CHAPTER EIGHT

THE PRAYER AND THE NIGHTMARES

And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?

—Esther 4:14

PAIGE

“Mr. President, would you mind if we prayed for you?”

June 28, 2012, I met the president of the United States. The. President. Of. The. United. States. My America, Josh’s America, the America of every amputee on the floor was represented by a single man walking the same halls as us—Barack Obama.

June 28 began as another hot day in Bethesda, except for the first time since we had arrived at Walter Reed, my whole family had to be dressed and ready for an important event. This was a week when Josh’s dad, stepmother, and siblings were able to visit. Cathi and I were both designated as full-time primary caregivers, which meant Cathi was able to stay at Walter Reed with us full-time. Josh’s dad, stepmother, and siblings came every other week. However, this week was different. It was common for us to fill out security clearance paperwork before government officials or high-ranking military came to visit. The forms required us to list potential visitors and their Social Security numbers for background checks. This week’s paperwork required much more detail: Do you stay with the veteran full-time? If not, what state did you travel from? Are you responsible for any children under the age of fifteen? All questions that alluded to someone who outranked any other visitor we had hosted yet.

June 28 was the day President Barack Obama came to walk the hospital. As Cathi, Patrick, Kristie, and I were foraging in our belongings for outfits that didn’t look like pajamas, Josh’s only request was that he wear an Auburn shirt to meet the president. Josh was still very heavily medicated and didn’t make a lot of sense most of the time, but he was adamant about the Auburn shirt because “Barack,” as he confidently called him, needed to know he was an Auburn fan. We already had about ten Auburn posters hanging in the room, but Josh said those weren’t enough. As usual, he was not in a state of mind to be reasoned with, so we got him a medium-sized shirt that fit like a tent on his emaciated frame. No pants necessary. We were ready to meet the commander-in-chief.

As I walked to Josh’s hospital room from the Fisher House, I could see security details placed at every entrance of every building, stairwell, elevator, bathroom, and back door on post. I had to be in Josh’s room by 10:00 a.m. to prepare for the president to arrive at 2:00 p.m. The security detail began clearing the amputee ward of anyone who had not completed the clearance paperwork two days before. Once all the visitors, patients, and personnel were accounted for, bomb dogs did a sweep of the floor. Being the Southern woman that I am, I had the urge to tidy up or cook or something to make our guest feel like we prepared for him. But none of that would be happening in this tiny room. There was nothing I could do to make the room look more appealing. Despite our efforts to make the place feel like home, it was still a hospital room. IV poles, particleboard rolling tables, and pleather chairs surrounded Josh’s bed. When Josh’s dad, stepmother, and siblings came, our seating arrangement was the twins, Kelsi and Keeli, in the chair together; Patrick in Josh’s wheelchair; Kristie in the extra chair; me on the end of the bed; and Josh’s little brother, Mason, sitting in the floor of the corner closet with the door open. I hoped the president wouldn’t want to sit down. We would have to move people and furniture around like a game of Tetris just to get him to a surface he could sit on. I hated how claustrophobic the room always felt even without a ton of visitors. Josh was always wanting to add things to the walls, but that just made them feel like they were closing in. The small flat-screen TV and the random cork board that never had anything on it was enough for the white cinder blocks. I also wondered if the president would be bothered by the smell. No matter what I did, I couldn’t freshen the air in our room. The aseptic smell of foam hand sanitizer and hospital linens made our room smell like pill bottle cotton balls. I wondered if it clung to my own clothing like cigarette smoke.

Hours passed while we sat in Josh’s room and watched TV, occasionally poking our heads out the door hoping to conjure up a sign that our guest was near. Finally, we saw a fleet of black SUVs driving up to the hospital. I don’t know if it was part of the protocol to shut everyone’s door once the president was in the building, but Patrick’s fifth warning to get back in our room was probably a sign the president was on the way. Finally, there was a knock on the door. The liaison entered and informed us the president was in the next room. Then she asked us a rather interesting question—she said the president would like to know if there was anything we needed to discuss with him like issues or concerns. That had not crossed our minds; we were just excited to meet the president of the United States! “All right,” she said, “if there’s nothing you would like me to relay, then I will be back with the president.”

We heard another knock, and President Barack Obama entered. I realized I had not thought about how I would greet him, but I immediately decided on a hug when I saw him. He smiled and gave everyone else a hug, too. Looking around, he made note of Josh’s Auburn gear. Just the response Josh had hoped for. The president asked Josh where and when he was injured and asked about our level of care at Walter Reed. He asked if there was anything he could do for us, and we just shrugged our shoulders and thanked him for his time. He thanked Josh for his service and sacrifice.

As he began to exit, I anxiously and somewhat impulsively stopped him and said, “Mr. President, would you mind if we prayed for you?”

Pausing, he turned back toward me with a smile I will never forget and said, “I would love that.” We gathered around Josh’s bed and joined hands. With Josh on my left and President Obama on my right, I prayed, “Dear God, we thank you for letting us live in a country where the commander-in-chief and the infantry soldier can join hands in prayer in the same room. We see amputees rolling into this hospital by the truckload every week, so we pray that You would have Your guiding hand over President Obama. He is human just like the rest of us, and he needs wisdom and knowledge over our situation in Afghanistan because we know the position he sits in is not an easy one. Please guide his decisions and surround him with people with wisdom. Thank you for this once-in-a-lifetime moment. In Jesus’ name, Amen.”

I received a pretty long and sincere hug followed by a smile and a thank-you from the president. He gripped my shoulders, looked me in the eye, and told me I was a special woman. He hugged and thanked the rest of people in the room for the time we spent with him. He gave a final goodbye and went on to see the next patient. The man leading our country was going to continue walking down the hall, patient after patient, meeting them where they were, where no one wants to be—in a hospital built for soldiers to recover from fighting a war.

For the rest of the day, I kept thinking about the moment I had just experienced. My faith had grown during this time, and the Lord had shown me some crazy things through Josh’s recovery. I had interceded countless times on Josh’s behalf since we had been there. That meeting with the president felt like I was finally coming off the bench in my own life. Just meeting the president would have been awesome enough by itself, but exchanging pleasantries and engaging in small talk provided no opportunity for real connection. I took a shot at humanizing an extremely powerful person by passing on a blessing. Views, politics, and opinions fall to the floor when the highest and the lowest humble themselves to a great God. Of all the impressions we could have made, I wanted President Obama to feel loved and seen as a human being. I kept thinking about the second half of John 10:10: “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” That verse had a whole new meaning after meeting President Obama. I felt like I had permission to pursue life to the full. Up until that point, nothing at Walter Reed had been about me. My needs, talents, and ideas really had no place there. But that day, I chose to pursue an opportunity because of something that was on my heart. The thought of smiling on the sidelines of my life while Josh was front and center filled me with a fear of regret, a fear that overtook my intimidation and natural tendency to sit back and observe. I liked the idea of being a leader in this space, something I thought was only available for Josh. He, the doctors, the therapists, and the Army decided everything that I did. I complied willingly because it was necessary for Josh’s healing, but I had almost forgotten that I even had ambitions of my own. I was not a victim of a situation, but rather someone who jumps on opportunities that make a difference. Maybe this place hadn’t completely suppressed me after all.

We had a following of fifteen thousand people on social media. Our visit with President Obama caused a huge stir of attention, but I think we continued to grow because people enjoyed watching Josh get better. People were inspired by Josh, which helped Josh keep going. Confident in his progress, Josh encouraged me to rejoin my club team at Nationals in Columbus, Ohio. I couldn’t believe we were even discussing me leaving him overnight, but I was completely confident in my mother-in-law, and Josh was inching out of the “sickness” stage of recovery. It’s difficult to take care of a patient who is both hurt and sick. I didn’t realize sickness would be part of this process. Managing pain and doing physical therapy could always be interrupted by fever, nausea, or extreme fatigue, all signaling something wrong internally while we tried to regulate the external. The pain still ranged from everyday aches to phantom limb pain, but we had medications and therapy techniques we could use to get Josh some relief. There were no techniques for fevers or surprise vomiting other than to cool him off and clean him up. For about two weeks I had observed the sickness dwindle. If Josh felt better, he would be easier to take care of while I was gone.

The tournament was only five hours away, and it would definitely be my last opportunity to coach this team. My time with President Obama had reminded me of my individuality. While I was so thankful to be Josh’s caregiver, there was more to me than what I had to do every day, and pursuing the opportunity to coach would be another great reminder of life beyond those white cinder block walls. So, my parents drove to DC and then drove me to Columbus to surprise my players. We arrived at the convention center after the five-hour drive with only Shane and Mandy aware of my presence. I checked in to the convention center and walked down the long hallways to find the hall my team was playing in. I saw a couple of parents from my team and literally dove behind a huge potted plant. Sneaking and scurrying through the convention center, I finally saw a hiding spot near the court my girls were playing on. I made eye contact with Mandy, and she about-faced and yelled at the team to walk like ducks in a row. When they approached me, I jumped out and surprised them, which induced a lot of crying from players and parents. Maybe not the best thing to do right before warm-ups for Nationals, but I was just glad to be back in the gym again.

JOSH

Meeting President Obama was one of my life’s biggest honors. Regardless of party or policy, the presidential seat is the highest-ranking position among both civilians and military. Thus, it is not only my duty but my genuine honor to be in the presence of the sitting commander-in-chief, a situation that I never thought I would experience. As an enlisted guy in the infantry, I rarely had experience with officers higher than an O3 captain. For the top of the chain of command to be in my room, asking how I’m doing and hugging my family, meant so much to me. I couldn’t believe Paige spoke up and offered to pray for him before he left. I also saw a lot of consolation from President Obama when he accepted the offer. I love and respect the formality of our military, but it doesn’t offer many opportunities to see the human side of people who outrank you. I loved seeing the human side of our nation’s leader, and I was very thankful he was willing to share that side of him with a bunch of strangers who could have met him with animosity because I was wounded. In a way, it gave me greater affection for my small role in our nation’s military, because I never thought the highest and the lowest would be in the same room praying for the same thing.

By July 2012, I had tallied over thirty surgeries on my arms and legs. My left arm and hand were shaping up better than we thought. At first, the doctors wanted to amputate some fingers because my middle finger was almost completely amputated, and my ring finger wasn’t looking good, either. I did not want to talk at all about cutting off more body parts, even if they didn’t work like they used to. If you asked me, the two fingers looked switched because they were the same length.

The scar tissue healed nicely, thanks to my mom cleaning all the lacerations with a toothbrush for weeks. I didn’t have any mobility in my middle finger, and Paige always yelled at me for flipping people the bird when I was just trying to give a thumbs-up. My arms were never broken like we originally thought, but I had a pretty nasty gash on my right forearm that required a skin graft. The surgeries on my legs were mostly wound wash-outs and the slow closure of my amputation sites, which also included lots of skin grafts. Skin was shaved off my upper thighs during surgery and applied where needed. The donor sites bothered me more than the spots where they were applied. They felt like really bad sunburns that burned from even a slight breeze. Finally my legs were beginning to take shape, and I would hopefully stand on these stumps with prosthetic legs one day. As I looked down at the beginning of July, my left leg surgery site was successfully closed, but the right leg was going to require a skin flap, according to my new surgery team: the plastics. The entire time I had been at Walter Reed, the trauma surgery team had handled my procedures. This next operation could only be done by a team of plastic surgeons willing to do weird things to help me walk again. Apparently, the muscle, tissue, and skin on my left shoulder would provide the flap surface to be placed at the end of my right leg. Part of my shoulder would now finish off my leg? Seriously? That would be a good party trick later on, I’m sure. Two truths and a lie. One: I’ve met the president. Two: I’m scared of snakes. Three: I do my best walking on my shoulder. Despite our ever-growing list of jokes, this surgery was actually quite serious. It meant spending the Fourth of July in the ICU to monitor blood flow and connectivity of the flap. There was no plan B if my body rejected the flap, but if it worked, it would become a big milestone in my recovery journey. A final procedure to close my leg’s wound site meant the surgeries and procedures should dwindle and weight bearing was just around the corner. Following the flap surgery, I was advancing quickly in physical therapy. It seemed like I was mastering things in a matter of days. I needed to make more time in my day to do longer PT sessions, so I tried to assess my schedule and see what appointments I might be able to cut. I got a few things off my schedule, but I could not figure out how I was going to get out of going to TBI clinic. By default, every amputee gets diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury; pretty much all of us land on our heads when we get injured. I couldn’t really prove I didn’t have one at first, because the drugs messed me up. Now that I was tapering off my IV pain meds, I was passing all the cognition tests. After every session I would ask if I could be cleared to stop going, but they refused because they thought it was too soon. I was convinced I didn’t have a TBI until we went to an authentic Mexican restaurant near the hospital. It was so authentic that our waiter couldn’t speak English. We weren’t worried about it, because I could order for us. I knew conversational Spanish from language school training in the Q Course. I even communicated to the Spanish speakers in my platoon during firefights. But when it was time to order, I could not remember a single word. Paige thought I was joking around, but I couldn’t even remember how to say Hola. I went back to TBI clinic and said I had found my first and only symptom: I had lost a whole language.

Since I was making small daily improvements, I encouraged Paige to coach her team for their national championship tournament and couldn’t wait to show her what I’d learned by the time she returned in just two days. Nothing else mattered except physical therapy and adding one more skill to the growing list that meant I was moving toward functioning like a normal adult again.

PAIGE

Walking to my team’s court, I got a text from our FRG leader saying that Josh’s platoon sergeant, SFC Edgar Barrera, had been injured by an IED. He had lost a hand and both legs. I immediately became nauseous not just for Barrera but for how Josh would react—without me there. I took a deep breath and called him to tell him what had happened to his friend. When I was confident that I had his full attention, I repeated the information I was given. He was frazzled and panicking, but he immediately began reaching out to his platoon to see if he could find out more. I knew this was going to hit Josh hard. SFC Barrera was Josh’s platoon sergeant and one of the toughest people on planet Earth. Josh appreciated his direct leadership style and felt like he would take care of the platoon after Josh’s injury. Now, their leader was a triple amputee, a reality that dropped my heart into the pit of my stomach. Until this day, we had lived our lives as if Josh would be the only amputee in his platoon. We expected the team would learn from Josh’s explosion and watch Josh get better, and no one else would get blown up. Not only had an IED claimed its next victim, but the injury was worse. This was like watching Superman go down. As much as I wanted to comfort Josh, I knew he didn’t want to talk to me. He needed to keep communication open for anyone in his platoon to update him about Edgar.

I felt like my next move should be to call Barrera’s wife, Lucia. I got as far away from the courts as I could, fully expecting crying and hysteria. However, when I got her on the phone, she was surprisingly calm. What may have sounded like my calm voice on the phone when I was telling my family about Josh’s injury was actually just me in complete shock. However, Lucia seemed to be completely aware of what was going on with her husband but was still diligently making travel plans and packing her things. I finally asked, “Lucy, are you okay? You seem like you are taking this really well.” Confident in her husband’s stubborn resiliency, Lucy said something that meant so much to me. She said she and her family had followed Josh’s recovery and had been watching him get better, and even though she was anxious, she felt like she knew what to do.

My heart skipped a beat. That’s all I’ve ever wanted out of this, I thought. Time and time again I questioned whether we were doing the right thing by allowing the online world to follow along. I wondered if I was exploiting Josh in some way. If he were cognizant enough, would he totally object to what we were doing? We lived in an ever-swaying reality: One minute we were cheering for a milestone in Josh’s recovery; the next we were holding our breath to find out who the last blackout email was about. For once, I felt like what I was doing was still helping the cause of the deployment. I knew his platoon was rattled from losing their hype man. I thought about them in the context of Josh’s life as he portrayed in his journal—balancing between being ready to fight and being ready to die. My wish for showcasing Josh’s progress was that it would take the edge off the day, maybe even lift their spirits for the next mission. Lucia and I talked about questions she needed to ask to get real information on Edgar’s situation as well as what to expect with traveling. While I hated that another soldier in Josh’s platoon had become an amputee, there was no one on earth who could rehab Superman like Superwoman, Lucia Barrera. I went to bed that night after our games thinking, Lucy has got this. Sergeant Barrera and Josh will help each other, and this will be another victory story. I thanked God that night for the kind of person Lucia is and felt good about the outcome of their situation as I fell asleep in the hotel in Ohio.

My team played the next morning, and I was constantly checking on Josh and the Barreras. I don’t remember how the tournament finished or even how we played, which had been the entire point of me going out there to see them, but I do remember being very emotional, knowing that I had probably just coached my last game of volleyball and would likely never coach with Flo again. In the grand scheme of things, stepping away from coaching is not the biggest sacrifice anyone has ever made, but it really put my life in perspective. It was crushing to fathom how I had gone from Alabama college player to Washington state transplant and aspiring college coach to a full-time caregiver for my husband in less than six months, a title that had no end in sight. Saying goodbye to my old life, I headed back to Walter Reed with my sister and parents, doing my best to remain grateful for my last day on the court. A week ago I was praying for the president of the United States, and today I was praying for another soldier’s life, another’s recovery, another’s amputee journey. Now was the time to focus on Josh’s mental health as Edgar

Barrera was flown in so we could be there for Edgar and Lucy.

JOSH

Why is no one replying back to me? I furiously typed yet another message to my group still in Afghanistan. It is already afternoon there, so why aren’t they back from patrol and seeing my messages? Paige had returned late the night before and was almost asleep on her cot. While checking her phone, she said, “It looks like the communication blackout has been lifted. What have you heard from the guys? When will he get to the States?” I didn’t know, and I was really upset about it. Eventually, I fell asleep with my iPad in hand.

The next morning, I still had nothing. I had woken up around 4:00 a.m. and could not go back to sleep, so the search continued. Why is it so hard to get in touch with anyone? I thought angrily, knowing Paige was receiving news, even though not specific news about Barrera, and I wasn’t. I began to worry that something had gone horribly wrong with Barrera. There had to be an answer somewhere. I checked my email, Skype, and social media, looking for anything that would explain why everyone was still so quiet. Then, I found it. The most horrifying words I had ever seen in print:

“RIP Juan Navarro.”

On July 7, 2012, a twenty-three-year-old soldier died more than three thousand miles from his home. This had been the kind of news Paige had actively been praying against since we arrived at Walter Reed. As she settled into her bed-chair, she would start praying for all my men still overseas—those we knew and those we didn’t. And now, not only was Edgar Barrera coming home without legs and a hand, but Juan Navarro wasn’t coming home at all. His body was, but nothing more. This was never supposed to happen. This was hell.

More messages finally trickled in, and the pieces of the puzzle of that awful day were finally starting to come together. There were two separate explosions within just a few hours of each other. SFC Barrera was injured on a dismounted patrol that had also caused injuries for some other guys. A few of them had to be medevaced due to shrapnel wounds and traumatic brain injuries—the explosion was massive. Once the injuries were assessed and taken care of, the group continued on with the mission. While they were taking a break, Navarro set his rucksack on the ground and left it there for a number of minutes. When he went to pick it up again, he discovered that it was sitting on an IED. The circuit from the IED connected as he bent over to grab the rucksack and the bomb detonated. The blast blew him over a wall, where his fellow soldiers discovered damage not only to his legs but also to his abdomen. He was dead before the helicopter arrived.

For several minutes, my mind bounced back and forth between shock and hysteria. As Paige kept looking at me expectantly to share the details, I would start with “He was the best…” But then that would feel so inadequate. She grabbed my hand, and I would try again. “He was so young…” I started to lose control. Finally I whispered, “He was such an amazing leader…” And I trailed off with my heart in my throat. With a glare, I finally stammered, “If I had been there I would have—” But Paige stopped me from finishing that sentence. I should have been there. All the earlier feelings of worthlessness couldn’t compare to how worthless I felt at that point. That was my soldier in my platoon. How did I get to live and he didn’t? Why am I here in this air-conditioned room with my family out of harm’s way when my friends are over in Afghanistan getting killed? How could I have let this happen? Now there is nothing I can do. I can’t even get out of this bed. I would give anything to change this.

I thought of the last time we saw each other and all of the promises we’d made one another upon our return to the States. We were going to get everyone together and have a big barbecue at someone’s house. Everyone would sit around and reminisce on their war stories as some of the scariest times in our lives, but with comedic relief because we had all made it back. We had planned the whole evening out. We would raise a toast, thanking God and each other for the opportunity to sit on someone’s back porch in the United States with the same number of men who had left for Afghanistan nine months prior. Wives and children would be almost a year older but overjoyed at their reunion with their long-absent loved ones. The kids would show their dads how they learned to throw a strike or perform their solos for the recitals that they had missed, while the younger, single guys played catch or helped toss the performers in the air. It was all so perfectly planned. Now what?

Those memories now faded into a fog of sadness and depression that had a way of making me want to close my eyes and never open them again. Remorse came in the form of nausea I felt in the pit of my stomach for days. The guilt of my survival began to morph into a self-loathing spite that threatened my opportunity to recover. I didn’t deserve it. He did. I was supposed to be the only seriously wounded guy in this platoon. Then two of the best were taken out in the same day. The nightmares and the outbursts were back and worse than ever. Juan’s death frightened me to my core. How many more would there be?