The Best “Worst” Times

As a young buck sergeant, I had an Afghan interpreter die in my arms during my first firefight of many In Oruzgan Province, Afghanistan. Rounds impacted the mud hut wall above my head as I ducked behind a 3-foot tall mud wall. The lead men in our patrol are dragging our interpreter with them, dropping him in front of me, and telling me to perform first aid on him. My training kicks in. I pull his body armor off and see a small hole in his chest just above where his body armor was. It was barely bleeding. I’m hopeful this won’t be terrible. He’s gasping for air and choking and convulsing at the same time. Bullets are still coming in and impacting the walls. The noise of the gunfight is deafening. I rolled him over to check for an exit wound. The chaos around me went strangely quiet at that point. It was like the rest of the world turned off. When I rolled him over, there was a huge hole where his spine should have been in the middle of his back. I could have fit my fist in it. The round passed through his body, impacted his rear plate, and blew shrapnel back inside his body, creating a gaping hole. I could see his heartbeat reflected in the fact that blood spilled out in pulsating streams from the cavity in his back. I swear I heard the chugging sound of a milk bottle emptying as I watched his blood drain out this gaping hole in his back. I watched him take his final labored breaths as I held him, then one final exhale. I knew it was hopeless with his injuries. His blood stained my uniform. We had to carry his body in a poncho to get him back to waiting trucks a kilometer or so away. I remember screaming at the team leader, “I can’t help him! He’s dead, sir!” as rounds snapped by and a rocket-propelled grenade impacted the wall we were sheltered behind. My teeth clenched, the wall shuddered, and I felt the blast concussion. My ears rang for a second before I got my bearings. I marveled at how sturdy the mud walls were. A foot higher, and it would have impacted the building behind me, peppering my friend and me with shrapnel. I began firing my M4 since we were still in the middle of an ambush. I remember thinking each time I popped out of cover, “Don’t shoot me in the face” over and over as I fired my weapon…. as if it would protect my face from incoming rounds. After the firefight, I remember looking at the lifeless body of a man I had barely met three days before. I had unsuccessfully tried to save him….and tears streamed down my face. I couldn’t control them. I didn’t know this man, but I cried. It felt natural. It changed me at that moment. It showed me how ugly and disturbing a violent death could be. It made me realize how easily it could have been me who died in a stranger’s arms.

So the real reason I’m writing this. This….this right here…. is one of my favorite photos, and I’ll tell you why. It’s one of my favorite photos because it reminds me of the times when I served with men I loved and would have died for. Not to mention, I knew they would die for me too. I would have followed them straight into the mouth of hell, no questions asked. They were men whom I loved hanging out with when we were home together. They are brothers whom I trusted with everything. They were the best men at my wedding. They were my mentors and role models. They helped me grow and become a better man and a better soldier. These soldiers in this photo are part of the mold that shaped my life into what it is today.

I found myself in Afghanistan. It’s a place that most people who haven’t been couldn’t understand. It’s not because they are incapable of it, but mostly because I can’t do it justice with my inelegant and insufficient writing skills. I still can’t adequately explain how it was one of the most beautiful places I’d ever seen. You could fall in love with the natural beauty of its winding green river valleys surrounded by gorgeous mountains that rival the Rockies in elegance and awe-inspiring majesty. It was so easy to admire its beauty. There’s no real easy way to explain that in the next moment; it could be simple to despise it more than anything or anywhere you’d ever experienced. Such was the emotional contradiction that was Afghanistan. At least for me, it was.

I remember getting up and sitting outside our building and just looking out over the terrain as the sun rose, admiring how beautiful it was and how it smelled. It smelled of the desert but also lush riverside vegetation. Sometimes good, sometimes not so good. It depended if you were upwind or downwind of the goats. A liberal coating of moon dust covered everything: your clothes, the tables, and especially your living areas. You couldn’t escape it. You were never truly clean.

Then there was sitting on a roof, pulling security in the middle of the night, seeing nothing but millions of stars. That changes you profoundly and you can’t understand it at the time. In those moments, my life was small, but my experiences were larger than life. I loved the night sky in Afghanistan and still miss it. It felt untarnished by the modern world and its artificial lights. It was awe-inspiring.

I remember HALO tournaments (Before the XBOX gave you the ring of death because of all that moon dust) and poker nights filled with shit-talking behind doors that closed only with the aid of a half-full water bottle tied strategically with 550 cord on a screw to pull it shut. We sat eating cliff bars, drinking Gatorade protein shakes and wondering when there would be chicken cordon Bleu or other chow hall favorites for dinner again….All while strategically snacking and sharing goodies that wives, girlfriends, and family had sent us.

I remember pranks like a hedgehog in my bed or the door to my room being sealed shut with wall foam sealant for air conditioners while I was on a mission. I then had to chisel the foam off of my door to get into my room to get some sleep. All while my teammates watched and giggled as I used a screwdriver to break the foam up. What a bunch of assholes, but I loved it and wouldn’t have had it any other way.

I recall sitting around campfires built out of old wooden pallets and talking to each other while we slammed rip-its and threw rocks at our buddies using the piss tubes. That, and we would watch our Afghan companions try to put heavy machinery on the back of jingle trucks with nothing but plywood sheets. We watched the Afghans yell and argue with each other before deciding that two sheets of plywood would be sufficient to load a bobcat (heavy machinery, not an angry feline) in a jingle truck. Spoiler alert, it didn’t work out so well.

One evening, while sitting on the roof of Firebase Tycz, my friend A.J. told me that these would be the best “worst” times of my life. I’d look back on these times and realize that even when we were cold, heat exhausted, wet, tired, injured, etc., we’d look back on them not as bad times, but as the best of times because of the company we kept. My buddy was right. Some days I miss these moments with a deep yearning I can’t fully explain.

Now the other half of why I treasure this picture. Two of the five men in this picture were my teammates who died in Afghanistan. RIP SGT A.J. Creighton (2nd from right) and SSG Michael Hosey (Left). Your presence and friendships are sorely missed every day. I am not saying this to inspire guilt or make any political point one way or another about our war in Afghanistan. Far from it. I have a few things I want to say about my personal time and experience in Afghanistan. Maybe my friends will want to hear them, and perhaps it’ll bring a small smile or a smirk to someone’s face to remember those men and these moments because we were there together.

As stupid as it sounds, I miss my time in Afghanistan, and perhaps I remember it more fondly than I should, as humans are often prone to do. I miss my friends that didn’t come home, and the list of those lost is long. I miss talking with my buddies for hours about nothing and everything. I miss the boredom and the sheer excitement and terror of it.

I miss all of you whom I served with. I would do it again even if I knew the cost to me. There are injuries, both visible and invisible ones, that take their toll. However, it has contributed significantly to who I am, and I think those contributions are primarily positive.

Hopefully, this personal memoir wasn’t so contradictory that it makes no sense. My desire is that it may help some people who didn’t serve understand how difficult processing the current affairs in Afghanistan can be for those who served. Hopefully, it sheds light on the emotional roller coaster that Afghanistan can sometimes be for us. I want to offer to talk with anyone who wants to talk about Afghanistan to hit me up, and we’ll reminisce about the best “worst” times we had there.

When I wrote this, I was reacting to all the posts and news articles I’d been reading about Afghanistan falling. I wrote it at 2 am as I recalled all of these memories I had just shared. They seemed to rise out of a melancholy stupor I had found myself in. I felt sorrow and shame at what I saw on my T.V. screen. I think I wrote this for myself. However, I also think I wrote it for all of us who served in Afghanistan. So when I wrote it, the emotions were raw. I could see all of those places again, and I could smell those smells. I could see my friends and them laughing and smiling. I could even see the guys that aren’t here anymore.

Those I picture in my mind are friends who have been gone so long it feels like their faces have faded into a dull haze as I yearn to remember their smiles and laughter. That brings the pain and guilt of surviving home with a vengeance when you struggle with old memories of friends long dead. When you want to remember their voice or laugh, but it’s been so long since you last heard them talk to you. You remember the final moments you had with them before they were lost to you forever, and that’s set in motion by a small thing that reminds you of them as you live your peaceful day-to-day life. You struggle, and guilt hits hard. So hard that the tears flow, and you can’t think of anything except how you would give anything to have them back again. To tell them how much they meant to you or to share one last beer or conversation with them. So when I wrote it, it was late at night, and I just wanted to unpack my emotions with it. I hope I did that eloquently and did even the minutest amount of justice to the memory and legacy of the friends we all loved and lost.

So to close out this overly verbose soldier’s lament to times long gone, never to return,  I want to say to all those who didn’t come home with us, we miss you, and your friendship and existence enriched our lives. Not to mention the lives of countless others, Afghan and American alike, more than you will ever know. We’re still here in some cases because of you or your legacy. We will never forget you, honored and cherished friends, nor will we forget our time with you in that ancient place called Afghanistan. #sota4life #SOTA132 #DOL #neverforget #3-1SFG(A)  #plywoodcantsupportheavyequipment