Hymn for the Fallen

Rusty Sherman was having one of his episodes.  Something always triggered these episodes whether it would be a certain heavy aroma or some object that would catch the corner of his eye or even a melody that once played from his sandblasted radio sitting on a table next to his rack in the barracks in Kandahar.   Whatever it was, the episode that followed was best described as unpredictable.

Living in a small efficiency apartment on the shore of Saint Louis Bay near Oneta, Minnesota where he worked as a waiter at Besky’s, a shoreline restaurant that had been there for as long as he could remember.  He grew up in Duluth.  His mom Clara and his father Dominic still lived in the house he grew up in listening to his father’s famous family stories of his Nordic relatives.  While Rusty was not his given name, he earned that name in two tours in Afghanistan where the sun bleached his hair to an orange color resembling rust.  His given name was Galen which no one but his mother and father ever called him.  Even his sister May would call him Rusty just like his fellow soldiers at the firebase. 

“Private Sherman, watch these prisoners.” Sergeant O’Malley ordered him, “We are going to patrol the streets for insurgents.  This morning two IUDs were detonated, killing three of our guys.” 

“Yes sergeant.” He nodded as he took his place to stand watch over them.  He watched his platoon walk away following Sergeant O’Malley through the narrow streets of the town.  There were six women sitting in a circle, three of them holding young children.  The usual ROE was to just watch over them until a crew would come and take them away in a truck where they would be processed for internment.  Often they would be released back to their homes after spending the night in a holding cell.  

It was all routine, or so he thought.  Four of the women wore traditional hijabs while the other two wore burqas. He could smell the spices of their food as the sun beat down on them.  None of them spoke English as far as he could tell, but he noticed that a couple of them started to giggle.  One of the women pointed at him and made a gesture with her fingers that indicated his masculine prowess or what was believed to be the physical size.  He became angry the more they giggled.

“Stop that!” He ordered, but they just giggled more.  He repeated in much more hostile tone, “Stop that now!” 

They would not.  He became so frustrated that he raised his weapon and fired off a few rounds into the air.  This startled them, but after a few moments, they continued their private conversation.  

Now angered to the point he could not long tolerate their noise, he lowered his gun and began to fire.  In less than a minute all the women lay in a circle, as their blood drained into the dusty street, their eyes open still holding their dead children.  That moment would become the source of many nightmares.  Seeing them lay there now silent would become the trigger of his episodes. 

The vehicle drove up to pick the prisoners up.

“It was a smell from the festival.” Rusty sighed as his V.A. psychiatrist wrote in his yellow pad. “I don’t know what happened next.” 

“According to the police, you began tipping over trash cans.  Not a terrible thing, but still destruction of public property.” Dr. Geovanni held his hands in front of his pointed nose and leaned into his hands. 

“What about the assault?” Rusty asked as he rolled his head.

“You get a free pass Go card.” Dr. Geovanni dropped his hands hoping to end the session with some light humor. “Please contact me if you think you are going to have another episode.”

“I would if I could, but I never know what will set me off.” Rusty dropped his head. With a sigh, Rusty added, “It’s all just hymns for the fallen.” 

“What do you mean?” Dr. Geovanni inquired.

“It’s what we called whenever they played ‘Taps.’  You know that tune they play at military funerals?” He closed his eyes. “I can’t tell you how many times I heard that tune.  It sticks with me every day.  It haunts my dreams.  So doc, why am I the only one who hears it?”

“I wish I had an answer.” He shrugged.

“I thought you shrinks had all the answers.” He bowed his head.

“I wish we did.” Dr. Geovanni looked up from the chart.

“Me too.” He mumbled sardonically. 

“I have some antidepressants I want you to take.” Dr. Geovanna began to write a script.

“More pills?” Rusty growled.

“It’s all I have.” The doctor shook his head, “Unless you want me to reach in there and take out the damage.” 

Rusty did not smile at the possibility, “I wish you’d take out the whole thing and do a brain transplant.  Maybe from some kid where his only worries are how many fish he’s going to catch off the rocks out on the lake.” 

“You know I’d do that if I could.” Dr. Geovanni lowered his head to make eye contact with his patient. 

“Drugs don’t help me, you know.” Rusty took the script that Dr. Geovanni handed him. 

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD had not been recognized as a mental disorder by the Veterans Administration until a few years ago. During Desert Storm One in 1991, many of the service men and women returned complaining of ailments that could not be diagnosed, meaning they often went untreated.  Due to the short duration of the military operation many of those in charge disregarded the complaints of those service people as psychosomatic.  It wasn’t until later when troops were sent to Iraq and Afghanistan for a much longer duration that the complaints were treated by the V.A. hospitals.  Finally published in the DSM-V, PTSD became the hot new diagnosis for those who could trace their mental disorder to some tragic event that happened earlier in their lives. For Galen Sherman, murdering those Afghani women and their children was the event that haunted him the most.  He had buddies who also suffered from major trauma from duty.  

During his time in the hospital, he happened to cross paths with Sergeant Paul O’Malley who lost both legs when an IED went off while he was driving a Humvee. 

“What are you doing here, Private Sherman?” He asked, sitting in his wheelchair. 

“Got some head stuff to take care of.” He answered. 

“I heard the report.  Sounds like your shooting was justified.” He shook his head with those sad eyes of his. “You even got a citation.”

“Yeah, I did.” He turned his head away from O’Malley in shame. 

“What a mess we have here.” The driver told the others as Rusty sat there with his head in his hand whispering prayers to a God he no longer believed in. “So what happened corporal?” 

“I shot ‘em.” He sniffed.

“Yeah.  Why?” The driver asked.

“They were plotting to rush me.” Rusty lied or at least the driver could tell.  He unsnapped his sidearm, removed it from his holster and dropped the .45 next to one of the dead women.

“Shit, son, looks like they were planning to shoot you.” The driver smiled.

Rusty looked up and saw the pistol lying next to one of the dead women.

“I don’t remember that being there.” He pointed to the weapon.

“Well, facts is facts.  She was gonna plug you, but you beat her to the punch.” He laughed the laugh of some kind of demon.  Laughter would become a secondary trigger for Galen. 

Rusty kept the medal he got for his quick and decisive action buried deep in his dresser drawer.  Displaying the medal like his father wanted to was another trigger.  Gazing at the medal reminded him of what really happened.  He wasn’t brave and he wasn’t decisive either. 

“Son, me and your mother are proud of you.” He once said after prayers before dinner.  

He wanted to kill his father for saying that.  He wanted to kill his mother for her accepting smile.  His father was in Vietnam.  He should have known better. Back then they didn’t call it PTSD, they called it Battle Fatigue. His father was lucky.  He had not seen the worst of the war since he was stationed in Saigon for most of his tour.  Four boys he went to highschool with, did not return.  

After working the drunk shift at Besky's, as it was called, he walked out to the pier a block away.  The water was black under a moonless sky.  He had to be careful, because there were warnings that the dock was not stable in some places.  He knew where those places were and was careful to avoid them.  Sometimes he imagined he would just walk off the end of the pier and that would be that. He never told Dr. Geovanni that he had suicide ideation, but he sort of suspected the doctor already knew.  Six of his buddies had taken their own lives when they returned from over there.  He would not let Saint Louis Bay or Lake Superior become his final resting place, however, so he slowly walked back to dry land, got into his car and drove away leaving the gentle lapping of the waves echoing in his mind.

Winters were long and summers were short in Duluth, but when it was summer it was time for robust celebration.  While places in Lake Superior never completely thawed out beneath the waves, riding out was a thrill beyond explanation.  Their graduation celebration included a feast by the shore and canoes and kayaks sloshing across the waves left by the giant freighters.  Some of the waves would capsize their tiny crafts.  The water temperature seldom rose above sixty degrees which made the dunking quite a shocking jolt to the system.  Rusty went in his fair share of times, but the exhilaration was worth the jolt.  

“Looks like you owe a hundred and eighty dollars.” The clerk at the courthouse informed Rusty as he handed the clerk his citation.

“Here.” He added his debit card to the citation so the clerk could take the money he owed for tipping over the trash cans at the festival.

“Here is your card and receipt.” The clerk efficiently handed Rusty both.

“Thank you.” Rusty bowed his head and walked away.  

His father was sitting in the waiting area reading a newspaper.

“Thanks dad.” Rusty nodded.

“Son, there must come a time when you will be able to do this on your own.” His father gave him a stern look as he put the newspaper aside.

“I’m doing the best I can.” Rusty closed his eyes.  His ears were ringing.  There was the sound of a rifle, his rifle echoing in his ears.

“Corporal Sherman.” Major Cycellinni called him from the rank and file of his company at the outpost.  He was dressed in his Class A uniform and he moved like he had been trained to do.  He stood in front of the major who read his citation, “For quick and decisive action in the face of impending peril, I away this citation to Corporal Sherman who on September 22, 2009 took action to quell a possible deadly trap that endangered his life and those in the immediate area of Kandahar proper.”

He pinned the medal on Rusty’s left shirt pocket as the applause of his fellow soldiers.  Their cheers echoed in his ears as he felt the weight of his medal dangle feely from his pocket.  

That night he lay on his bed in his room.  He ignored his mother calling him to dinner.  He could hear them speak in hushed tones, just like the women sitting in front of him in Kandahar.  Why did such things drag him back to that moment?  Why didn’t his memories take him back to that graduation party on the lake?  Why did his mind insist on taking him to that moment in time when he did the unthinkable?.  How many times had he said he was sorry to God?  That angry, displeased, Lutheran God he would sit between his mother and father every Sunday.  

“Galen, I put some dinner aside for you.” His mother poked her head in the door into the dark room.

“Thanks mom.” He dutifully responded. 

“Get some rest if you need it.” She made the sound of the kiss that she blew to him across the room.   It was an empty gesture at best. 

He had romance for a short time with a young woman he met in community college who had a daughter from a previous marriage and was trying to earn a degree to get out oa dead end job at the deli second of a large grocery store.  Her name was Mandy Sorenson and she was beautiful with her long golden locks, crystal clear blue eyes and her wide smile that seemed to warm the cold winter.  

It did not end well, though.  One night he made his clumsy move where he got a little too intense and a little too aggressive.  She told him to stop, but he did not.  When she resisted, he hit her and then hit her again until blood started to flow.  Slowly he felt the energy subside in him, but she needed to go to the emergency room for stitches.  He told her to call him back, but she never did.  He was not surprised. The hard reality was, he was not ready for a steady relationship even though in a couple of  years, he’d be thirty years old.  He could see Mandy telling her friends about him.  She would make a gesture just like that woman in Kandahar.  The restraining order was delivered to him by the police as his mother and father sat in the living room watching television. He did not stay there to answer their questions. 

As he waited on a couple during the dinner hour, the woman called him over to their table.  Dutifully, Galen went over to see how he could assist.

“Excused me, sir.” Her voice indicated she was not satisfied with something that had been delivered. 

“Yes ma’am.” He smiled.

“I ordered my meat well done.” She blurted out, with her hand she opened her sandwich revealing meat that was red and nearly raw. “Does this look well done to you?” 

“No, I can replace that with meat that is more suitable.” He offered.

“No, I think we are done here, don’t you?” Her face became red with her rage.

“Darling, we can see-” Her husband interjected, but she cut him off.

“If they cannot understand a simple request, what chance do you think we have of being compensated?” She looked up at Galen with rage in her dark eyes, “I’m sorry, but I can’t accept such incompetence..” 

Her husband rolled his eyes and removed the napkin from his lap.

“Ma’am, if you just let me-” Galen started, but she cut him off, too. 

“No, I will not pay for this meal.  I simply will not.” Her voice raised and Galen could see everyone was looking at her. “Tell them they can have their sandwich.” 

She shoved the plate with her hand.  The sound of the glass being clanked on the wooden table echoed in his mind.  He could smell the gunpowder.  He could hear the clinking of the shells as they hit the ground.  His eyes could not focus.  He picked up the plate and flung it at her.  It hit her in the forehead.  She screamed as a gash opened up where the heavy plate had struck her.  Her husband lunged at Galen, but he grabbed his arm and twisted it until it was behind his back just like he was taught in an army training camp.  The man yelped.  Other patrons pile on to the pair, but Galen pulled away from them too.  Marching the man outside with his arm pinned behind his back, Galen deposited him into the water of the bay.  The man flailed in the water calling for help as his wife shrieked, holding a cloth to her wound where the plate had struck her.

When he got home the police were waiting for him.

“I can’t believe you did this.” His father snarled. 

“What were you thinking, dear?” His mother was in tears. 

“I see you have come home to roost.” Dr. Geovanni remarked when he saw Galen Sherman in a straight jacket.  Galen’s response was a couple of explicit words that Dr. Geovanni expected as they took him to the small room where the staff would process him. 

“So doc, whadda think about this one?” One of the orderlies asked.

“Looks like a full time project.” Dr. Geovanni sighed.

“Do you think he will ever get better?” The orderly asked. 

“No, but we can hope to restore some of the broken bits so he can make it on the outside.” Dr. Geovanni picked up his clipboard and walked into the small room.

“I wonder.” The orderly put his hand to his stubbly chin and shook his head.

“Me too.” Dr. Geovanni closed the door behind him.  The orderly could hear the patient screaming as it did.