The world, as vast as it is, has a strange way of shrinking on occasion. Our paths cross with others in ways that we would usually deem a near statistical impossibility. Some people assign a greater meaning to these chance encounters, while others see them as simple anomalies. I would generally put myself firmly into the latter category, but sometimes life makes me pause and wonder if there may be something larger at work. This is a story about one of those times.
Sitting on the couch at my friend’s home in San Diego, we started reminiscing about old times in the Marines. We had met in college, long after we had both ended our military careers, and we had vastly different experiences.
He had been Marine infantry and eventually worked closely with the top levels of Marine leadership in a more administrative role to end his career. I had been a helicopter crew chief with no interest in career advancement. I was only interested in the military experience itself.
We were drinking a few beers in the smoke-filled dining room when the conversation turned more serious. I had been talking about a few of the guys we had lost in helicopter crashes over the years when he brought up some friends he had lost after he left his job in the infantry and joined the administrative ranks. He started describing the timeframe, location and circumstances surrounding their deaths when it started to sound all too familiar.
I started asking for more details, and then it clicked “I was there” I blurted out almost inadvertently. He turned with a confused look on his face, then asked: “What happened that night?” I sat back on the couch, stunned at the sheer level of chance that had led to our paths crossing and this question being asked. It was a dark memory of mine that I had been avoiding for years, but now was the time to relive that night. He had questions, and as painful as the answers were, I had them.
That night was often relived in the nightmares I was having trouble shaking. The ones my girlfriend tells me wake her up on occasion. I kept hearing his voice, it was filled with emotion and anguish. That voice hasn’t left me to this day, it lives on in the idle daydreams and the restless nights. Whatever the case, he deserved to know, so it was time to suck it up and tell the story. I leaned forward on the edge of the couch as he stared intently, waiting for me to begin.
I was inside the operations area of our squadron, a little building about 50 yards from the flightline, and about 200 yards away from my aircraft, the last on the line. It was around 1 or 2 am, and we had just settled in for the night shift. The TIC horn went off, piercing the silence, signaling that there were troops in contact. I arrived at my aircraft after a frantic sprint down the dark flightline. Everything was in order on the aircraft just as we had set it up 2 hours earlier and we were about ready to go. We got the coordinates quickly radioed to us from the officer on duty and put them into our iPad notes so we could look them up on our maps.
The pilots had arrived just behind us and Bobby Wise, the senior crew chief was manning the minigun. One of our pilots realized his radio chord didn’t work, and we needed a new one ASAP. I signaled out, but nobody could decipher the message my flailing arms were trying to send. I jumped out of the aircraft, intent on grabbing the chord as quickly as possible myself. In all the commotion, I had completely forgotten the gunners’ belt already strapped across my chest, meant to keep me from falling out of the helicopter in flight. I fell sharply on my ass thanks to the unflinching laws of physics and unstrapped the gunners’ belt as everyone tried not to laugh. The situation was serious, but I did just look like a prime candidate for a YouTube fail video. Seconds later we had a new chord thanks to a nearby aircraft, and we were on our way.
The air brought a vastly different mood. We were doing ops checks on our lasers when mine started to flicker on and off. I quickly changed out the batteries, inadvertently taking a reflective laser to the eyes in the process. The temporary blindness was a reminder that the training we received had a very specific purpose. I took a deep breath and brought myself back to night flights I had in the past. That familiar feeling came on and a calm crept over me, dissipating the previous panic. I got the laser and gun ready just in time to hear the radio calls start frantically coming in, the first real status update we had outside of the initial call.
We received a static filled, broken radio transmission but we caught a few words loud and clear. They hit like a truck, “Multiple Marines KIA” (killed in action). The voice on the other end of the radio was angry, frustrated, and undeniably heavy with grief. He relayed as much information as he had then delivered a raspy staccato of orders to the aircraft under his command. It was someone they were training who did this, an Afghan teenager who was eating dinner with them just moments earlier. The AK-47 he was wielding had done enormous amounts of damage to the unsuspecting Marines and their small base.
They had several Marines who had been shot, as well as the communication equipment, computers, and a host of other essential logistics. The voice on the other end was using a mobile radio, hand held maps, and was on a rooftop directing multiple layers of aircraft in the pitch-black night. We provided the protection for Army medivac helicopters to remove the Marines who were wounded or KIA. At this point my friend was visibly cringing, he knew those men, they were his brothers.
Throughout this process, we were looking at the images in our infrared displays aboard the aircraft, searching outside for any sign of the coward who had done this. We were doing our best to suppress our emotions, trying to remain professional every time we heard another radio transmission from that voice on the ground. He wanted so badly to find this guy, to do some justice for his men, to watch us shoot every single round and rocket we had into him…. but he had vanished. We had every single asset that could fit in the airspace…but nothing turned up.
My friend looked on in silence as I told him every detail I could remember from the flight that night, and as I finished, he just stared at me for a few. Finally, he spoke, “Fuck man that’s heavy…thank you for giving me some answers.” We sat there for another half hour or so just drinking, smoking and trying to move on from the heaviness of the moment until I decided to head out so he could process things on his own. I let my girlfriend know it was time to leave, and we drove home, both deep in thought.
I kept replaying that scrabble of a night in my mind, trying to find the person responsible. We flew until our fuel tank was as low as we were safely allowed, helplessly looking but turning up with no results. I don’t think I have ever felt that helpless and frustrated. I started thinking about the aftermath of that night and the parts I had left out for my friend because they weren’t relevant to his questions.
After we got low on gas we flew back to base in mostly silence. That night changed me, I had felt it instantly. We had been in Afghanistan for a few months, but nothing so far had really gotten to me until this. Looking off into the darkness of the crescent mooned night, the green glow of the night vision goggles just wouldn’t do. I flipped them up, blind to what lay beyond the aircraft, catching a few falling tears with my greasy flight glove. The noise of the rotors and the blackness of the night hiding the emotions from the rest of the crew.
We couldn’t deliver any closure to that voice on the ground. We couldn’t end the story they told the families of those killed in action. There was no justice they could point to, we didn’t get to kill for them. We couldn’t fulfill our purpose, and now those families have no ending to the tragic tale of their loved ones’ end. We failed them.
The weight of the last few months of the deployment finally landed on me. I flashed through all the voices I had heard over the radios, trying to land on the thankful ones, the ones we helped, the ones we brought safety and closure to. They were drowned out by his. I wished we were better, I wished we could do more, I wished we could have been the last pen strokes in that story they told the families and each other. They deserved better than we could deliver.
We flew back into base where Ssgt Clouarte gave me shit about the fall I had on the way out and asked for an update on what happened. He’s a hardass former drill instructor from Parris Island who was also a great mechanic and was in charge of me when I wasn’t flying. Initially, his piercing eyes lit up like they usually do when we talk about our engagements, sparkling almost as much as his shaved head did in the overhead lighting. I watched the life drain from his eyes when I gave him the details. It wasn’t just what I said, but the look on my face when I said it. He could see something in me he hadn’t seen since we arrived. Real pain.
My heart was heavy, and I needed some time alone to think. This one was going to leave a mark. I walked off to the distant smoke pit, luckily it was empty. Nobody was allowed to see this side of me. Just me, a cigar, and that tortured voice. I sat there watching the smoke curl around me in the darkness feeling helpless and angry. You can’t control everything, but sometimes that’s a tough reality to come to terms with. Sometimes your best just isn’t good enough.
The loss of someone you fought alongside hurts just as deeply as losing a family member, if not more so. These losses go beyond personal identity, relationships or unit. We’re all acutely aware of this unique kind of pain, and those that have experienced it form a unique bond that shared grief often creates. We are part of a larger family now, we have all lost people close to us before their time, and we all have felt that same helpless pain and anger.
We have seen the widows hold flowers and kiss caskets. We have seen the kids embrace flags and linger while staring at a picture of a father who will never kiss them goodnight again. We know a statistic barely glanced at on CNN is a multitude of connected lives that have been destroyed in the blink of an eye. It’s not just the loss of a brother, it’s caring so deeply about their lives that you involuntarily share the grief of those they left behind.
I used to believe that these types wounds could never be healed, but over time I have found this pessimistic assumption to be false. You see, not only do you share the grief with those that survived, you also share in their happiness. You are forever destined to care about the families your brothers left behind as much as your own. You get to see their children grow up and display characteristics you haven’t seen in years. You get to see them rebuild their lives and find happiness again. You get to share stories about the good times without the loss overwhelming each moment and memory.
Often, we assume that the worst moments in our lives will never end, and that the way we view circumstances will never change. What I have learned, is that the world isn’t static, and neither are we. Ride through the storms alongside the people who rush to your side and help carry you through them. There are calm waters on the horizon, and you will get there together.