CHAPTER 2

Getting Here

Believe in a love that is being stored up for you like an inheritance, and have faith that in this love there is a strength and a blessing so large that you can travel as far as you wish.

RAINER MARIA RILKE

I WAS BORN TO BE A WARRIOR. THE BROKEN PART DIDN’T HAPPEN UNTIL much later, the healed part later still. If you’ve read Until Tuesday, you know a lot about how I got here. If not, let me get you quickly up to speed.

My parents were both big achievers who encouraged all three of their children to make something of their lives. My father, George, spent two decades in senior economist positions at the Organization of American States and another decade in a similar role at the Inter-American Development Bank. My mother, Patricia, was a top executive at a company called Westat, overseeing massive research and data-analysis projects for the federal government. Driven and intense—my father especially—they taught me to work hard always and expect nothing would be handed to me. As role models, they set the bar high. I always had plenty to live up to. Both my parents came from families with dual Latino and American roots. My mother’s family came from Venezuela, Puerto Rico, and New York City. My father’s family had a foot-in-both-worlds relationship with Cuba and northern Virginia. In 1960, when my father was eighteen, he, his mother, and his sister fled Fidel Castro’s Communism to settle with relatives in Arlington. My parents met at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. They fell in love, married, and moved to the Maryland suburbs, joined soon enough by two boys and a girl. I was the middle child. Like so many families of that generation, the Montalváns—Papá, Mamá, Plinio, Luis, Cristina, and Max the dog, a giant schnauzer—got busy living the American dream.

I was a wiry, athletic boy who loved competitive sports. I played tennis, ran cross-country, and participated in track-and-field events. My teachers agreed I was plenty bright, though I didn’t always live up to my academic potential. My grades fluctuated between stellar and average. Subjects that interested me like social studies and anthropology, I aced. Otherwise, I was distracted. The quality of teachers often dictated my interest and, consequently, my performance, something that seems to happen with a lot of kids. Too often, I’d rather be outside, looking for another race to run.

As my Papá’s career flourished, we moved to nicer houses. I ended up switching schools several times, which meant I kept being the new kid in the class—never easy. I had an especially rough patch in junior high, when I was bullied almost every day—physical beat-downs by two or four boys on my way to the tennis courts. I didn’t give up tennis or stay home. I always put up a fight. However, I almost always ended up on the losing end. I didn’t report it to anyone at school, just taking my lumps and going on with my day. My parents, who were always busy working, barely noticed. Bullying just wasn’t treated as seriously back then. At least I had Max, my faithful schnauzer, to console me. We spent most of our time together. He was always around. He was, for many years, my very best friend.

From my early teenage years, I wanted to join the military as soon as I possibly could. My parents weren’t too keen on that idea. Why not go first to college? They both had advanced degrees and wanted their children to follow suit. My teachers weren’t so thrilled either. Approximately zero percent of the graduating class at Winston Churchill High School in Potomac, Maryland, went somewhere other than straight to college. But I was adamant, and with my parents’ grudging consent, I signed a U.S. Army enlistment contract on April 13, 1990, the day I turned seventeen.

The summer between junior and senior years, I skipped the beach and the summer tennis leagues and headed off to boot camp at Fort Dix, New Jersey.

It was a highly eventful summer, for me and the army.

On August 2, our drill sergeant posted a tiny newspaper clipping in his office window. It said that the Iraqi Army of Saddam Hussein had invaded the neighboring country of Kuwait. Suddenly, things got deadly serious around the fort. We weren’t pretending anymore. We were heading to war. The 82^nd Airborne Division promptly deployed to Saudi Arabia for Operation Desert Shield. Soon enough, my boot camp buddies at Charlie Company, 3-26 Infantry would be shipping out for additional training, then off to the Persian Gulf for the coming invasion of Iraq. Me? I got to cool my heels in English 401 and P.E. with the worst case of senioritis ever. I was eager for action, but army regulations had other ideas. I had to finish high school first.

The combat phase of Operation Desert Storm lasted exactly forty-three days, from January 17 to February 28, 1991—the start of my second semester senior year. By the time I tossed off my graduation cap and gown, the whole war was over and done.

My boot camp buddies were steeled combat veterans, if just barely, and I’d missed the largest deployment of American troops since Vietnam. I felt like I’d been benched for the Super Bowl, though even benchwarmers get flashy rings. Instead, I got a glossy piece of paper with fancy script that read: “Graduate, Winston Churchill High School.” I was sure our crusty British bulldog mascot could feel my pain!

When I finally reported for active duty, army life truly suited me. The physical challenges, the team spirit, meeting new people, learning new skills—this was exactly where I belonged. I didn’t even mind the barking drill sergeants. I’m not saying they weren’t intimidating. Some of them were. But I also thought they were hilarious. They swore just as richly as in Full Metal Jacket, and they seemed to think I was “squared away.”

I could run two six-minute miles back to back and bang out as many push-ups and sit-ups as anyone ordered me to. And I didn’t have the cluelessness or ghetto attitude that some of the other young soldiers did. I was happy to be part of the U.S. Army and up for whatever adventures might be ahead.

And so I spent the next decade as a communications specialist, a military police officer, and an infantryman, growing increasingly gung-ho about serving in the military. I attained the rank of sergeant and took community college courses at night. Eventually, I decided I wanted to become an officer. I signed up for ROTC classes at Georgetown University and the University of Maryland, College Park, and finally buckled down to complete my long-delayed bachelor’s degree. My parents certainly approved of that part. When America was attacked on September 11, 2001, I witnessed part of it with my very own eyes. I was near the Pentagon when its western wall was struck. Like so many others did, I felt as though I had been attacked personally. The terrorists took aim at everything I believed in and stood for. I knew immediately we would soon be heading into battle. This time, I hoped I would get the chance to lead soldiers.

When I completed the Army Officer Basic Course at Fort Knox, Kentucky, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq had just begun raging at full blast. I was sent to the 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment, then headquartered at Fort Carson, Colorado, and promptly deployed to Iraq, where I would lead a tank and scout platoon in the western Al Anbar Province. My platoon was stationed at a forward operating base near the Syrian border. We patrolled the vast Iraqi desert and secured the Al-Waleed border crossing, one of the busiest and most treacherous ports of entry in Iraq.

At the time, I had no idea how all this might be affecting me and so many of the others I served with. But when you live in constant danger like that twenty-four hours a day, witnessing and experiencing trauma all around you—people dying, people almost dying, people lucky to be alive—you don’t notice it, but it changes you. All that stress has a profound effect as the weeks and the months grind on. Your senses are heightened. You never let your guard down. You become programmed to danger. You are constantly on alert. You never fully relax. After a while, you are wired differently than you were before. This has psychological and physical effects. You can see it on a CAT scan. Prolonged exposure to a highly tense environment actually changes the shape of the human brain. And it isn’t a temporary change. The amygdalae are permanently altered. These are two almond-shaped groups of nuclei, located deep inside the brain’s temporal lobes, that perform a primary role in the processing of memory, decision making, and emotional response.

Therefore, the amygdalae are where our emotional memories are stored. You’ve heard of the fight-or-flight response, which is the body’s instant physiological reaction in the face of an attack or a threat. All that happens inside the amygdalae. I know that my reactions were forever changed during my time in Iraq. People may scoff, “It’s all in your head.” I guess that’s true in a way.

Four nights before Christmas of 2003, elements of our unit—Grim Troop, 2^nd Squadron, 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment—were manning a border crossing outside the Iraqi town of Al-Waleed, a busy transit point in and out of Syria. Private First Class David Page and I were clearing an area of truckers who had been using the crossing as a rest stop. That was an obvious security threat to soldiers quartered at Forward Operating Base Latham, which was only a few hundred feet away.

Some of the truckers refused to move. One got out of his vehicle and slammed me from behind into a metal trailer hitch. Just then, another man came running at me with a long knife held overhead, which he stabbed downward toward my neck. The knife pierced the body armor at my left shoulder, tearing into my uniform and left arm. I pulled my pistol from my right thigh holster and started shooting. A few moments later, Pfc. Page reacted and started shooting at the attackers as well. As I fell toward the ground, the man with the knife was on top of me, stabbing downward. I fired two more shots before my spine hit the concrete and my head snapped backward. Suddenly, everything went black.

I was medevacked in a Blackhawk helicopter to a field surgical hospital outside of Ar-Rutbah, where I received immediate treatment for blunt-force trauma to my head and spine. This was austere battlefield medical care. There were no CAT scans or X-rays or careful neurological workups. The personnel did what they could, concluding that I had sustained trauma to vertebrae. The word “concussion” was used. Swelling was noted along my spine. So were various bruises and stab wounds. But no one said “traumatic brain injury.” I’m not even sure that was a common medical term at the time. After three days of convalescing at the field hospital, they wanted to transfer me to a full-service combat-support hospital in Baghdad. If I got sent to Baghdad, I was sure I’d be sent on to Germany and then back home. In hindsight, I should have gone. But I wanted to return to duty. I was in charge of that border crossing. I wanted to be with my men. We were already shorthanded. I hadn’t waited all those years to reach the battlefield, only to be sent out prematurely. How could I have known the full extent of my injuries? I was pounding through Motrin. I didn’t want to leave Iraq, the war, the mission, the Iraqis, my guys. I wanted to do my part to help my country win. Warriors don’t quit, I told myself. Warriors shake things off. Warriors go back into the fire.

And so I did, pressing ahead with the mission until the deployment ended in March of 2004 and I was shipped back to Fort Carson, Colorado.

I was proud of my service. I had done what I was sent over there to do: defend my country and lead my men into war. It had been challenging. I’d gotten banged around. Like far too many others, by the time I got back home, I knew I was messed up, physically and psychologically—but not as bad as some people, I kept reminding myself. I was jumpy and anxious, but I could still get through the day. I had two arms and two legs, ten fingers and ten toes. “Snap out of it,” I kept saying. “You’ll be okay.” But I wasn’t sure I’d be staying in the military and going back to the war zone. I was thinking about putting in my discharge papers, going to law school, then maybe returning later to serve in the JAG Corps.

In June of 2004, we had a regimental change of command within the 3d Cavalry. Our new commander was Colonel H. R. McMaster, a legendary soldier known for his charismatic leadership style and his fearlessness in questioning authority. His battlefield legend was solidified in the fabled “Battle of 73 Easting” during the Desert Storm campaign. A captain at the time, McMaster’s company of M1 Abrams tanks happened upon a large Iraqi Republican Guard armor unit on February 26, 1991. Though badly outnumbered, his company destroyed more than eighty enemy tanks, while American forces lost zero. His exploits were glowingly recounted in Tom Clancy’s 1994 nonfiction bestseller, Armored Cav. As a major, McMaster made a further impression with his own 1997 book Dereliction of Duty, a scathing critique of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for failing to stand up to President Lyndon Johnson during the Vietnam War.

I was struck by his eloquence and obvious intelligence. Not only was he a dynamic person, he had vast knowledge of military history as well as the ability, it seemed, to motivate almost anyone. To me, that’s what command is about!

Soon after McMaster arrived, we got word that the 3d Cavalry would be heading back to Iraq in 2005 for a second year-long deployment. This was an especially difficult time. After the first deployment, the regiment suffered high attrition as soldiers departed the service or transferred out, badly shaken by the many stresses of the war. For those of us still there, that would mean extra pressure and extra burdens, as we tried to pick up the slack. All that just solidified my intention to leave the battlefield and move on to law school.

Then, Colonel McMaster spoke to us.

“Listen,” he said. “As you know, the regiment is going back to Iraq. And when we do, we are going there to win!”

We are going there to win.

It was strange, but no one had ever quite said that during my first deployment. We were there. We were doing what we were told to do, our duty. But no one had ever quite asserted we were going to win.

The way McMaster said it, it was almost impossible not to believe him. If I believed in him, then I knew I could believe in myself. I couldn’t imagine not being part of his team. I had just experienced the ultimate locker-room halftime pep talk. I reversed my plans and re-upped for another deployment.

Returning to Iraq in March of 2005, I was quickly thrust into Operation Squeeze Play South, led by the 2^nd Brigade Combat Team, 10^th Mountain Division, in what became the largest combined military operation up to that date. I faced the special challenges of urban combat, leading a Military Transition Team in the volatile Triangle of Death south of Baghdad. House-to-house combat. Mosque and market bombings. Trips along pockmarked Main Supply Route Tampa, the highway in and out of Iraq we all called IED Alley. Improvised explosive devises kept killing and maiming civilians, Iraqi Security Forces, and Coalition Forces. Bodies and body parts were strewn about. The level of suffering was difficult to absorb. On May 23, a car bomb exploded outside a Shiite mosque killing ten civilians and injuring thirty more. On June 5, a complex IED vaporized one of our heavily armored Bradley Fighting Vehicles, killing three of our cavalrymen. That sort of devastation is not something you can prepare for.

One day, just as our convoy headed out on patrol, an eight-year-old boy waved us down with a swollen and bloody right hand.

“Please help!” he pleaded.

Usually, when kids approached us, they wanted candy or money. Commanding the lead vehicle of our patrol, I could see that this boy’s needs were more urgent. I stopped, got out, and radioed Sgt. First Class Michael Hanaway, who was commanding the vehicle behind mine and who was an experienced army medic. He got out to have a look.

“You know it’s not life, limb, or eyesight, Sir.”

Of course, he was right, and I knew that. Those were the only three circumstances that permitted us to take any Iraqi—soldier or civilian—to an American hospital. The boy’s shrapnel wounds, horrible as they were, didn’t fall into any of those three categories. But we had to do something. How could we not do anything? The boy was wailing, and we were right there.

Mike looked at me. I looked at him. We knew we had to help. “I’ll get my bag,” he said.

I held the boy’s hand while Mike went to work, skillfully plucking hot metal chunks out of this eight-year-old’s hand. Right there on the road, with rudimentary tools and no anesthesia, we did what we could that day. I was really proud of Sgt. First Class Hanaway when he finished.

The boy smiled. “Allah ma’ak,” I said before he walked away. Go with God.

Many times since then I have thought of that boy. How’s he doing? Is he still alive? How does he feel about America and its military? Does he appreciate the assistance we gave him? Does he hate us for being there in the first place? I saw much worse in Iraq, but that memory has stuck with me. I have never forgotten that boy and I never will.

I rejoined the 3d ACR in western Nineveh Province, where I led Regimental Iraqi Security Forces on “clear and hold” missions in the city of Tal Afar, establishing Joint Coordination Centers throughout the western Nineveh Province. It was brutal duty, more danger and bursts of close combat. Like many American service members, I was never quite sure what the overall strategy was—I kept hearing we were liberating the Iraqi people—but I took great pride in my dedication to the mission and to the extraordinary men I had sworn to lead. And I always had Colonel McMaster in my head: “We are going there to win.”

That mission culminated in September with Operation Restoring Rights and the defeat of the city’s insurgent strongholds. Colonel McMaster’s strategy was to deploy his cavalry troops into Tal Afar around the clock. Once the local population grew confident that we wouldn’t withdraw when darkness fell, they began providing information on the insurgents, enabling U.S. forces to target and defeat them. President George W. Bush praised our success, and we got kudos from CBS’s 60 Minutes, PBS’s Frontline, and The New Yorker magazine, whose writer said our pioneering tactics led to the first success in overcoming the Iraqi insurgency.

We returned home, and they pinned medals on our chests. I ended up with two Bronze Stars, the Purple Heart, the Army Commendation Medal for Valor, and the Combat Action Badge, among others.

So what was wrong with me? Clearly something was. Back at Fort Carson, I felt like I was just going through the motions of life. I was jumpy and irritable. I was glad to be off the battlefield and also missing it terribly. I wondered what I was going to do with the rest of my life. Sleeping became increasingly troublesome. I wasn’t sure what was coming next. I was in the throes of what I now recognize as a worsening case of PTSD.

Then, I suffered another blow. Literally.

On June 26, 2006, Colonel McMaster would head off to a new assignment. A change-of-command ceremony was planned at Fort Carson to mark that important transition.

During a rehearsal the day prior to the ceremony, I was sprinting across the parade field in front of a few thousand soldiers, executing the Regimental Adjutant’s portion of the ceremony, when I tripped on something, I’m not sure what. My traumatic brain injury and worsening neuropathy may have been contributing factors. But I fell and ruptured the patellar tendon in my right leg.

That’s a very painful injury and a game-changing one for most. It’s not an ACL. It’s the major tendon of the leg. I was whisked to Evans Army Hospital for surgery, where the doctors did what they could. But my tumble at Fort Carson exacerbated my injuries from Iraq, further compromising my spine, worsening my traumatic brain injury, and advancing the neuropathy that was already suppressing my circulation and stiffening my joints. Compared to the physical injuries that some others experience in Iraq and Afghanistan, I still counted myself lucky. But after seventeen years in the army, I knew that even after leaving the military I’d be dealing with the physical and psychological traumas of war, and I knew my recovery would be a long and challenging one.

I had no idea where I would find the help I needed. Actually, it was worse than that: I didn’t even understand how badly I needed it.

That is, until Tuesday came along.