Injustice for all

44

At some level, I’m conscious that I’m dreaming, but my mind won’t allow me to wake up.

I jump from the door of the C-130 Hercules and tuck. The static line snaps me backward as it rips the cover off my pack and deploys the parachute. I take a quick look up at the green canopy and then look down. I’m dropping toward a narrow peninsula on an island, thousands of miles from home. An airstrip extends far out beneath me. The green ocean is beating against jagged rocks no more than thirty feet on either side of the strip.

Two hours earlier, I’d never heard of Grenada. All they told us when we left Georgia was that we were going to war.

During the long flight, they’ve given us a quick briefing. The Grenadian government has been overthrown by left- wing radicals. Russian, Cuban, and North Korean advisers have been spotted on the island. They’re completing a ten-thousand-feet-long airstrip. A military buildup is suspected. There are hundreds of Americans on Grenada, most of them students at the Grand Anse area’s True Blue campus of St. George’s University School of Medicine. President Ronald Reagan has issued an executive order. We’re going in.

Our mission is to jump from only five hundred feet above the airstrip at a place called Point Salines. We’re to neutralize any resistance and secure the airstrip so our planes can land. Once we’ve done that, we’re to evacuate the students from the medical school. They’ve told us that a small number of Delta Force operators are already on the island, along with a few Navy SEALs. A U.S. Marine amphibious force has been diverted from a mission in Lebanon and will be mounting an assault. The Air Force is sending AC-130 Spectre gunships and combat controllers. Two battalions of Rangers are going in, and fighters from the Eighty-second Airborne Division will land as soon as we clear the runway. They’ve told us that Grenada is roughly one hundred twenty square miles, but that the fighting will concentrate around a city called St. George’s. The entire country has a population of one hundred thousand. I remember shaking my head when the lieutenant said that. All this for a country with a population roughly the size of Knoxville?

I’m only twenty-one, and despite having been through Ranger school and feeling bulletproof, as soon as the sound of machine gun fire below reaches my ears, I feel fear welling in my stomach. Ten seconds later I hit the tarmac, roll, shed my chute, unstrap my weapon from my ruck, and make for a rally point just east of the airstrip.

I dive behind a berm as small arms and machine gun fire whizzes by overhead and kicks up sand near my feet. The steady thump of antiaircraft fire echoes off the hills beyond the airstrip. I belly crawl to the edge of the berm and shoulder my weapon. Other Rangers are running and yelling around me. I look for a target and am just about to fire when something falls on my back, nearly knocking the wind out of me. It’s a fellow Ranger. I push him off me, and when he rolls, I see that his face has been blown off. I scream, stand up, start firing, and run straight toward the enemy.

“Joe! Joe! Wake up! Joe!”

I open my eyes. Caroline is sitting up, shaking my shoulder.

“You’re screaming. Are you all right?”

I shake my head in disbelief. It seemed so real. “Yeah, baby, I’m fine. I guess it was just a nightmare.”

“ Just a nightmare? You’re soaking wet.”

I sit up on the edge of the bed as Caroline rubs my back.

“Why don’t you go dry off and come back to bed?” she says.

I look at the clock. Almost four in the morning. I stand up and walk around the bed to Caroline’s side. I tuck the comforter in around her and kiss her on the forehead.

“Go on back to sleep,” I say. “I think I’ll just stay awake.”

I walk out to the couch, turn on the television, and try not to think about the dream. But it won’t go away. A year after I jumped into Grenada, I learned that the U.S. State Department had issued a warning to the Grenadian government that we were coming. They, in turn, told the Russians and the North Koreans, who immediately left the island. All that was left were a few Cuban engineers and the People’s Defense Force, but they were armed to the teeth, and they were waiting for us.

That was the day I knew I would leave the army, and that was the day I knew I’d never trust my own government again.