I Know a Way Out of Hell

I have come home but not come home. I have buried my medal, letters, and mementos at the bottom of a crumpled cardboard box, in the bottom of a drawer in an unsuccessful attempt to leave the battlefield behind. But I am still there.

The days pass by. Months go by. Surrounded by stale pizza boxes and empty beer bottles, still in a drunken haze, I flop once again in front of the TV. I mindlessly flick the remote and start watching a movie, “Ghandi.”   I am transfixed.

Toward the end, there is a scene that hits me like a cannonball. Hindus and Muslims are engulfed in murderous combat over the partition of India and Pakistan. A Hindu man whose son has been killed by Muslims confronts Gandhi. In an attempt to stop the bloodshed, Ghandi has been fasting and is lying weakened on a bed.

The man launches food at Gandhi yelling, “Eat! I’m going to hell but not with your death on my soul.”

“Only God decides who goes to hell”?

“I killed a child. I smashed his head against a wall!”

Gandhi asks, “Why?”

“They killed my son, my boy. The Muslims killed my son.”

“I know a way out of hell,” says Gandhi quietly. “Find a child. A child whose mother and father have been killed. A little boy about this high; raise him as your own. Only be sure that he is a Muslim and that you raise him as one.”

Two days later, I can’t get this scene out of my head. It replays over and over. I drink and drink some more. More pills to help me get through the nightmares and catch a few hours of sleep.

I stumble down to the store for a re-stock of junk food and pick up a newspaper.  Back home again I flop onto the couch and flip through the paper.  On page 4 a photograph grabs my attention.  The man is a Muslim, from Afghanistan.  He is being interviewed about the orphanage he runs there. He shares the story of his son being killed by an American drone attack.  I recognize this man, his face, it has replayed repeatedly in my mind, a face that was in anguish, bent over his son’s body when I saw it last.  It is the face I saw through the zoom camera on the drone I launched. I killed his son. 

“Collateral Damage” they said.  

“Collateral Damage!?”, I shouted.  “I blew up a boy in front of his father!”. 

That’s when they sent me home.

Now here I am.  The shame, the guilt, and the self-hatred boil to the surface in one anguished sobbing cry.  

“Oh god, oh god! Why did I have to buy this damned paper?! just to remind me I am a useless rotten piece of shit, why am I here?!.”  I grab the bottle of sleeping pills. Fortunately, there are only a few left.  I take them all, and they send me into a merciful dreamless sleep. I do not awaken until the next day, feeling like my head is being pounded by a sledgehammer, and wishing that I had never woken up.

But I have woken up, I am still here and immediately I am drawn back to the newspaper sitting on the coffee table, open at the fateful page, the photo staring back at me. I bang my fists against my head, unable to get the photo out of my thoughts.  

I pace from one end of the room to the other, back, and forth, back and forth, then can resist no longer.  I pick up the paper and read the article line by line. The father speaks about his own part in the combat, how his first thought was to kill as many Americans as he could. He spoke about the pain of losing his only child. He talks about moving from anger to guilt at his own violent part in the war. He blames himself for his son’s death. Had he not been fighting; his child may have been away from the front lines. He had thought only of his anger towards the enemy. Then he met a woman who was rescuing children orphaned by the war, and he became involved in the effort. He began to feel better and realized he could channel his love for his son into helping others, rather than furthering the bloodshed. When the woman was no longer able to continue, he took over.  

I thought about my wife, family, and friends, each of whom had tried to help me as best they could, each of whom I drove away, one after the other.

I could not stop thinking about this man. His name was Faireh. I looked up the meaning of his name: “Bringer of Happiness” and thought how ironic. An internet search yielded a chain of stories about his orphanage project in Afghanistan. I voraciously searched for any information I could find about him, his project, and his village. After exhausting my internet sources, I dragged myself to the library for the first time in years and began to take out books about Afghanistan. I became increasingly obsessed to the exclusion of all else and began to wonder why I was bothering. I was just spinning in circles and deepening the guilt.  

It was eleven o’clock on a rainy night, when I turned the TV on, and it was the NEWS, something I usually avoided. This time something stopped me from changing the channel – a familiar face – the face of Faireh being interviewed by a reporter. I sat up ramrod straight and turned up the volume. I stared at this face, a face that should be bitter, lined, and filled with hatred but instead, he was smiling. Gee, I thought absently, he was sure given the right name. Then I glanced in the mirror and saw my face – haggard, dirty, puffy, and frowning.  I thought well it’s only fair that I should suffer, it’s my punishment.  But still, Faireh said he too had killed; he too had suffered loss, and yet here he was in front of me smiling…. I wanted to have what he had…. how would I find my way out of this state of mind and feel some shred of happiness again?

I listened carefully to the whole interview and decided I could not rest until I met this man face to face.  He might hate me, he might want to kill me for having taken his son, but what did it matter, I was already living in hell anyway.  

The next day, I called the news station and asked them how I might get in touch with the man they had interviewed.  They could not give out his contact information they said for privacy reasons, which of course I understood. I then re-watched the interview on YouTube and wrote down the name of the orphanage. What followed was a convoluted trail of phone calls, emails, and messages that eventually led me to a phone number and address for the orphanage in Afghanistan.

I didn’t wait, I immediately booked a flight, using my savings, and within the week was on my way to Afghanistan.  The war dragged on but there were rumblings about troop withdrawal, so I thought it was now or never. I had contacted the American Consul, and they reluctantly put me in touch with someplace I could stay.   After ensuring I had one night’s rest and a shower, I hired a taxi to take me directly to the orphanage address. I didn’t want to waste time going through the consulate, as I knew they would advise against what I was doing and try to stop me.

It was a hot dusty Afghanistan day. The sound of gunfire in the distance reminded me of what I had left behind. I started to shake and almost ran back to the guest house, but was resolute to carry on, no matter the outcome.

I now stood in front of the building identified as “Bachem,” the name given by Faireh to the orphanage, meaning “my child” in honor of his lost boy. 

I stood there for a very long time, then finally dared to knock on the door.  A young man answered and motioned for me to come in.  He looked at me with hesitation, wondering what an American was doing on their doorstep, and no doubt hoping that it was not something bad.

I had learned some basic phrases in Dari and asked if Faireh was there.  There was no point in putting off what at this point was inevitable. The boy said yes, but he was busy upstairs helping with a sick child right now. Please have a seat here in the hallway.

A half-hour later, I look up and the face from the photograph, the interview, and my Drone lens is walking towards me. I know who he is, but he doesn’t know who I am.

I ask to go somewhere private.

“I saw you on the television,” I say.

“Oh, I am so glad, are you a journalist?”  He speaks in English. This will make it easier for me. What makes it harder are his warm eyes and friendly manner. They are disarming.

“No, I said, I have another reason to be here.”

“Oh, please tell me.”

“I have been in Afghanistan before.  I recognized you when I saw you in the newspaper photograph and on TV.”

There is no easy way to say this, so I just blurt it out: “I am the American who operated the drone that killed your son”.  At this, I broke into violent sobs. “I understand if you hate me and want to kill me, I deserve it. I am living in hell already.”

Faireh sat down heavily, aghast. Well, this is the moment of judgment I thought to myself. He remained silent, lost in thought, pain, and sadness warping his face, the smile gone. He buried his head in his hands and cried. Gradually the gentle sobbing ebbed, followed by several long sighs.

After what seemed like an eternity, he finally raised his eyes to mine. Reaching forward, he grasped both of my hands in his and raised me to my feet. I was amazed that he was not lunging forward to choke or attack me, surging with hatred. This was not the reaction I expected.

With another heavy sigh, he looked me in the eye and said, “You are here. This was a very brave thing to do. I might have been someone who would kill you, but you came anyway. You are here. You must be a tormented man who regrets what he has done. You were following the orders of your country, just as I followed mine, we were cogs in a giant machine not of our making. I have had much time to think about this. I forgive you.”

I collapsed onto my knees and cried like a baby. I rocked back and forth and sobbed, “I am so so sorry, so so sorry!”  After a while the sobs subsided and I looked back at those deep, dark, warm, and understanding eyes.

He said, “You are here to help?”

“Yes, I am here to help.”

Then I knew. I had found my way out of hell.

I had come home.