The Question

I’ve just killed a child, and I’m waiting for my conscience to tell me that it was a bad thing. Not just one child but three all at once, gone before my eyes could register that a cloud of red mist floats where three little heads used to be. Didn’t I used to be a teacher? Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s true. I taught Spanish to at-risk teenagers. Sure, they were a handful as only pubescent males can be when made to do something they didn’t want to do, but I can’t recall that I ever blew their heads off for it.

Waiting. Not a peep from my soul, which probably means that I’ve killed that, too.

I had talked with Sergeant Bellamy and a few other bored soldiers about this moment less than a week before. We lounged on our cots, young lions who had never tasted the kill, discussing what it would be like in the abstract manner of the ignorant. Jokes—gutter humor mostly—floated in the air as though we were passing around a joint in some gratuitous Vietnam War movie scene. Everyone was nervous about crossing the border from Kuwait to Iraq, yet no one would admit it.

“Think you could do it, dude?” I’m as unsettled as the rest, the teacher recast in a post 9/11 mold as a warrior. It’s an identity that I’m trying to reconcile, my mind full of questions, speculations, myths about what it would be like to take another human’s life.

“What?” Sergeant Bellamy is younger than me and looks it.

“Waste a kid.” I can’t make my mouth say the word “kill.” Using the word ‘waste’ makes it seem as innocuous as throwing away a piece of scrap paper.

“Don’t know.” He scowls as if the thought had been just birthed from his subconscious. “Hope I don’t have to.”

The subject came up as we passed the time away watching Blackhawk Down. We don’t know war, not yet, so we grapple with the ineffable questions using the oracle of the day: war movies.

“I’d do it in a heartbeat if they draw down on me,” declares one grunt with his nose in the latest copy of Swank magazine. I can’t tell if it’s bravado or calculated.

“I couldn’t do it. No way,” said another. He was a big guy with a newborn baby. The parallels struck too close to home.

Some guy from Boston was quick to chide him, “What? You sayin’ that some raghead sonofabitch tries to put a bullet in your head, and you’d just let him?”

“Better that than having to live the rest of my life knowing I had killed a child.”

More than a few untested warriors laughed and swore at him for being a pussy. I admired him for sticking with the conviction of his beliefs, even if I didn’t share his certainty.

Still, I said nothing and mulled different scenarios over in my head. Killing a man didn’t seem out of the question. We shot man-shaped targets all of the time, ostensibly to get us used to the idea of putting the shape of a man into our sights. I wore a sharp knife that I had prepared myself to plunge into someone’s throat if need be. We had trained daily to use jujitsu both to detain and to kill. The mechanics of the deed were well known to all of us.

But what would it be like? Again, my only yardstick was the Hollywood tome of wisdom compiled by philosophers like Kubrick and Spielberg. War movies portrayed soldiers who killed as full of deep regret and post-homicidal angst. Even cops who took part in a clean shooting routinely checked out of life and into the nearest bottle of booze. Assuming these cliché archetypes bore any resemblance to reality, was it a price I was willing to pay to survive?

My answer came later that week during a routine patrol on my fourth day in Iraq. The proverbial Shiite hit the fan with hurricane force. Our platoon—four Humvees and 19 soldiers—was ambushed by a local militia, estimated at 10,000 strong. Within five minutes, two of our vehicles were disabled. The gunner on my vehicle was killed, shot through a gap in his body armor. His job fell to me, and I didn’t want it. Any glamour that my mind attached to combat flew out the window with Sergeant Chen’s soul.

I popped up through the turret, expecting to die that moment as a fusillade of bullets struck the armored plate of our vehicle. I looked behind us. No one followed. We were alone.

Left behind in the thickest part of the ambush, two of our vehicles could no longer move and the trail Humvee was trying to help them. Our mirrors had been shot out and no one could hear anything on the radio due to the deafening barrage of weapons—both ours and the enemy’s. When he realized that our comrades were still locked in combat, the platoon leader ordered his driver to turn around and drive back into the ambush to get them. The driver wasn’t happy about it. I wasn’t happy about it. We did it anyway.

We were surrounded on both sides by three- and four-story buildings. Helplessness engulfed me as the enemy continued to pound our vehicle with unrelenting fire. Riddell drove so fast that I couldn’t see a target.

Movement! A blur of motion caught my eye. I looked up to my right and glimpsed three small figures dressed in black. They huddled together on the roof of a four-story building. Children. Yellow-orange flame exploded from their midst. Muzzle flash.

Now I would answer the question posed five days and a lifetime ago.

This was wrong. Where had everything gone so wrong? I used to be a teacher. I love kids. Almost a year ago I was on a youth ranch in Arkansas. By day I taught Spanish in their on-site high school. At night, six of the children lived in my home. Sometimes I would play tag with kids. Sometimes we would play war. Bang, bang. I shot you. You’re dead.

I put all three small figures within the iron, unforgiving circle of my front sight post. The gun roared. There was dust and there was blood.

I continued to scan for targets as we raced to save what was left of our platoon, engaging anything that moved. Bullets snapped and whined past my head and careened off of the vehicle’s armor. I didn’t care. It no longer mattered. In dealing death, I had died. Blood was the price of life. It always is. There is no question.

SO note by Weekes, Jennifer

The chief complaint is: Memory loss, possible TBI.

Patient reports difficulties with concentrating, memory loss, increasing irritability and possible TBI. Patient reports being in several IED explosions in 2004/2005 during his deployment. He recalls an incident in which a mortar round landed very close behind him. After the incident he reports feeling dizzy for 3 days, hearing loss, and difficulty walking. He reports that after the incident, he consulted with a medic and was given time to rest. Patient reports another incident in which a rock [hit] him in the back of his head. Patient reports that he now feels withdrawn, has difficulties with his sleep patterns (waking up 3-4 times per night), having nightmares once a week or sometimes monthly. Patient reports his plans to write a book. He expressed noticing worsening symptoms as he tries to recall incidents from the past. He stressed “I will write this book if it kills me.”

Assessment: 1. ADJUSTMENT DISORDER