The Fifth Act, page 17
Beneath that flag, located in the center of Memorial Hall, is a list of names inside a glass case: the Naval Academy graduates killed in America’s wars. Josh and I have several shared friends listed among them, to include J. P. Blecksmith, who was in the same class in Quantico as Chris Richardella and me. He was killed on a rooftop in Fallujah, in 2004. Also on this list is Megan McClung, the first female academy graduate killed in combat. She was engaged to a friend of mine when she died, in 2006. Among these names, the one that figures most prominently to us is Doug Zembiec. Doug is the reason we’re friends.
I met Doug in 2002. He was second-in-command of the Amphibious Reconnaissance School when I was a student there. Two weeks after starting the grueling course, my classmates and I were given a night off. We went to a restaurant nearby, in Virginia Beach, where we spotted Captain Zembiec and his then-girlfriend, later wife, Pam, having dinner. We ordered them each a drink, on us. A few minutes later, as they were leaving the restaurant, Doug came to our table with a waiter in tow. A half dozen of us sat at the table and the waiter carried the same number of Jäger shots on a tray, plus one extra. Doug snatched the extra shot, held it aloft, and said some things about us training to be among the fiercest warriors in the world, about us slaying America’s enemies, and that the luckiest and most honorable of us would all meet in Valhalla one day. (I would come to learn this was typical Doug-speak.) And then, in a way that would be utterly obnoxious if it wasn’t coming from him, he raised the glass just a little higher and said, “Marine Reconnaissance, men want to be us and women want to be with us!” and we all drank. Love him or hate him, that was Doug. (I loved him.)
Josh’s story of how he met Doug was, actually, more colorful, and even more quintessentially Doug. It was two years later, in Fallujah, and Josh was a young lieutenant leading a heavy machine-gun platoon mounted in Humvees. His platoon of about forty Marines was assigned to help Doug’s dismounted company of more than one hundred enter a heavily contested neighborhood. It was the middle of the night when the two linked up on the side of the road. Josh was sitting in the front passenger seat of his Humvee when Doug approached with a map and flashlight. Doug explained how he wanted Josh to take point for his company as they advanced. After Doug laid out his plan, Josh said, “No problem, sir. If you want to hang in the back, I’m happy to lead your company for you.”
Doug, who’d been an All-American wrestler at Navy, didn’t appreciate Josh’s insubordinate remark. He made a quick and casual threat of physical violence, along the lines of dragging Josh out of his Humvee and pounding some sense into him. The young lance corporal driving Josh’s truck promptly confronted Doug. “Sir,” he said, leaning over his steering wheel, “if you want to fight our lieutenant, you’re going to have to fight all of us.”
This stopped Doug in his tracks. “What’s that?”
The lance corporal repeated the platoon’s position.
“Are you saying if I lay a hand on your lieutenant, you’re going to fight me, a captain of Marines?”
“Yes, sir,” said Josh’s driver. “You touch him, you fight all of us.”
Doug considered Josh for another moment, as if looking at him for the first time. He was impressed. “What’d you say your name was again, lieutenant?”
Josh repeated his name.
“Okay,” said Doug. “I’m going to remember that. And I’m Zembiec, like beck, not Zem-biack. If you’re alive after this, I’m going to find you. We’re going to be friends.” Josh then took point for Doug’s company, leading them into Fallujah. And Doug kept his word, finding Josh after the battle. From then on, he took a special interest in Josh, in much the same way he took a special interest in me, which Josh and I both knew because Doug later made a point of introducing us.
Like I said, he’s the reason we’re friends.
I met Doug in 2002.
Josh met him in 2004.
Doug was killed in Baghdad, shot in the face on a raid with a group of CIA-sponsored Iraqi commandos, in 2007. This wasn’t a lot of time. Today, he’s buried in Arlington, just a few plots away from Tubes.
As we’re standing by the list that contains Doug’s name, a man, perhaps a little younger than us, with what appears to be his young wife, or his girlfriend, begins to read from the list. It doesn’t take long before he comes to Doug. “This guy, Zem-biack, now he was a legend. I’ve heard about him. He was a wrestler here, an All-American. The ‘Lion of Fallujah,’ that’s what the Marines called him.”
Each year, the Corps gives a leadership trophy named in Doug’s honor.
Josh and I step away, until we’re out of earshot. “That’s pretty funny,” he says. “You know Doug’s up in Valhalla, laughing his ass off that we’re down here having to overhear people talk about what a legend he was.”
Josh is right. The Doug who brought us shots of Jäger in Virginia Beach, who threatened to fight Josh in Fallujah, who was messy and obnoxious and a true believer and a true friend, would have found it fitting that we lived and he died in battle and that the world is still telling stories about him as we simply get older. In the days after Doug was killed, when the pain around the loss was acute, many of us who’d been his friends found some solace in believing that Doug likely would’ve been okay with dying the way that he did, on a raid, in a desperate exchange of gunfire, leading a group of commandos. The more time that’s passed, the more I’ve wondered if this was actually true. Would he have been okay knowing that he’d never get to see his daughter grow up? Or that he had to leave behind his wife? Or that his parents would outlive him? I want to believe what Josh says, that Doug is looking down at us from Valhalla (or wherever he is) and laughing. I want to believe that, in the end, the time you have means less than what you do with it or how you’re remembered; it’s pretty to think so.
Soon it’s lunchtime and the boys are hungry. We walk them off the academy grounds, to a burger place on the Annapolis waterfront. The game starts in a couple of hours. Alumni and boosters tether their boats to the marina. Their turned-up stereos only add to the celebratory air. Not long after we settle at our table and order our meal, my phone rings. It’s Admiral Mullen, so I take it. Given the music blaring in the background, he asks where I am. I explain that I’m at his alma mater to watch Navy beat Air Force. He’s at home, in Pennsylvania, and adds that from what he’s heard about the season so far, it’s likely going to be the other way around. He’s checking in to see whether there’s been any progress on Aziz’s flight. When we last spoke, the State Department’s new requirement on passports was preventing Aziz’s departure. A contact of mine—a former special forces soldier turned McKinsey consultant—is hopeful that he can get the State Department to waive this requirement for Aziz’s family, but we’re still awaiting confirmation. This is what I pass along to the admiral. He asks me to keep him posted and we hang up.
“It’s pretty fucked up that not even Mullen can get people out,” says Josh.
To which I agree.
“Do you think you’re going to get this guy out?”
“I don’t know.”
“I hope that you do.”
I tell Josh that the prospect of having to leave people like Aziz behind has dredged up a lot of old memories, specifically about Tubes. And about Momez. Josh understands. He has a story of his own, one that in certain ways parallels my story in Shewan. A year after Tubes was killed, Josh’s team of Marines was advising the same battalion of Afghan commandos that I’d advised, performing this mission alongside the very same team of special forces soldiers that I’d worked with. Toward the end of his deployment—on the mission before he was wounded in the leg—he’d planned a helicopter raid into a remote part of northwestern Afghanistan known for the type of poppy cultivation that was funding the Taliban insurgency. This mission, which was cosponsored by the Drug Enforcement Agency, and which even had a former Marine turned DEA agent participating, had flown in three helicopters to a village deep inside Taliban-held territory.
After landing, the raid force had met sporadic resistance but was able to destroy a vast quantity of opium and seize key figures in both the insurgency and the drug trade. With their objectives met, Josh had called in the helicopters to exfiltrate them. The village was in a canyon, built against a sheer cliff face. The landing zone was tight, requiring the helicopters to touch down facing the cliff face. As the helicopters landed, their rotors would kick up blinding swirls of dust. So the pilots knew that they would have to make a blind, ninety-degree turn on takeoff before ascending above the dust cloud and out of the canyon. They successfully performed the maneuver when they inserted the raid force. Then, on exfiltration, one of the pilots had landed slightly askew. When he took off with his portion of the raid force and turned ninety degrees, he was still partially facing the cliff. His helicopter crashed. Josh had been in a different helicopter and ordered the raid force to turn around. They landed on the valley floor.
They had a number of wounded, a number of dead, and the remaining Taliban were consolidating to launch a counterattack. For hours, they fought at the crash site. Eventually, Josh was able to get his wounded evacuated. But they couldn’t get out the dead, which totaled ten, including the pilots, one of the special forces soldiers who was a mutual friend of ours, and the lead DEA agent. They were low on water, low on food, and low on ammunition. Then, after the better part of a day, a contingent of US Air Force pararescue men finally arrived; pararescue men, with their specialized training and equipment, are world-renowned experts in personnel recovery. After a quick survey of the scene, the pararescue men determined that, given the violence of the crash as well as the continued threat posed by the Taliban, a recovery of the bodies wasn’t viable. They advised that Josh and the remainder of his force should leave. The pararescue men made some comments about calling in an air strike to incinerate the wreckage, and that this was the best outcome they could hope for. Josh refused. The pararescue men then flew out on the helicopters they came in on. A few hours later, and still without a plan, Josh heard that a contingent of US Army Rangers in the area had volunteered to help. They flew in on helicopters of their own, and despite having no formal training in personnel recovery, the Rangers (many of them not much older than twenty) got to work. Several hours later, they’d managed to extract the remaining bodies from the wreckage.
Josh could’ve left, but he didn’t; I know this about him.
And so I also know that he hasn’t had to live with the questions I’ve asked after leaving someone behind, in the way we’d left Momez behind in Shewan. Which leads me to wonder whether he understands a certain fear I’ve been holding on to, how I’m afraid that this botched withdrawal from Afghanistan is only going to leave me, and others like me, saddled with another set of regrets. Or questions. Of what should’ve or could’ve happened.
We’ve eaten our lunch. The boys are getting restless. Weston tugs at Josh and asks how much longer until the football game. Josh checks his watch; it’s time. We pay the check and head toward the stadium. When we arrive outside, the parking lot is filled with tailgaters, filled with class reunions, and filled with midshipmen enjoying a precious day off. Like me, Josh doesn’t come from a military family. He’s a native of Dallas and has told me how isolated he felt at Annapolis, particularly during his early years, when he feared he might have made a mistake. I asked him once why he came to the academy and joined the Marine Corps. His answer was simple: “I read a book.” That book, James Webb’s Fields of Fire, is about a Marine rifle platoon in Vietnam. It’s led by Second Lieutenant Robert E. Lee Hodges, who in many ways is a stand-in for Webb, an academy graduate himself who fought in Vietnam, was decorated, and went on to serve as secretary of the navy and a senator from Virginia. Josh added, “At eighteen, I wanted to be Hodges.”
Standing outside the stadium, crammed shoulder to shoulder with today’s midshipmen, I wonder if any of them want to be us, or at least the younger versions of us. When Josh offered to get these tickets, the Afghan withdrawal hadn’t yet occurred. I doubt we would’ve come had we known that we wouldn’t be marking the twenty-year anniversary of 9/11 so much as acknowledging our recent, unconditional defeat at the hands of the Taliban.
We find our seats.
A display of fighter jets flies low overhead.
Navy SEALs parachute from the sky, landing on the fifty-yard line.
The Brigade of Midshipmen marches through the stadium tunnel, clad in white, nearly four thousand strong, with the fluted guidons of their respective companies—A, B, C, D, and so forth—fluttering at the front right of each column. An announcer gives the names and hometowns of the brigade leadership as they take the field. Applause echoes through the stadium. A brass band plays the national anthem. Our boys are wide-eyed, standing on their seats, hands over their hearts.
I find myself again thinking about Hodges. About Josh. About the midshipmen. Our boys might want to be like the midshipmen, but I doubt the midshipmen want to be like us, particularly on this day. I can’t blame them. Who wants to be at the end of a thing—particularly something that’s gone as poorly as a lost war? No, we prefer beginnings.
Kickoff, and the game begins.
Yards are gained. Yards are lost. In no time at all, the admiral is proven correct, and the midshipmen fall several touchdowns behind the Air Force cadets. The boys are disappointed. Their wondrous, wide-eyed stares have narrowed to slits. Aren’t the midshipmen always supposed to win? Isn’t Navy the best? Doesn’t it beat Air Force and Army? Doesn’t it beat everyone?
We explain. Some years are better than others.
Not long after the half, we decide to beat traffic and leave early. Exhausted from the big day they’ve had, the two little boys stagger across the parking lot toward the car like a couple of drunken sailors. They’re already falling asleep as we seat-belt them into the back. I see that I have a few missed text messages. My contact who is working Aziz’s case, the special forces soldier turned McKinsey consultant, writes, We really need help pushing the State Department to engage with us. They aren’t answering phones or emails. It’s absurd. We can’t sustain ground operations that much longer.
Then, on a separate thread, I have a message from Aziz, who writes, When I’m receiving message from you it gives me hope to live, sir. I hear about the Qatar plane in Mazar.
I show both messages to Josh. He asks, “What’s the Qatar plane in Mazar?”
I explain that it’s a privately funded flight slated to land in Qatar, but that the State Department won’t clear the manifest. Only days ago, US Central Command was clearing the manifests, but now that the war has ended—or at least entered another act—the State Department has taken over this responsibility, and any manifest that Central Command had authorized before now has to be re-cleared by State, and State is using a different set of criteria than the US military.
We’re driving back toward Washington as I continue to recount to Josh the ins and outs of this bureaucratic web that has ensnared Aziz and his family. I don’t know Aziz. I’ve never met him. He’s just a guy who leaves me voice notes asking for help that I’m unable to give. A certain degree of emotion must be coming through my voice because Josh interjects, saying, “I get it. It’s frustrating. But you’re doing all you can.” I glance over at him in the passenger seat.
Yes, I want to help Aziz. But I also want to protect myself. I don’t want to have the conversation in which we tell Aziz that we have to give up, that the money’s run out, that he and his family are on their own. I don’t want to have to live with that. And Josh doesn’t know what it’s like to live with those types of regrets. When he was confronted with leaving someone behind, he’d refused. Despite the wounds he lives with, he hasn’t had to live with that type of second-guessing.
I tell him this.
He listens patiently, allowing me to finish. Then he says, “There were originally supposed to be four helicopters on that mission. Did you know that?”
I shake my head; no, I didn’t know that.
“One of the four had a mechanical issue right before we left. We had to enact our bump plan, going from four helicopters to three. We’d been planning this raid for weeks. The guys who got left back at base were pretty upset at the time. Some of them were upset with me because they felt I should have bumped the DEA agents off the mission. They didn’t have the same tactical experience as us. But the lead agent, Mike, he’d served in the Marines. He and his guys had worked hard on developing this mission, and I felt they’d earned the right to come.”
But Josh wasn’t responsible for the helicopter crash. It wasn’t a decision he’d made that caused that tragedy. He hears me out but disagrees.
“When I chose to keep Mike on the mission,” he says, “and when we went from four helicopters down to three, it meant I placed Mike in what had been my seat. I was supposed to have been on that helicopter that crashed.”
I apologize to Josh.
Specifically, I apologize for not understanding that he was experiencing America’s end in Afghanistan in much the same way that I was, that each of us carries the weight of certain regrets, that we hide these old wounds. Until we can’t. He neither accepts nor refuses my apology. It sits between us in the car for a moment. Then he says, “Do you know what Mike’s full name was?”
I don’t.
“Special Agent Michael Weston.” He turns toward the back seat, where his son, Weston, lies sleeping next to mine. “Someday,” Josh says, “he’ll understand what his name means.”
EPILOGUE
A refugee camp, Doha, Qatar
A video arrives sometime in the night. It is from Aziz. I’d known the day before that he and his family had been manifested on a flight. But they had been manifested on many flights. And I’d often stayed up late, only to be disappointed when they didn’t take off. I had quit staying up late, and so am asleep when this video arrives.
