No Atheists in Foxholes

I always relate the breeze in Iraq to the feeling of heat on my face after opening the oven to a rack of freshly baked blueberry muffins on a Sunday morning. ‘Cept? There wasn’t that cooked blueberry scent in the air that warms the heart, reminding you of the better times you’d spent with your family. Because that is what we remember isn’t it? If we choose to, from the good scents that our brain bottles for another day; scents that literally take us back to another time, in a different kind of way.

The sun blazed down on our vehicle like the ball of fire science says it is, which I never really believed until my unit deployed that year; when I realized just how hot the sun could make us down here. I reached to roll down the massive bullet proof passenger window to get a better look at the trailer we hauled in the rear-view mirror. The trailer had become so misaligned that I was beginning to see a near three-quarter view of the tank chained down atop it, behind us. As massive a vehicle as it is magnificent, it could have very well dragged us into the desert if those wheels supporting the trailer hit that soft sand. I looked at my Corporal driving the truck who had done the checks prior to us leaving an hour ago, and mentioned it again.

To roll down the window I had to remove the lifeline from the front of my flak vest, which was an air hose that shot a single stream of cool air wherever it was pointed. It was a gift from my mechanic buddy who had managed to fasten some semblance of two AC lines from somewhere in the engine, which provided a bit of relief in a vehicle that clocked one-hundred and fifty-eight degrees. Not everyone was as lucky as I to have that tiny lifeline of AC, and I wasn’t sure how he managed to get me in that truck; not until years later when he told me he deadlined my original vehicle, which changed where I was located in the convoy that day, allowing him to assign me the truck he’d personally maintained and rigged with AC. An unlikely friendship indeed, a southern female from Texas and a Micronesian man born into a native tribe twenty-six years before he enlisted. My only brother from another mother, and a man I’ll always admire for his integrity.

Even though my eyes instantly became watery from the heat of the air blowing in, when I rolled down that window, I caught a clearer view of the trailer while thinking back to all the times I’d been there for my Micronesian buddy when we were stateside. How many times had I picked him up from jail in the wee hours just to take him to report to the Battalion Commander for some nonsense he’d gotten entangled in.

A sudden bump threw me back into the present moment as I rolled the window back up. I was fully aware that my newly appointed squad leader SSG M was in the truck directly behind us. No doubt getting ready to holler at us on the radio. The man had a thing against me, which I never knew why to begin with, but I sure as hell knew the “why” by the end of our tour. I gave him a solid reason, maybe a few, which I'll share in next week's story.

Before I even knew who SSG M was, he began putting me on convoys every day. Missions that were days long, back-to-back with eight hour turn arounds. This meant that after returning to a base off one mission, I had eight hours to clean some shit, eat some shit, wash some shit, pack some shit, and get some rest before I was to be in formation again. I handled it well enough, and I think SSG M hated me a little more each time he pushed me and I didn’t break. Funny, because that little fact makes me smile like a toddler on Halloween everytime I imagine the sheer quantity of shit he threw at me. Everything I endured was well worth it because it showed me that I possess a strength of character which still intimidates people today.

It wasn’t long after rolling that window back up that I had stuffed the AC lifeline back into my flak vest and my thoughts drifted back to the crazy times I had with my buddy stateside. Sure enough, just as my thoughts fell away SSG M called us up on the radio.

“TC302- your trailer is hanging real far off, seeking open waters”.

Haha. He didn’t talk like that. But since I’m improvising... The trailer was riding what would have been the white side line of the hard ball road, if there were a such a line, or any laws, at all, governing how, and where people drove.

I listened as SSG M then called to the head of the convoy, an infantry unit that protected our convoy. Of which, any stop was to be cleared through them first. I knew this meant I would have to dismount to adjust the hydraulics of the trailer, as well as, I knew that I’d get an ear full from SSG M when we hit the next base. As Truck Commander, it was my responsibility to ensure everything was ready to go before the mission, even if I’d just come on after another eight-hour turn around.

I was always able to find joy in opening a door to let the Iraqi air in. I thought of ovens, freshly baked honey ham, blueberry muffins, or homemade meatloaf. Anything other than the blazing sun burning my eyes despite my polarized Oakley’s. Just before I reached for the bar nearest the truck door I exited, I removed my radio, righted my helmet, then slung my M-16 on my back. After grabbing the bar outside the truck, I thought, “fuck it, I’ve done this thousands of times. Won’t take but a second.”

The coolest thing about dismounting was if you grabbed the bar with your right hand as you exited the vehicle, you could swing around the bar to face the truck, while dropping down to the ground; like a firefighter would through floors in TV shows. When I tried it this time though, I shut the door behind me, beginning to swing my body around the bar, and my arm suddenly snapped in a way that didn’t make sense. I watched as my hand opened from the force of the jolt.

I was trying to ignore the fear that gripped my throat as the truck fell away from me and I became airborne. The sun burned my eyes as my body became parallel with the white-hot sky, and time, well... time seemed to stop as it took me a really, really long time to land. I felt suspended as about a thousand thoughts flew through my mind all at once. I landed on one thought just after every single prayer I knew crossed through my mind in that instant. “Please let me be able to stand again.”

The impact didn’t hurt as much as I had imagined, at least not initially. I felt the buttstock of my rifle dig into the sand around my pelvis, then it jarred my pelvis, just before my back flattened out against the steel plates which protected it. I felt my ACH (helmet) tip all the way back, before the chinstrap latch, which I had consciously loosened earlier, popped open against my chin. I've always wondered what would have happened had I not unfastened that chin strap.

My neck continued to fall back as my ACH flicked off like a bugger from a toddler’s pointer finger. I heard a snap. Not like a twig, or a toothpick, or even a popsicle stick. It was the kind of snap that you would feel after you’ve made a fairly large fire, a fire that boiled some water trapped beneath a loose piece of bark. A distinct, resounding, single snap, like the single crackle at the beginning of a symphony, which carried bass you could feel.

All the way down my spine this pain shoot through my body as my neck snapped forward, back, and forward again. When my body finally settled, I felt frozen, the fear that I wouldn’t be able to stand sent the prayers that ravaged my mind on repeat, like a loud broken record player I never learned to use. I felt all the air whoosh out of my lungs just before a voice, not my own slipped through, “you’ll be able to stand, you’ll be alright”.

The pressure in my chest, after feeling the front and back of my rib cage touch, had forced a ragged inhale of breath so crackly that I thought again of the massive fires I’d built with my father. When I opened my eyes to the glaring sun, I noticed that my organs hurt, but more so, I noticed that couldn’t really feel my limbs as I exhaled. Fear struck through my body again, as I tested my lungs with another ragged, hearty breath; silently thanking God for that small favor.

I wanted to give myself another moment before I trusted the voice that was not my own, but the PCH I wore backward (a snazzy acronym for the stylish military cloth hats we wore) shifted on my head strangely, and I instinctively reached around to reorient it. As my arm moved, though it caused such an ache in my organs, I sighed with relief, momentarily forgetting that I still couldn’t really feel my arm. Somehow my feet found themselves below me and then my body above them, as I pushed myself to rise. The sounds of people yelling tried to draw my attention as I brushed sand off my uniform, shaking my body with my jacket open to let out pieces of the earth. With an ease I’d never known, I ignored their yelling as I focused on my immediate needs, situating my clothes before turning around to find where my ACH had rolled off too.

When I reached my helmet, I’d become keenly aware as I bent down that the air felt completely different. Every move I made felt more precious, more like the blessing it truly is. Life, the briefness of it all, the fleeting moments we spend in them, the time we’re gifted with those we love, those we barley know. That we are all living at the same time, for some reason, regardless of whether we like that fact, or each other.

All these lovely things, hardships or not, reminding me that I was alive, that I was cherished. I dawned my helmet and fastened the chinstrap before staring up at the blazing sun with an admiration I had not known before. It was as if I’d been born again. Saved. Truly.

When I climbed back into the truck, I fastened my seat belt, and set my rifle to the side while listening to my Corporal explain, at length, how sorry he was for forgetting that he hadn’t put the truck in park. I listened to his explanation wondering why it felt so gross. Was I being judgmental? Or did I just not like him as much as I didn’t believe his story? A feeling too large to ignore came over me, a feeling that seemed to say the reason his words felt gross was because they were littered in lies.

I didn’t care if what he did was intentional or accidental, I had an experience when my body slammed into that sandy median between the only two hardball roads the military had built which connected Kuwait to Baghdad. I didn’t care that many of my fellow soldiers didn’t like my strong opinions or sometimes boorish nature. I didn’t even care that I was contending with men who had little to no respect for women of any race, stature, or attractiveness.

What I did care about? What I focused on as my Corporal continued to yammer on about how bad he felt, and how narley it was that I’d flown so far off the truck into the desert... was how grateful I felt for my blessings, my body. How much I appreciated the angels who no doubt fluttered around me as I leered at the trailer in the rear-view, the trailer which someone had righted as I recovered in the desert.

My heart swelled with gratitude as I contemplated the entire rest of the ride, how I could return this favor, this gift of life, to such a merciful God. And with a sense of gratitude I'd never known, I sent thanks. Thanks to God, the Universe, all the Angels, and even those fallen Angels, who guided me to accept myself.

A warmth began to form in my soul, as large as the Iraqi sun in the sky, before I reached in my pack to feel around for the plastic wrapper I knew contained a hot blueberry muffin.