Brass & Unity, page 6
“Funny, guys. You’re hilarious. Now help me out of here.”
A prank in the military means acceptance, so I’m weirdly flattered. Annoyed, but it could be worse. At least I got some sleep. What we learn here at the giant training base in rural Alberta will go a long way toward keeping us alive when we deploy. It’s heavy stuff, so laughter is appreciated from time to time.
When the opportunity arises, I text Brady—we’ve been exchanging messages back and forth since the night we met—to tell him the story. He sends me a lol and says be careful. This playful text relationship we have going is a very welcome distraction.
Flirt
A long-distance relationship is a great idea for you, Kelsi.
A chance to put yourself out there, make yourself vulnerable, and then have your heart broken.
I like it.
Me and another guy are with the guns, behind the trucks, on convoy to a new location for our course. We see a huge cloud of smoke billowing out of one of the trucks ahead of us. A voice comes over the radio, “QRF pour troupe A!”
That’s me.
Grabbing my C7, I fasten my helmet and jump out of the truck to wait for my sergeant. He runs over. “Look out for anyone in the fields alongside us. The Taliban can be watching from there. If there’s an IED—improvised explosive device—ahead, and it blows someone up, they’ll film it and use it for propaganda.”
“Disgusting.”
“They’re monsters, Burns.”
“Makes me want to fight them and protect my guys even more.”
Scanning the wide-open fields through my scope, I look for anyone with a radio, a cell phone, or some other sort of trigger device. Nothing. Walking to the rest of my team, I stop when a rope tied to a bush catches my gaze. Moving casually, careful not to arouse suspicion, I approach the rope. Someone could be watching me—someone with a trigger device.
“Ne bouge pas!” I whisper-yell to the guys ahead of me. Don’t move.
They hear me and freeze.
When I finally reach them, a nod of my head toward the suspicious rope gets their attention.
Sergeant sees it now, too.
We get down good and low, crouching down through the frozen field, following the rope. It leads us out several meters, and there, at end of the rope, is a radio and an actor playing the enemy.
“Well done, Burns,” says the sergeant. “You just spotted a secondary device.”
“What does that mean?”
“The enemy set off the first device to mimic an explosion. Then, like fucking predators, they wait in the field like this, until a group rushes in to help the victims; then they use a secondary device to take out everyone.”
“That’s awful.”
“These people are heartless, and they don’t care about human life. Tactics like this are commonly used by the Taliban. If this were a real war situation, you would have saved your unit and helped to neutralize the enemy.”
My training is making me sharp, and I’m getting more excited about deployment as the days go on. I am, however, aware that people on the other side of the world are training right now to take me out. This is just reality, and one that I’m coming to terms with. I have to trust my unit. I have to trust my country. But for some reason, when I fall asleep in my bunk during these training days, I keep waking up to the same memory. It’s not one a want to relive, but it’s one that keeps coming back.
***
The memory always starts the same way. My arms extend over my head in a big stretch, and I roll over and check the time on my alarm clock: 7:15 a.m.? Oh, no! I slept in.
I push the covers off myself and jump out of bed, bursting out my bedroom door. “Mom! Why did you let me sleep so late?”
I race to the kitchen and find Mom and Dad sitting at the table, drinking coffee. “Kelsi—” Mom starts to get up when she sees me. “I made pancakes.”
“What’s going on? Why did you let me sleep? I can’t make it to the Olympics if I miss Tae Kwon Do practice!”
“No Tae Kwon Do today.” Dad takes a sip of coffee.
“Why not? You wouldn’t let me go last night, either!”
“Don’t worry about why. You’re not going, and that’s that.” Dad gets up from the table to pour more coffee.
“Why do you hate me?” I scream. “Why are you keeping me from the only thing in my life that matters?”
Without saying a word, Dad leaves the room.
“Your father can’t talk about this right now,” Mom says quietly. “He’s too angry.”
“What’s going on? Something’s wrong.”
Mom takes a deep breath. “Sit down, Kelsi.”
My stomach does flip-flops as I sit down next to my mother. She’s quiet for a minute. “There are rumors going around town.”
“And? What does that have to do with me?”
“They involve your coach.”
“What did he do?”
Mom sighs heavily and tucks a strand of wavy blonde hair behind her ear. “Kelsi, your coach is having a relationship with your training partner.”
It feels like I’ve been punched in the stomach. “So? He has a relationship with me too.”
“An adult relationship, Kelsi.”
“You mean he had sex with her?”
Mom lets out a deep sigh and nods.
“Gross. That can’t be true. She’s fourteen!”
“I’m sorry, Kelsi. It is true.”
“You just said it’s a rumor. He’s the one person in the world that I trust with my life and my whole, entire future.”
“I know he’s your idol, but a lot of things are starting to make sense all of a sudden, with his behavior. You’re too young to understand, but just know that your father and I are making this decision to keep you safe.”
I push my chair away from the table and yell, “It’s not true. This is bullshit!”
“Kelsi, we’re doing this to protect you. You can train elsewhere.”
“I don’t want to train somewhere else! He’s ruined everything for me. I’ll never trust anyone again.”
Fall 2008
It’s our final training exercise, and I’m completely exhausted. Showering and sleeping are luxuries here, and the temperature sends chills through my bones. I’m dressed in my full winter kit, and I’m like a human marshmallow.
Sergeant barks orders as we’re each given five live rounds before our next mock operation, or “op,” starts. “This is as real as it gets before you go to war. Always remember that right now in Afghanistan, members of the Taliban are coming up with new ways to kill you.”
Despite the cold, I feel myself start to sweat as the sergeant continues. “The other units have live rounds too. Fire in one direction so you don’t accidentally kill each other. Your goal is to hit them, not us.”
He marches down the line and stops in front of me. “Always be one step ahead of the enemy. Think like them and anticipate what they’re doing, just like we did with that IED earlier. Don’t give the enemy the benefit of the doubt ever. They will kill you if you don’t kill them first.”
He runs his finger down the row. “Remember, the life of your entire unit is in your hands. If one person messes up, someone could actually die.”
It’s the first true test of how we will cope overseas, and it is intense.
Griffins fly overhead, shooting live rounds out the side doors. Hot brass falls all over us, and smoke bombs are going off everywhere.
Live armored rounds scream through the air. The order comes: “RUN!”
Smoke hangs so heavy in the air that I can barely see in front of me, and the smell of gunpowder swirls in my nostrils. The live fire is loud enough that I can’t think, and I’m completely disoriented. In Afghanistan, the enemy will be shooting at us and trying to blow us up with IEDs from underfoot. Will there be any place at all that’s safe?
I follow my unit, moving when they move, stopping when they stop, running when they run, and we work together so we don’t die, dodging bullets as we race along the frozen Alberta ground. The only thing that makes us remember we aren’t actually in Afghanistan is the fact that we can see our breath.
Fear
Is that what I smell?
Are you afraid?
You think it’s disorienting now?
Ha, ha, ha. Just you wait.
You’re not cut out for war.
Did you ever really think you could do something like this?
Look at yourself.
You’re a child.
The guns are bigger than you are.
Nobody is EVER going to take you seriously.
And that makes them smarter than you.
Texas, January 2009
Sweat drops into my eyes. It’s so hot out here in the middle of the Texas desert.
For the most part, this landscape is the same as what we will see in Afghanistan. The sun is blisteringly hot, spreading across the wide-open spaces, and I wonder where we will take cover from the enemy. I close my eyes and imagine myself there. I’ve learned about the vile, heartless things the Taliban do to innocent women, children, and civilians. The mere thought of them puts a sour taste in my mouth and makes me want to go there right now and fight to bring peace to that country.
The climate here is similar to where we’re deploying, and I want to figure out how to cope in the hot sun and arid desert. My mouth is dry, my throat is parched, and the six to seven liters of water a day that I’m drinking never seems like enough. We’re out here on the range for days at a time, like we could be in Afghanistan, and I’m told even the muted colors of this base are the same as we’ll see there.
Hearing movement, I scan the ground. As a person who has to squat to pee outdoors, the fact that poisonous snakes roam freely here and can literally bite you in the ass is rather terrifying. In my imagination, snakes have been slithering up into my bunk bed, hiding in my sleeping bag, and I’m now more afraid of snakes than of the Taliban.
Despite the snakes, overall I’m enjoying this training in Texas because we get to fire the big guns. Shooting ranges are a great way to burn off steam, and there’s something delightful about the deafening boom of a 155mm round sailing out of an M777 through the air and cracking like thunder over the canyons. It’s thrilling to have so much power at my fingertips, especially when after a minute or two we hear, “Target confirmed. Successful hit.”
So satisfying.
Each gun troop has two guns at all times—there is never one alone, so it makes for fun competition during the exercise. We each have to get ten rounds down the range, so we make it a race. Both units have unloaded ten rounds and prepped all the fuses to make sure we’ll be as quick as possible. Once everyone is in position, we wait for the call.
“Fire mission!” comes over the speaker, and it’s go time.
We race to our positions on the guns, with me on the breach. Our first round flies downrange, but our troop is falling behind. My ears ring and I can’t hear a thing, rounds fly, the ground shakes, and I’m loving every minute of it, watching this machine toss hundred-pound rounds of ammunition around like toothpicks. Thankfully, we’re catching up.
Regardless of the damage this gun can do, I love its sheer force. I don’t let myself think too much about who it could be landing on when we’re in Afghanistan, but we’re being trained to hit targets, not people. And our job as artillery is to protect our infantry that are on dangerous missions outside of the wire. Protecting my fellow soldiers is always most important to me.
We finish the fire mission, pack it in, and head back to base for chow. We barrel for the food line, but then there’s an announcement: “Everyone must wash their hands before and after dinner, because people are ill with gastro.”
We abandon our trays and head to the washroom, muttering about the news.
“Gastroenteritis.” One of the women holds open the door.
“So, stomach flu?”
“Worse. Happened a while back. Someone was sick, didn’t wash their hands, and infectious diarrhea spread through the entire base.”
Appetizing.
When the taps are turned on, there’s no running water. “How the hell is this even allowed?”
She leans over to me. “Welcome to the U.S. military, where we barely get paid, and we don’t get clean running water either!”
“Sorry.”
I feel bad for her. Apparently, this is the norm for her. We have it good in Canada.
Quebec, January 2009
My eyelids flutter open and adjust to the bright light. I move my hand along my arm to scratch an itch, and my fingers land on a needle. The wrenching pain in my stomach is agonizing, and my eyes follow the line to the IV and watch the drip. How did I get here?
When I hear the familiar voices of Bine and Jen in the distance, I call out weakly, “What’s going on?”
“You caught that gastro bug that was going around the base in Texas, Kels,” Bine says.
The doctor lays down his chart. “We’re admitting you for a couple of days. You’re severely dehydrated.”
No. I turn to the doctor. “Next week I fly to Cuba with the rest of my unit before our deployment.”
“You’ll be on IV for at least a couple of days.” Jen translates. “Let’s worry about getting you healthy before we think about Cuba.”
On my third day, I feel well enough to shower and manage to keep down some clear broth. Now that I’m not quite as tired, I’m bored and realize nobody has come to see me since I was admitted. I check my phone and feel a surge in my belly that is not the flu when I see that Brady messaged me: Haven’t heard from you in a while. Everything ok? It feels good to be thought of. I type back a message: I died from stomach flu. Was nice knowing you.
That same afternoon, my sergeant and warrant officer walk into my room, startling me. I sit up in bed and prop myself up on my pillows. “What the hell happened to you, Burns?” Sergeant demands.
“No one told you?”
“Your friends told us when we asked if anyone had heard from you, but you’re supposed to let us know where you are at all times.” I never thought to check in with anyone at the regiment. I’m basically AWOL!
“It’s a severe stomach flu. I’ve been on IV for almost a week.”
“That’s why you haven’t been to work? You have the flu?”
“I have infectious diarrhea, I’m contagious, and I can’t leave until I’m told to leave.”
“Follow doctor’s orders, Burns.” Suddenly he isn’t so angry that I haven’t shown up for work.
Family
How does it feel knowing that nobody cares
about you?
Remember that day at the recruitment center when you were told that joining the army would help you to form friendships and bonds with the people you serve with?
I can’t believe you fell for that.
You’re just a number. Nothing more.
FIVE
Sink or Swim
March 2009
The waves bash into the sides of the pier and drench me. I snap one more photo and then wipe off the salt water, stepping away from the pier and the ocean’s edge. This is the last picture I wanted to take of this trip. Cuba is gorgeous and has been a dream. I always wanted to get out of my small town and see the world, and the next destination will be Afghanistan. I can’t wait.
My foot almost slips on the cold, slippery concrete, and I walk slowly toward the beach. After surviving a gastro infection, I don’t need a twisted ankle to prevent me from deploying.
As I move my foot, a massive wave hits me from behind, knocks the wind out of me, and throws me into the water. I hold on to my camera and glasses, then cover my head while the surf tosses me back and forth, sucks me down, and pushes me back up.
The ocean bounces me around like a piece of driftwood, and I claw my way toward the pier. I may be small, but I’m a fighter, and I roll with each surge to gain momentum and work with its force. With every stroke, I’m closer to where I fell in; but just as I’m in range, I get hemmed in between some rocks and have to push off.
A wave grabs ahold of me and tugs me under. I try to steal a breath whenever I surface, but I pull in more water than air. Every fight to the top leads me to another surge that pulls me back under. I’m in big trouble.
My legs grow stiff, and I feel myself sinking down into muted gray-blue. Yes, my life has been tough, but I’ve always proven stronger, smarter, and braver. I have beaten everyone in basic at their challenges, defied everyone in the unit who had tried to hold me back, and now I’m on my way to war. I just have to get back to the beach, and I can have everything I always wanted. I can’t give up.
I kick my legs hard, pushing water out of my lungs as I surface. I dive before a wave takes me under, trying to bob with it, working my way back to shore again. This is where my push-ups and the hours of hard training have come in. I have stamina and endurance, and I can beat this.
From out of nowhere, another wave grabs ahold of me and thrashes me about. All of my efforts drift away as I’m pushed farther from the pier. I never should have come this far out on my own. What was I thinking? But no one wanted to join me. They sat around drinking beer and laughed at me for taking more photos.
I keep swimming against the churning waves, hoping that someone will throw me a lifeline. Someone has to have seen me from shore and called for help by now.
My lungs burn, along with my arms, and dread seeps in. “Help,” I call out, but more water gushes into my nose and mouth. Each time a wave pops me up, I grab wildly at the salty air, but nothing holds me.
I’m going to die. I attack the surge just like I fought everything my entire life, but the waves are bigger than me. I start to cough in more water, and suddenly the roar is around me. I see my dad’s soft eyes and reach out toward him, but my arm lifts up and bobs in a swell. Why now when I was just starting my own path? I was meant for more than this. My mom’s voice pushes through the noise: “Don’t quit,” and I try to surface, but my legs feel like concrete, and everything becomes a blur.
