Tick… My eyes dart from the clock on the wall, to the door, down to my desk and back to the clock. Tick… My heart pounds faster and faster against my chest; I can feel it in my throat and my head. It restricts my breath. Tick… I glance back up to the clock, then the door. Tick…  My right foot furiously fidgets up and down; my hands are dampening and sweat starts to form at my temples. Tick… I breathe in deeply to try and calm myself; I glance once more at the clock then the door. Tick… I grab my backpack and move quickly for the door, towards freedom.

I have only been sitting in class for five minutes, but I just can’t take it. I can’t take the panicked feeling of being trapped and the accompanying weight of the anxiety. I have to remove myself from the desk against the back corner of the classroom, the classroom that doesn’t have any windows and has only one door, the classroom that is full of young adults, the classroom that I just cannot be in.

I have to flee.

As I make my way to my truck, my pounding heart beats slower and slower and my nerves settle with every step I take away from the classroom. I sit in the driver’s seat of my truck with the engine off and grip the steering wheel until my knuckles turn white, all the while searching through my head what had just taken place back in that classroom and wondering how I will deal with all this when I’m back in that classroom. The slowing of the second hand on the clock, the racing of my heart, the damp hands and sweaty brow, the panic will all happen again, three more times to be exact, before I fully remove myself from the situation. This leads to drinking and hiding myself in my apartment with the windows closed during the day, waiting for night to come and the dimness of light it brings with it. Then I will turn to the bottle to suppress the fleeting feeling of wanting to run from the panic of every social situation.

For over a year I suffered greatly from this problem, not knowing why. Why me? I had survived Iraq. I survived combat. I was shot at and put in a position of life and death and came out alive and stronger in the end. I volunteered to serve in the Marine Corps and I chose to fight in the Infantry. It had been two years since I was honorably discharged from the Corps, and I had been going to college during the day and bartending nights without incident. I felt strong and I felt like a normal person and college student. But now I can’t bear to sit in class, go to the grocery store, go out to bars with friends, ride in cars or be around people without this intense grip of anxiety suffocating me. Why is this happening to me and why now?

I never did figure out exactly what was happening to me and why, or why it was happening to me then. But I was able to mostly conquer my anxiety through talking about it with the brothers I served with and other combat veterans. I was definitely not the only one struggling. Talking about it and listening to other stories of the same struggle helped me to understand it a bit more than I did before.

Furthermore, talking about all this helped me to deal with it and stopped me from trying to treat it with alcohol. I consider that period the worst part of my life; I’d much rather get shot at and blown up or deal with any kind of physical pain than struggle with the psychological and emotional pain of feeling weak and panicked.

It is a feeling I’ll never forget, and though I am much better today, it’s still a feeling I live with.

Panic throughout the camp. Military personnel shuffle to and fro in a frenzy, our pace quickening, the intensity increasing as our anxiety builds from rumors circulating via the unofficial intelligence source dubbed the Lance Corporal Underground—the frightfully accurate rumor mill of the lower ranking Marines.

My team, a Quick Reaction Force or QRF, forms up outside the aid station where day after day we’ve been sleeping and bullshitting. We gather in the scorching heat under the sand-blasted, camouflaged netting intended to disrupt any enemy radar. The wind cakes the station’s canvas walls with a new layer of brown moon-dust, then blows onward to the next building until all you see is tiny dust particles placed on every millimeter of everything in sight.

In the camp, our chairs consist of empty communication wire spools, empty ammo cans, and boxes of meals-ready-to-eat, or MREs. These boxes, once emptied and reinforced with duct tape, served as our toilets.

I wonder what my grandfather would say if he could see me here, a 20-year-old private first class deployed to Iraq. Apparently I was his favorite grandson. He never told me this in person. I had to hear it from my grandma, and I didn’t believe her. He’d said he wanted to bathe the rest of his grandchildren in my urine for being worthless. I saw none of this admiration. A man like my grandfather who grew up in Mexico and was left for dead in a ditch in the 1950s from a gunshot wound after a poker game does not show emotion. No wonder my father acted in this same machismo fashion.

Our gun trucks are Humvees. Some are for transport; some have machine guns; some are ambulances placed strategically so we can leave base as fast as possible. The war chariots creak as they struggle to maintain the weight of the added cheap armor we bolted on in Kuwait. Some Humvees are green and some are tan, and that’s okay because they match our flak vests. Perhaps the Pentagon ran out of uniformity. Now the higher ups come out to confirm or deny the rumors of the impending firefight ahead of us.

The Lance Corporal Underground is reporting that 500 civilian vehicles are convoying in our direction. So we anxiously wait for the rumors to be confirmed or denied.

“The rumors are true,” Corporal Kimmons reports to us. This convoy is full of military-aged males donning small arms, RPGs, and a pissed-off attitude as they shout at our helicopters while raising their weapons. Corporal Kimmons is a stocky, dark-green Marine whose accent suggests he was raised by rich hippies. I ask him why our air power hadn’t blasted these fine young gentlemen into the fucking Stone Age. He replies that the Al-Jazeera news network would surely be video-taping this event and spin the aggressive civilians in Bill O’Reilly fashion as a peaceful extended family heading toward a re-union. Then he nonchalantly says, “It’s very well we’re fucking dead,” and he leans towards the driver seat of his Humvee for his gloves. His helmet, raised to his forehead like a construction worker’s hard hat, reveals stress lines not indicative of a 22-year-old. The way he accepts death so casually and offers me no explanation bewilders me.

Death. Accepting death. In five years my grandfather would be on the precipice of death, but of course I don’t know this here in Iraq as I myself wander in death’s shade. How could I know that in five years I would be a platoon sergeant for 44 Marines, that on a long weekend I’d come home and my mother would urge me to visit my grandfather?

“We don’t have much time left with him,” she would say.

But I would not visit him, and I would not allow myself to see his weakened state, his incoherence.

No.

I would instead be waiting for an announcement from President Obama. I would be part of a Marine Expeditionary Brigade who would augment our ground forces in Helmand Province in Afghanistan. I knew my grandfather might die while I was gone, but I could not see him. I spared myself the opportunity to seek closure.

We are all covered in moon dust and permeated with frantic anxiety. Everyone is. As we wait, we check our vehicles. Only so much to check. The sun continues its relentless harassment. All of our Wiley X sunglasses bead with sweat and dust. If only they came with wipers. That would have been grand. The vibrant stars, the mischievous wind, the gravel at my feet, the salt slowly soaking through my dirty stained cammies—all these things are now null and void as a factor for complaint. Fear has replaced the complacent normality of the day-to-day chaos. A new chaos has appeared; the bar is raised; a new norm established.

All day Camp Fallujah Marines run back and forth to do god-knows-what. I only know that every soul that day is operating on overdrive as a new source of intensity seeps into each step and the constant crunch of gravel from running boots makes deeper moon prints than yesterday, raising more dust in each thrust. More sweat beads. Heavier breathing. Then more. Just more.

We finally get the command to go. But the 500-vehicle Iraqi convoy has broken up into smaller groups, each determined to take their protest to other camps, to combat out-posts, and to forward operating bases. The bulk of these vehicles ends up blocking our main route into the city, so we take an alternate route. We re-enforce the highway clover leaf with equipment and personnel. The civilians park their vehicles roughly three hundred meters from the clover leaf, which is also our last military presence before entering Fallujah. They begin walking toward our main dirt road that connects into the entrance of the base, which is why we have to take an alternate route. They are blocking access to the main road.

Hundreds of Iraqis have come to protest the United States occupation of Iraq. I leap from my vehicle, now parked at the clover leaf, and I walk about 10 meters away from it. I do this in case the vehicle itself attracts bullets because of its sheer size. I don’t want to be too close if this happens. I point my M-16 toward the two buildings ahead of me, toward the city of Fallujah.

My grandfather will die from colon cancer as we welcome the 2010 New Year, just as President Obama announces that 10,000 Marines will be sent to re-enforce the province. I’ll have 48 hours to rush, rush, rush home to Oakland, California, to my Padrino, to the grandfather who baptized me, who now was gone. I will come to the viewing at the wake—el velorio. He was beloved and popular, but stubborn, hard drinking. His casket will be a beautiful wood finish. Hall full of friends, family, and more family. Mom will cry, grandma will be strong. I would leave for Afghanistan in less than 24 hours. I would not conjure enough courage to say goodbye to his resting soul. I drank tequila feeling the sense of urgency. Was he coherent enough to understand that I did not say goodbye while he still had breath? Did he know in his confused state that I would be flying to combat while he would be placed to rest?  Was I indeed his favorite and, if so, why could he not tell me in person?

Now I hear sporadic gunfire, yet my sights stay true, fixed toward the road that looks like a road leading into the city of an objective in one of those video games. The feeling of nervousness as light armored vehicles to my left lie in wait, traversing their bushmaster cannons left and right, then left again. Pieces of gravel fall on my helmet from overhead and hit my rifle as the Humvees rumble above on the overpass. Still, I stay focused on those buildings that provide such good cover. Freeway dividers lie herringboned 50 meters in front of me as if to act as a shield against a vehicle suicide bomber. I think, “What if they just go around those dividers?” I keep my question to myself; perhaps this will not dawn on the enemy. No one said there would be a divider, the enemy might say, maybe turning and heading back toward the city.

I walk back and mount up on our valiant steed, a steed that will not stop urinating. As we swing around, we leave the shade of the overpass and again the antagonist, a kind of Sauron, sets its eye on us, ever so brilliant. Slicing through the cracked up road, I see a black blur in front of us, coming in and out of focus as the heat emanating from the road surface confuses my gaze. The blur is amorphous, the vehicles parked as disorderly as possible. If they have a leader, shame on him. They are smack in the center of our entry dirt road which runs about 600 meters to the actual camp gate. Camp Volturno lies to the right of the protestors, later dubbed Camp Baharia. Camp Mercury will later be called Abu Ghuraib and it lies to the left of the protestors. Our Camp—named the Mech by the 82^nd Airborne whom we had relieved—sits in front of the protestors. The 82^nd seemed thrilled to give this Area of Operation over to us. Then I wondered why. Now I understand. We renamed it Camp Fallujah.

As we drive back to the camp the way we came, I consider that everyone on my team has made peace with the possibility of death. I had never seen so many NCOs and higher-ups so nervous. They had been calm, cool, and collected. Not anymore. Now stress seeps from their pores. Their demeanor is serious. Weapons and personnel checks are not as casual as before. A lot of us place an ammunition round in our left breast pockets. I do this too. Be advised: this private first class was not built to be captured.

Night falls. We sleep like sardines in a dark back room of the Fallujah aid station. But now are woken from our slumber. We gear up, load our vehicles, perform communications checks, and head toward the front gate. Keep in mind, our camp was being attacked damn near every day and night like clockwork. We are fish in a barrel since the city of Fallujah was untouched during the initial invasion a year ago, and this being spring 2004, the city continues to be a safe hub for the Sunni Insurgency.

Corporal Perez says, “Let’s go.” My 50 Cal Gunner, Manny, says, “Come on, Boot, let’s go get some.” He racks his fifty and smiles; he seems to feed off of my nervousness. This is his second deployment while I have been in the Corps less than a year. Apparently to the whole team my name is Boot meaning new fish, cherry, fucking new guy, combat virgin, whatever. It doesn’t bother me. First time I was shot at was in junior high. I was headed to my buddy’s house when a radio-flyer red Impala ‘66 cut the corner, pulled out a rifle, and started shooting. I’ve been there and done that. So I thought.

Nearly six years from now I will leave my grandfather’s ceremony to catch my flight to Afghanistan.  But worse, leaving with me will be my wife, my daughter, my mother, my stepfather, sister, brother-in-law, and nephews. I will drink on my way to 29 Palms because I will be buried, buried with guilt, with shame because I am causing the family pain while they are suffering painfully. I will be flying to Afghanistan, regretting that my immediate family came to see me off rather than see my grandfather buried. I will feel I am betraying him by stealing his audience. Not only will my grandmother have to say goodbye to her husband; she will have to say goodbye to her grandson.

I will be in the viewing room when I hug my grandmother.

“I’m sorry, but I have to go, Ma.”

She will sobbingly bless and pray for me. Frail and short, this 100-pound, 75-year-old woman with the typical Spaniard look will put on a strong face for show. I feel I should have refused orders and stayed home another day, tried to explain and seek understanding in the chain of command. Should I have fought to stay? Me, now in charge of more than 40 Marines, most of whom had not deployed before? Should they—could they—go on without me for a few days? I will be torn.

But that will be then, years from now, and today only the immediate future is my concern. So on one of our runs we head to re-enforce the clover leaf currently under attack. The drivers use night vision goggles so as to not alert the protestors still at our doorstep. The vehicle in front of me crashes into a huge cement post, and so do we. Both vehicles, now with broken axles, have concertina wire tangled all over the undercarriage. The truck in front of us is what we call a high back, used as a troop transport so the Marines can jump out and provide 360-security while my gunner orients his gun toward the protestors. Thank God we do not drive with lights lest we alert the protestors of our predicament and location.

We are stuck.

Corporal Kimmons gives me his night vision goggles. “Go to the top of the berm,” he says. “Don’t give yourself away. This is your sector. Keep eyes on the creeping enemy.” I do as I am told. Suddenly we can see the clover leaf being lit up; explosions and spectacular flashes backlight the dark sky. Then artillery from 1st battalion 11^th Marines behind us starts going off. Now the protestors have shed their robes and uncovered small arms. The sky above my berm lights up with tracer rounds. It seems Darth Vader and his minions have joined the fight. Red and white illumination rounds sway left and right, working their way across the battle space. Illuminating them, us, the trash-filled streets, the miles of concertina wire, and the endless mounds of dirt and sand that could serve as micro terrain.

The boneyard—a military-vehicle junkyard next to Camp Fallujah and behind our position on the opposite side of my berm—starts to see some action. The opposing force likes to use the hundreds of broken-down military vehicles, tanks, and trucks as cover as they slither toward an optimum attacking position. Here we are, sandwiched between two berms. Ten Marines, one fifty cal. machine gun, and hundreds of military-aged males who do not know we are here.

The hurricane starts.

We are ordered not to open fire. The convoy pushes ahead without us and we are fully engaged at the clover leaf; thus, we are on our own. Amphibious tracked vehicles rumble by us. Goddam they are loud. If we open up they might engage us. Five hundred insurgents against ten Marines are great odds; however, we neglect to test the water, and we wait. Pinned down. We are caught handicapped in the eye of the storm, unable to act, pursue, engage or retaliate. The front gate and protestors exchange, while a­­rtillery from behind us rages on. The camp ahead of us lodges mortars and small arms, while the clover leaf fights for its existence. The tracer-round gods clash in a violent unchecked raging romance and consummate right above our heads. It would be beautiful if it was not so frightful. I pray while I scan my sector, my legs continue to dig deeper in the berm. I cannot stop moving them. Fucking blurry night vision goggles procured by the lowest bidder are perched on my face. The rest is a blur. Not being able to shoot back is the worst feeling in the world.

Well, almost the worst feeling, because one day I will arrive at 29 Palms with a feeling worse than this after driving all night to prepare to deploy to Afghanistan. At 4 a.m. I will rush to pack my gear; I must be at the armory at 0530 to draw weapons. I will get dressed and proceed toward base.

I had told no one that I did not expect to return home. I was truly scared of deploying this time because Afghanistan is not Iraq, and this would be my first time in Afghanistan.

As my 44 Marines arrived, I would hold formation and take role. I would instruct my platoon to briefly say goodbye to their loved ones and proceed to the bus. I knew that some of them would not be coming home. I took role as they boarded the bus. I hugged my wife and daughter. After all my Marines were on board, I would be the last to climb onto the bus.

It would all happen so fast. I would not see my grandfather before he died, even though I would have the chance. I would regret not arguing my necessity to attend his burial. I would regret giving my family yet another reason to be sad. My mother, sister, nephews, step-dad, brother-in-law—none of them would attend the funeral of my grandfather because they came to see me off to war.

And even though my family would tell me not to feel that way, for that I would feel an unending regret.

So here in Iraq, pinned down in the shadow of my own possible death as illumination rounds dance their tango through the beautiful starlight Iraqi sky, the reality of consequences sets in. This private first class had volunteered for everything so he could live up to his seniors’ stories, so he could crush any perceived shortcomings of us new guys. But now, after a couple of months, I just want to go home. I’ve had enough of getting shot at, of losing friends. The reality has transcended the romance of combat innately inherent in every boy. My youth perceptions are now shattered; the beauty of young omnipotence, of blissful ignorance, of naivetés in all their glory are no more. I have a family to get home to. A grandfather I want to see again.

For the first time in my life I really might die.

]]> http://www.lpcvetstories.com/veteran-stories/nor-shall-death-brag-2/feed/ 3 http://www.lpcvetstories.com/veteran-stories/jason-faataualofa/ http://www.lpcvetstories.com/veteran-stories/jason-faataualofa/#comments Fri, 29 May 2015 23:51:30 +0000 http://www.lpcvetstories.com/?p=187 After nights of stalemate and overdoses of sugar and caffeine, I’m finally able to piece together within this story a small recollection from my past, specifically the time leading up to boot camp. This time in my life defined who I am today and changed me in ways I could never predict. I was thrust into adulthood in a manner that no amount of schooling could ever accomplish. I look back sometimes and wonder where my life would have been if I had not taken this path—a path that today allows me to go forward.

It was the winter of 2006. I was 22 and returning home after a week from my best friend’s place up in Fairfield, California. Lots of merry-making and memories had commemorated his newfound career as an engineer. I, on the other hand, got fired for taking the week off after my employer denied my leave request. I didn’t care; it wasn’t the first time I lost a job. I hated my life and knew something was missing. I still lived at home with my parents. Should I have blamed them for pushing me to become better but failed to show me how? At that moment, I discovered it was up to me to feed my inner fire that was yearning for a change. Over the next few days I decided to fill that void by becoming something honorable. I joined the U.S. Marine Corps.

On Friday, January 19, 2007, I was in Military Entrance Process Station, or MEPS, taking care of all the formalities before shipping out on Monday. I remember hating the moment when a male doctor—at least I hope he was a doctor—squeezed my testicles and told me to cough. I was terrified; a memory I can never erase. All I knew at the time about the Marine Corps came from YouTube video clips and from videos my recruiter had shared with me.

My recruiter, Sergeant Edwards, was good-to-go. He was blonde; blue-eyed; stands at six-feet, three inches tall (I know this because we looked at each other eye-to-eye)—and all muscles. I mean this guy was the epitome of Captain America. The first time we met was at the recruiting station in Danville, California.

I was in Sergeant Edwards’ office when he laid out laminated and color-coded 4×4 cards with motivational words typed on each like RESPECT, TEAMWORK, and LEADERSHIP. He asked me to rank all of the cards in descending order starting with what I thought was the most important. I don’t recall what my layout was, but I remember wanting to impress him and to somehow prove I was ready for the challenge. Today, I smile when I think about it because it was all a strategy. Recruiters have a way of telling a story no matter how the cards are arranged. They just want you to join, bottom line.

I arrived at the San Diego Airport, grabbed the suitcase I really didn’t need, and walked towards the far corner to the right of the baggage claim where a group of males was congregating. I knew I was in the right area because more than a hundred men were there. Still tired from the night before, I sat on a chair next to a young black male named Terrence, a man I didn’t know then that I would never see again after that day. He said he was from San Jose—the same city I’d just flown in from. We’d boarded the same plane but hadn’t seen each other until that moment.

As more recruits poured in, I learned a few bits about Terrence’s life. I returned the favor and shared a little about myself. After we discussed why we’d joined the Marine Corps and what we knew about it, I realized I wasn’t the only one who was nervous and confused. I looked around and saw many faces trying to hide the signs of confusion—some better at this than others.

Arriving at our base in San Diego, I had my first opportunity to see what a Drill Instructor (DI) looked like. I was taller than this guy. He appeared to be of Hispanic descent, about five-feet, ten inches tall, and he walked like C-3PO from Star Wars—except his physique struck me as a bad-ass, like Bumblebee in the movie Transformers. I remember the charter buses arrived late. We’d been standing in a platoon-type formation for quite some time and I could tell the DIs were pissed. I heard them saying things like, “I don’t think those lazy fucks realize that we pay them to be on time,” and “Yeah, why the hell are these 90 year olds still driving?” At this remark one of the recruits behind me giggled, and that was the first time I saw an episode of a U.S. Marine Corps DI. Not even YouTube videos prepared me for that moment. My heart turned into a NASCAR piston and I felt like a victim of child abuse. I turned to see this poor kid, surrounded by vicious human pit-bulls, screaming at the top of his lungs with no chance to breathe.

Boot camp had commenced.

My tenure in the military would go on to become but a single atom placed in the timeline of my evolving journey in life. No human life can be summed up in just a few pages; maybe volumes of novels would suffice. And while the future in many ways has yet to unfold for me, at least my story can recount how basic training and the military changed the course of my life and shaped who I am today.

On that first day of boot camp, fear made me look forward and away from the victimized recruit. At that moment I was unsure of my decision to join. But today I know I made the best decision, and for this reason I have no fear now of looking back.

The day I set foot into a Marine Corps Recruit Depot, my life changed in an instant. Having a 6’2” 230-pound African-American drill instructor yelling in my face made me regret every thought I had about joining the Marine Corps and how badass they are. Not even a minute into my first hour I heard the one word I would hear every day throughout basic training: “SCREAM!” The drill instructor, or DI, was yelling at a fragile looking boy, and for the rest of the day we would be systematically stripped of everything in our possession to prepare us for our long journey away from home.

A few days later, we got to settle our belongings in on the third floor squad bay just before we met our drill instructors. Suddenly the front door swung open with a bang and four men in uniform came rushing in yelling, “GET ON LINE!” Half of us didn’t even know what that meant—especially me—though I soon found out after meeting my rack with my back.
After their introduction they began asking us who we were.

“What’s your name boy?” they asked the same fragile boy from before.

“Anthony Chin, Sir” the boy replied.

Like a switch the drill instructor snapped and began to yell at the boy: “RECRUIT! YOU’RE A RECRUIT! What’s your name!?”

“Recruit Chin, Sir.”

“SCREAM!” Like responding to a command, the other DIs looked around like Rottweilers ready to attack. The next thing we knew, four DIs were swarmed around the boy like a pack of wolves yelling in his ear to scream louder.

“RECRUIT CHIN, SIR!” the boy screamed at the top of his lungs with a few tears in his eyes. Then I felt the stare of those piercing eyes looking in my direction.

“What’s your name boy?” All I thought was “Fuck my life; here we go.”

About halfway through training, I noticed that the drill instructors just enjoyed messing with the recruits. By then I was already used to the environment, but still I never knew what to say to the DIs, so I usually kept to myself.

“You eyeballing me Diaz?” Calling out to me was Drill Instructor Staff Sergeant Stalking, a skinny yet intimidating man who had us believe he was infantry. Naturally my reaction was to look at him, so I did.

“No Sir!” I replied.

“Good! To the quarter deck!”

So there it was: my daily routing. “Empty out your pockets!” “Push, push, push” “Crunch, crunch, crunch” “Scream!” All of these were the drill instructors’ favorite words. Somehow I was always being subjected to intensive training—what we called being IT’d—with the same recruits.

I had the most difficulty in basic training during the second-to-last week. Because I had a previous back injury, the Crucible—a three day event with little-to-no sleep—was by far the most difficult task I have ever done. At first I thought it didn’t sound too bad, but just like every other time I have said that, something difficult always comes up. This time the difficulty would be that we had to carry a full pack with only three MREs, along with a weapon on a three-day hike full of challenges. After the first two days I was already tired and hungry, and I refused to eat the bread or cheese from the MREs.

On my last night of the Crucible with a only few hours of sleep, we were woken up around 0200 or 0300 to begin our last hike. In a rush, I packed all of my stuff and was one of the first in formation. With no moonlight and just the stars, we stepped off. I can’t remember how long we hiked for, but it felt like an eternity. We soon stopped to take a break and drink some water. The drill instructors walking around were saying, “This is it, our last hill!”

“That’s not too bad; good thing we can see in the dark,” I said sarcastically as two small red dots—tail lights—climbed slowly up the mountain. The HMMWV had been ahead of us for a while soon after my platoon began to walk up the mountain side. As we got closer to the top, I looked down the hill, but when I turned around more than half of our platoon was gone. I was then ordered to go back down and get all of our men.

Once I had found most of them, I realized I was near the bottom of the mountain. So now I had to climb the mountain once again, but this time it took me twice as long. By the time I had gotten back with the main groups, I was drenched with sweat to the point that I could see steam coming out of my clothes. The same went for everyone else. We dropped our packs to rest for a while. I took off my boots to let my feet breathe, and the DI came around handing everyone a piece of fruit. That day I had the most delicious apple in my life: a Granny Smith apple. Never again have I had such a good apple. From there we waited until the sun came up to walk back down.

Dirty, smelly, tired, and hungry, we made it down the mountain in the early morning. We staged our packs and marched to the parade deck. In formation we waited in parade rest until it was our turn to receive what we had been training for.
Everything I encountered was new because I had never read up on what I was going to go through. Yet over the weeks of training, I had become so comfortable with boot camp that I’d forgotten I was there to become a Marine.

Leaving behind the shoes I walked in with and exchanging them for military boots, I achieved my first greatest accomplishment as I received the Eagle, Globe and Anchor; and as I finally became a United States Marine.

Thumper, the security commander and lead gunner, stood through the turret of my HMMWV and leaned into his scope mounted on his M240 machine gun to scan for any other indications that we were heading into a possible improvised explosive device. Was it an IED this time? We wouldn’t take the risk of finding out the hard way, no matter how many times it turned out to be nothing. Before departing friendly lines, we would be reminded by posted signs about what happens when we fail to pay close attention. The signs posted on every entry control point read Complacency Kills. A grim reminder that people are out here to kill you if you give them the opportunity. Our battalion had sustained a number of casualties from IEDs, and every day one was found and disposed of in our area of operations.

Thumper and I had shared the same HMMWV as the lead security vehicle for Titan, our platoon, for over four months during our 2005 to 2006 deployment. Being together on so many missions, we became an extension of each other’s senses. I would know exactly how to maneuver my HMMWV to allow him the need to zero in with his M240 at possible targets. Titan had become a well lubed, synchronized machine, an essential part of the Thundering Third to carry out counter-insurgency missions in the Haditha triad. However, this is what Marines are expected to do. Praise would have to wait until everyone set foot back in the states. Almost every day for over four months, Titan would run resupply or recovery mission in our AO, about the size of Alameda County. I’d grown attached to my HMMWV; I knew exactly where everything was placed, how much ammunition we had, how to troubleshoot the radio and blue force tracker. I took pride in being the lead vehicle for our convoys even though I knew the blast and shrapnel from an IED would easily blow through the armor of my HMMWV.

“Dismount and go condition four,” Pesci, our convoy commander, relayed to the rest of the convoy as we entered friendly lines. Another mission in the books I thought to myself as I unloaded my M4 service rifle. What day was it? It really didn’t matter. Titan had been up for the last sixteen hours, and we would be back on the road tomorrow or even later today if a recovery mission was needed. I felt the cold air on the tip of my nose as I lifted my head and let out a deep breath of air so I could see the condensation from my breath. It’s the end of February 2006, finally on the last stretch of our deployment. Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years have all just passed as another day that I’m thankful that I wasn’t blown up by an IED. For the first time in my life, death has been creeping around me so closely that I feel I’m playing a juvenile game of hide and seek with it.

As my 22nd birthday approached, I couldn’t help but to count down the days until we were home. Strapping my boots up every day for the past five months with the only goal in mind of not getting killed had steered my emotions into an unfamiliar place. I couldn’t seem to find the joy in anything but the thrill of knowing that we were killing them before they were killing us. Driving through the cities, I would find myself thinking, “Somebody just shoot at us, please.” The shock I would feel in my chest from each round exiting the barrel of a .50 caliber machine gun would fill my body with the adrenaline I was craving. I needed a reason to yell out at the top of my lungs and set free everything I was bottling up inside.

My mind was conditioned to shoot targets, not people. But if necessary, I would kill to protect myself or my fellow Marines. I left my friends and family back home with the possibility of never seeing them again. Who was I doing this for? Was it worth it? I didn’t have time to contemplate. After all, I am where I volunteered to be. I asked to join this unit and to go to Iraq. I felt as if my time would go unfulfilled if I didn’t do my part while serving in a time of war. Everything leading up to this point was worth it.

By the end of March we were on our way home. Titan has sustained zero casualties. “How were we the lucky ones?” I asked myself. The roads we traveled were infested with IEDs; we had recovered dozens of trucks that were left resembling junks of twisted metal. We attended memorials of our fellow Marines in our battalion whose paths ended in a desolate road through the desert. Plain and simple, from the enemy’s point of view, Titan was at the wrong places for them, at the right time for us. Our success to elude death and inconvenience our would-be killers will forever be a mystery to me, but I can most earnestly say that by not having to experience any of my platoon members being maimed or killed, I can close this chapter in my life peacefully without any regrets.

Our deployment was so close to being over that we were now in the “left seat, right seat” part of the deployment. That means that we were handing over our base to the battalion that was replacing us for the next seven months. Half of us from Second Battalion, Eighth Marine Regiment were now on Camp Ramadi. The other half was still at Joint Security Station Nasser in the Sophia section of Ramadi, al Anbar, Iraq. They would be returning to Camp Ramadi on the 23^rd. We were so happy to have the rest of our brothers with us again. The deployment was so close to being over that we were all talking about the first things we were going to do as soon as we landed back in the United States. We could see the light at the end of the tunnel.

In 2007 Ramadi was known as the deadliest place on Earth. This was a new territory for the Marines. Only two units had been there before us. In the early months of 2008, it was a completely different place, and we were ready to hand some territory over to the Iraqi forces. Ramadi was unusually quiet the last few months of deployment, until the morning of April 22^nd.

Corporal Jonathan Yale was showing the ropes to Lance Corporal Jordan Haerter. After they received their mission brief at 0600 from the Sergeant of the Guard, they walked out to assume their post at the entrance gate of JSS Nasser. Their mission was to let no unauthorized vehicles or humans enter the post. An hour and a half after they took their position, they saw a blue water truck turn into the serpentine of concrete barriers to slow vehicles down. The truck was accelerating after every turn, the engine roaring as it made its way through the entry control point. Corporal Yale and Lance Corporal Haerter began firing their weapons at the truck as soon as they recognized it as a threat. The rounds were penetrating through the windshield, throwing shards of glass to the ground. Even as the Iraqi soldiers and police officers ran right past them away from the danger, they stood their ground, emptying their weapons as death stared them in the face. They were not going to let anything harm their brothers sleeping inside the makeshift barracks behind them. As the truck rolled to a stop, right in front of the Marines, it detonated, instantly killing Yale and Haerter.

The two Marines showed what the true definition of courage is. As others ran away from death, they stood their ground and stared death right in the eyes. No one knows exactly what was going through their minds in the six seconds it took from when the truck entered the entry control point until it detonated. What I do know is that they did not think of running and hiding. An Iraqi soldier was interviewed the day after the explosion, and with tears in his eyes he described the courage of Yale and Haerter as they stood their ground. He said to the General, “Sir, in the name of God, no sane man would have stood there and done what they did.”

It is clear that these two men were not ordinary by any means. They could have run away and possibly lived. But that is not what goes through the mind of an American hero. I am forever indebted to the sacrifice that these two men made on that day.

The trip back to America was nowhere near as joyful as I had hoped it to be as I sat on a plane with one more seat left for an Angel.

“Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

John 15:13