who by now looked impatient.
“Take 41A past Gate 4, take the first right after Pancho Villa and then the first three lefts; my house is the one with a dumpster in the driveway,” Brian said.
“What?!”
“You know 41A? From that, drive past Gate 4, take the first right after Pancho Villa and the convenience store, and then turn left on the next three streets, and my house is the one on the left with a dumpster in the driveway.”
“You don’t know the street names?”
“Nope.”
I wasn’t sure if he was fucking with me, giving those vague and weird directions. A dumpster? Was he putting me on? “Okay, I’ll come over as soon as I take a shower.”
The water was hot, unlimited, and in my own private bathroom, not a shared facility. It was heaven. If it weren’t for the desire to eat and drink—and see Brian—I might have stayed there all night.
My mom had brought my car back just a couple of weeks previously, and it started immediately. The directions Brian gave me landed me in front of a house with a dumpster in the driveway. Nervous and excited, I rang the bell. Brian looked totally nonchalant when he answered the door. “Hey,” he said, “I’m already a little drunk. Hope you don’t mind.”
“No, that’s cool. I would be if I weren’t driving. Um, we ordered a pizza, you want to come back to my place?”
“Sure. Let me grab some beer.”
Zoe and Matt—one of the COLT guys from the mountain and our new roommate—were at my place, and we had pizza and beer, all of us laughing and joking, the three of us who had just gotten back getting drunk on very little after not having had much alcohol for so long.
When everyone else had crashed, Brian and I went into my room and got in bed. He kissed me, tenderly, gently, and held me in the dark. A tension in my shoulders I hadn’t even known was there started to unknot. I felt tiny and delicate in his long arms, protected, safe, home. For the first time in an eternity, I relaxed. It was refreshing and a bit astonishing that he didn’t push me to have sex, was content to keep getting to know me now that we could actually be alone together. I was so used to men only wanting to fuck; Brian’s patience made this hint of a relationship feel special. We lay in my bed talking and kissing until I had to get up and head in to work for an accountability formation. Even if they were going to release us immediately after, since we weren’t on leave yet our chain of command had to make sure we were all still alive and in the area.
I didn’t sleep at all.
FOR THREE DAYS, we “worked” half-days—basically the unit’s way of making sure we didn’t do anything completely stupid while we readjusted a little bit. We got medical checks—several people came up positive on their tuberculosis tests and were put on six-month regimens of antibiotics during which alcohol was banned. “Dude, they are fucking crazy if they think I’m not going to drink for the next six months,” I overheard. “A year in Iraq without beer, and they think I won’t drink now that I finally have a chance? Yeah, right.”
We also had to fill out the Post Deployment Health Assessment (PDHA) form. Along with questions about physical health concerns, it included a series of questions clearly aimed at seeing if we were fucked up in the head from the deployment, including:
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Did you see anyone wounded, killed, or dead during this deployment? (mark all that apply) |
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Were you engaged in direct combat where you discharged your weapon? |
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During this deployment, did you ever feel that you were in great danger of being killed? |
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Are you currently interested in receiving help for a stress, emotional, alcohol, or family problem? |
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Have you ever had any experience that was so frightening, horrible, or upsetting that, IN THE PAST MONTH, you . . . Have had any nightmares about it or thought about it when you did not want to? |
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Have had any nightmares about it or thought about it when you did not want to? |
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Tried hard not to think about it or went out of your way to avoid situations that remind you of it? |
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Were constantly on guard, watchful, or easily startled? |
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Felt numb or detached from others, activities, or your surroundings? |
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As I read the questions, my mind instantly snapped to the worst experience of my deployment, when I translated as U.S. troops provided medical care to three Iraqis wounded when unexploded ordinance (UXO) went off. The memories forced their way, unbidden and unwelcome, into my mind. I could hear the screaming, see the fly landing in still-flowing blood, picture a man feebly trying to cover his exposed genitals to preserve his modesty as I tried to reassure him that didn’t matter. I remembered the man who didn’t survive writhing in agony, vomiting as they tried to give him CPR, calling out to God, and eventually not moving at all.
Just as quickly, I tried to push the sounds and images from my mind, tamp down the emotional responses that automatically swelled—first fear, followed quickly by guilt that we hadn’t been able to save him—and control the physical reaction that ensued—tightness in my chest, spastic clenching of my muscles, faster breathing, pounding heart. It was widely understood that the “wrong” answers might prevent you from being released for block leave. I could hear people around me joking about it, telling each other they were lying as they filled in their answers. But I answered truthfully. We’d gone through this right before we left Iraq, too, and one of the guys on my team had ended up with a prescription for some kind of meds. What the hell—maybe I needed some, too. Might as well tell the truth.
When my form was reviewed, I was pulled aside. Someone skimmed the paper and perfunctorily asked, “Are you planning on hurting yourself?” “No.” “Are you planning on hurting anyone else?” “Nope.” She scribbled something and sent me on my way. I was reminded of a Simpsons episode where Homer is handed a certificate saying NOT INSANE after being released from a mental institution. Apparently I, too, was considered NOT INSANE and could be trusted to roam freely in society. I felt a little crazy, buzzing from lack of sleep and disconcerted by the sudden change in environment. But if the fact that I wasn’t an immediate danger to myself or others was good enough for the Army, it was good enough for me.
EVERY MINUTE I WASN’T at work, I spent with Brian. My body and brain could not readjust to America—the time zone, the safety, the civilian clothes, the food, not carrying a weapon, any of it—and I didn’t sleep at all the first three nights, just stayed up with Brian. He had brutal insomnia and didn’t fall asleep until five in the morning anyway—and that’s when I started to get ready for work. When I got home, he’d be waking up and we would spend the afternoons together.
We drank a lot. Everyone did. Groups of us who had deployed together would head out to the bars in town. Inevitably, in those early days, the bouncer checking IDs at the door would yell, “Hey, these guys just got back from Iraq! Somebody buy them a round!” And there would be cheers and applause and someone would buy a round of beers, or the bartender would say “On the house” when they tried to pay.
But the “guys” part of that was taken very literally. And on one hand, it’s hard to blame them: all the men had standard military haircuts, ramrod-straight posture—they looked the part, looked exactly like the image everyone has in their head of what a soldier is. Zoe and I didn’t. Even though we showed the same military ID cards when we walked in, we were overlooked. We could have been wives, girlfriends, sisters. We paid for our own drinks, shaking our heads and rolling our eyes. “Fucking civilians.” They didn’t understand, didn’t think about the fact that women were in the Army too, didn’t think of us at war, didn’t step beyond their automatic assumptions and stereotypes to recognize our service and sacrifice. We were invisible.
ZOE AND I HAD already made reservations to spend our first weekend home at the only five-star hotel in Tennessee, down in Nashville. We wanted to get pampered—massages, manicures, pedicures, drinking without having to drive. When we checked into the room, there was an enormous bouquet of flowers on the table. “Oh, wow, this is a fancy hotel!” I declared, assuming they were in every room.
“Look, there’s a card,” Zoe said.
I opened it. “Oh my god, they’re from Brian!” I exclaimed.
“Wow,” she smiled, “he must really like you!”
I blushed like a teenager.
The first night, we went out drinking and got wildly, ridiculously drunk. The first bar we went into, a couple of guys across the bar bought us beers after they heard us telling the bartender we’d just gotten back from Iraq. It felt great to finally be recognized as veterans—and then we noticed their haircuts and realized they, too, were freshly home.
It was around Mardi Gras, and we ended up in a New Orleans-themed blues bar in Printer’s Alley. A big group of male soldiers came in, and they got a round of drinks on the house. I was already wasted, and this time I got pissed off and started yelling. “We were there too, goddamnit! We were in the same war! Where’s my fucking beer? Just because we’re chicks, you think we don’t count?! We’re fucking troops too, goddamnit! You assholes!” Shortly after I lapsed into sullen mutterings, the waitress came over with a round for us.
When I thanked her, assuming it was on the house, she pointed out who had sent it over: Kid Rock, who lived in Nashville, was in the bar and had heard my drunken rant. “That’s so cool!” I said. “He did a USO tour, didn’t he? That’s fucking awesome.” I raised my glass to him. “Thanks for supporting the troops!” I yelled.
We ended up back in the hotel room with Mardi Gras beads and masks, stumbling and laughing. Zoe was smart enough to puke. I refused, and spent most of the next morning nursing a brutal hangover.
THE SECOND NIGHT, Matt and Brian were coming down to have dinner with us at a fancy restaurant—and I had nothing to wear. None of my clothes fit; I’d gone from a size 10 to a size 2 during our deployment. Zoe and I went shopping. It was an entirely new experience for me: for the first time in my life, I could afford to buy brand-new clothes and had a body that looked good in everything I tried on. As a teenager, I’d been fit but poor; later I’d had more disposable income but had gotten insecure about my figure after gaining some weight. But I didn’t know what to buy—a year in uniform in Iraq had left me with no idea how to dress myself in civilian clothes. Zoe helped me pick an outfit.
Then we went to a MAC store, where the clerk had to convince me to buy makeup—after a year of just sunblock and ChapStick, lipstick made me wail, “I look like a whore!” By the time we left, I’d been convinced that I absolutely had to own an eye shadow brush made from real goat hair that was apparently lovingly hand-plucked from free-range animals eating an organic diet in an idyllic pastoral wonderland. Since the goats had seemingly been living better than I had over the past year, it seemed impossible not to spend an inordinate sum supporting their happiness. Zoe bought the brightest, most vibrant shade of red lipstick she could find. “If all of it makes me feel like a hooker anyway, I might as well go all in.”
AFTER THAT WEEKEND, I had an entire month of leave. In Iraq, I’d dreamed up countless things to do during that month, places I wanted to visit: New York, California, Hawaii, Europe. Anywhere. Everywhere. I went to see my parents for a few days, planning to drive on to visit other friends after that. But I was overwhelmed by the desire to be with Brian again, and wanted to go straight back to him.
Besides, being away from a military community felt too weird. In Clarksville, every mattress store and fast food joint had a sign up saying “Welcome Home, Troops!” Sure, maybe local businesses just missed the money we spent, but they knew we’d been at war. No one in the rest of the country seemed to remember. Cable news relegated the stories about troops getting killed to the ticker at the bottom of the screen, focusing instead on the celebrity du jour. It was infuriating—didn’t they know what was important? Didn’t anyone care that we were at war? My aunts had told me that during WWII they’d used eyeliner to draw lines up the backs of their legs so it looked like they were wearing stockings, because nylon was rationed—it was needed for parachutes. Where was the rationing now? Why were troops the only ones being asked to sacrifice for this war?
Civilians asked me stupid questions like “Were you allowed to carry a gun, since you’re just a girl?” or “Were you in the infantry?”—or horrifyingly tone-deaf ones like “So did you ever kill anyone?” My mind still felt half in Iraq, and if I couldn’t be there, at least I could be around people who had been there with me. I could be with Brian.
We spent most of the next month together, cramming a year’s worth of dates into four weeks: hiking, going to movies, drinking, shopping, cooking, going to bars. Flush with deployment money, I could finally do things I’d always dreamed of but been unable to afford, and Brian went with me down to Nashville to hear the symphony, watch the ballet, dine at fancy restaurants, wander through Nashville’s tiny art museum.
Sometimes I felt as if we were playing at being grownups. At dinner one night, I ordered the special, not quite paying attention to the description. When the waiter brought the plate, a whole fish was posed there as if it were swimming. Trying to keep my cool and act adult, I gaped at it silently. Brian grinned at me, “You okay? You look horrified.”
“I don’t know if I can eat a meal that’s looking at me!”
He reached across the table and knocked it over with his fork, then put the lemon slice over its eye. “There you go,” he said. “Now it can’t see you.”
I smiled at him. Through the gentle teasing, he was taking care of me.
Neither of us quite knew how to handle romance. The day after Valentine’s Day, just weeks into our fledgling relationship, he shyly gave me a necklace with tiny diamonds—he’d been too nervous to give it to me on the day itself. The next day, he gave me the jewelry box that accompanied it; in the slots for photos he had put printouts of some of the art from the show we’d seen at the museum. It was the most romantic gesture anyone had ever made toward me, and though I am a long-term cynic about romantic love and have never believed in “love at first sight,” I knew I was already deeply involved. He talked of introducing me to his daughter, and admitted he had never let any other woman he had dated meet her.
I FLEW OUT EAST with him to pick up his car and drive it home, meeting his parents for the first time. We spent time at his parents’ vacation home in St. Michael’s, Maryland, and then headed in to D.C. to visit Smithsonian museums and go to a follow-up appointment Brian had at Walter Reed before stopping in Philadelphia to spend time with Brian’s sister. While we were in D.C., I was excited about getting to have Ethiopian food again—in Clarksville, Tennessee, the Olive Garden was practically considered ethnic food.
“I have a confession to make,” Brian said. “Remember how when I was at Walter Reed, you suggested I go eat Ethiopian and I told you I did and it was good? Um, I wasn’t being entirely honest. I did go into an Ethiopian restaurant. But it looked weird. So all I had was the carrot cake.”
I laughed. “Really? Why did you lie?”
“I didn’t lie! I just wasn’t telling the whole truth.”
“Okay. Why weren’t you telling the whole truth?”
“I don’t know. I guess . . . I guess I wanted to impress you. I didn’t want to admit that it freaked me out, since you said you liked it.”
“That’s okay,” I said. “Let’s go try it together now.”
He didn’t like it, especially the spongy, slightly sour crepe-like injera bread. But he tried it. And we were happy, being there together.
We were wonderful together that month. As long as I was with him, another combat veteran, I felt normal: of course loud noises made us jump, crowds were uncomfortable, trash in the road might be an IED and could not possibly be driven over. We stayed up late together, often drinking, and slept half the day away—it was a long, lazy, relaxed vacation. Brian was infused with a heady gratitude for being alive and having a second chance. If there were signs of his cognitive and psychological injuries, I didn’t let myself see them. It was a glorious honeymoon period; everything seemed perfect. Within weeks, we were practically living with each other, spending nearly every night together at either his place or mine.
1. E-5 is the fifth enlisted rank, sergeant, in the Army; E-6 is the next rank up, staff sergeant.
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