Trauma

CHAPTER 17

David Hoffman carried two drinks over to the table where Adam Bryant sat waiting. The young veteran had called unexpectedly and invited him to coffee in Hopkinton, so David, worried that Adam could easily return to his shell, canceled his plans with Gabby and Emma. David didn’t like to disappoint Gabby, but he’d bring her to the children’s museum some other day.

“You take it black, right?” David said, setting down a steaming mug.

Adam took a sip in response.

“Usually, I drink tea these days, the chosen beverage of the Afghan people, but for whatever reason I’m in the mood for a good cup of joe.”

David had shown up fifteen minutes early and found Adam already there, his jean jacket and faded T-shirt fitting the coffee shop’s bohemian vibe. Adam’s darting eyes and alert posture told David he’d chosen their seats deliberately, with the best sight lines and quick access to the exit. Adam’s training and caution had kept him alive during the war. His body might be thousands of miles from Afghan soil, but certain instincts remained.

David settled in his comfy chair with his espresso. Compared to the stuff they served in the Middle East, this coffee tasted like water.

He’d thought he had a shot at a Reuters job that would send him to Saudi Arabia, but evidently his reputation still preceded him. David knew he would get back in those good graces eventually, so the setback was not overly discouraging. Besides, his story on PTSD was too important to rush. He wanted to tell it right, and Adam’s perspective would help.

“I’m glad you called,” David said. “I didn’t think you would.”

“Yeah,” Adam replied. “I wasn’t sure myself. Figured the least I owed you was an apology.”

“You don’t owe me anything, Adam. I just want to get your story out there. If you’re willing to share.”

Adam inspected David’s face. “Nose looks pretty good,” he said. “Look, I’m really sorry I lost my cool.”

“I was pushy. I asked for it.”

Adam didn’t disagree.

“Do you mind if I take notes?” David asked.

“No, man, you gotta get it right.”

David took out his pad and pen. “So how do you want to begin?”

“I’m not sure. Hard to say what got me all screwed up.”

“You mean there wasn’t a specific incident?”

The corners of Adam’s mouth ticked up a couple degrees into the hint of a smile. “It was all a specific incident, man.”

“Start wherever you’d like, whatever feels natural.” David acted as if they had all the time in the world.

If Adam had been privy to the terse conversation David had had with Anneke on his drive to Hopkinton, he would know that was not the case. She continued to hound David for the story, and he continued to come up with appropriate delay tactics. So far he had interviewed the two other vets he’d mentioned to Anneke, spoken with an administrator at Walter Reed, networked with a retired brigadier general, and read several books on PTSD that covered everything from science to sociology. The books were enlightening, but they could not adequately convey the depth of pain David saw in Adam’s eyes.

Adam seemed lost for words.

“What was it like for you over there?” David said. “How about describing a typical day.”

Adam thought. “Well, I guess on a typical day you’d do PT from zero five thirty, and it could go until the CO wanted to puke. Most of the time it was just an hour, though. PT, that’s physical training.”

“Got the reference, but thanks.”

Adam said, “Then it’s SSS — that’s shower, shit, shave — before breakfast. Just the normal stuff. A lot of time it was real quiet. You know? Funny, because the quiet was the toughest part. It gave you time and space to think about stuff, home, all the things you missed, but mostly you focused on your friend who got blown up the other day. You had time to think that you were going out on patrol soon enough and maybe you’d get ‘blowed up’ yourself.” Adam put the words “blowed up” inside air quotes.

“Basically, that was the life. It was patrol and post,” he continued. “We’d go out four or five hours in the morning, come back and eat something, then back on patrol, and then you’d have dinner and maybe do another patrol after that. Or sometimes you go out on patrol and some T-man is shooting your ass up. Or sometimes you didn’t come back.”

David guessed “T-man” meant Taliban. He would check later, as he did not want to interrupt Adam’s flow.

“You can come back from patrol so racked up,” Adam said. “Good luck getting any sleep. And then before you know it, you got PT all over again. And then boom — you’re back on patrol, same as the day before. It’s Groundhog Day over there.”

“Even the firefights?”

“Yeah, well that’s the only break in the routine, but on a COP even that becomes routine. You know?”

David nodded as he jotted down the word “COP” in his notebook, something else to look up. “Can you tell me about one of the patrols where things did not go well?”

Watching Adam, David was reminded of friends who had embedded with U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and got shot at, or navigated an IED (or worse, did not), and who all came back haunted. David did not believe in ghosts, and his religious views bordered on agnostic, but those who came back often seemed burdened by a malevolent spirit that would not let them find peace.

Adam’s expression shifted, like a shadow that crossed his face, as he seemed to settle on a particularly unpleasant memory.

“On my last tour we set up a COP in an abandoned school.” Adam’s voice turned softer. “A COP is combat outpost, in case you were wondering.”

David made a note next to the abbreviation in his notebook.

“We were sleeping on cots with our guns and packs tossed around like a bunch of school kids on a camping trip,” Adam said. “The air there never circulated. It was so damn hot at night it was like sleeping in a sauna. The only breeze you’d catch is if the guy next to you cut wind. But you know the drill, right?”

“Patrol and post,” David said.

Adam looked pleased. “So I’m on patrol. The day before, we had some T-men shooting at us, and some kids from the village said they knew where they were. For ten bucks and a few Twix bars you can get all sorts of good intel from the locals. We took two fire teams out on a hunting expedition. We got an AK, RPK, RPG, lots of firepower with us. Going to get us some T-men.”

Adam’s leg began to bounce, fast enough to shake the table. David kept his eyes on Adam while he silently moved their drinks to an adjacent table to avoid a spill.

“So we’re following these kids on some shitty nothing road.” Adam’s voice gained energy with the telling. “Moving west to east. The whole time I’m looking for upturned dirt. You see, predeployment training teaches you that upturned dirt could mean an IED. But let me tell you, the dirt’s upturned everywhere you look. Everywhere. So any step could be it. Boom! Any single step.”

It was cool inside the coffee shop, but a sheen of sweat coated Adam’s forehead. His eyes darted in all directions, as though he were scanning the tiled floor in search of upturned dirt.

Adam said, “By the time we reach the village we’re all sorts of jacked, and most of the kids we’re following go on back to their little mud huts. Of course the villagers come out to greet us, but it’s hard to know which are allies and which are Taliban. Now, in addition to IEDs, we’re keeping eyes out for guns poking out of robes, because rules of engagement say we can’t shoot anybody who’s unarmed. But it’s a kinetic area — violent, I mean. You just don’t know who’s there to kill you and who wants help. It’s a constant Charlie Foxtrot. That would be ‘cluster fuck,’ in your vernacular.”

Adam reached for his coffee and took a long drink, then returned it to the adjacent table. David could relate distantly to Adam’s ordeal, having been in some dicey situations of his own, but what Adam had endured was on a different level. The idea that any step could be one’s last was truly terrifying. David could not see how anybody could return from that sort of grinding stress unchanged.

“So we’re back moving, with just one guide now, a twelve-year-old kid, maybe fourteen. He’s skinny and dirty and waving frantically to us to hurry.”

Adam waved his arms, pantomiming the kid’s gestures. His breath turned shallow.

“He points to these trees maybe a hundred meters away, just past the outskirts of the village. Hell, even the trees are brown over there. Sometimes when I get stressed I have to look at something green to remind myself where I am.” Adam paused to gaze out the window at the green of Hopkinton, but when he looked back, he did not appear convinced he was safe.

“Anyway we follow this kid a bit further down the road, but every step, you know, we’re doing our check. That upturned dirt. And then the kid turns around and he just smiles at us. I’ll never forget that look on his face. It was pure joy. And then he reaches into his robe, takes out a pistol, and he fires. PFC O’Malley is right there in front, and he takes the bullet in the side. Damn kid gets this lucky shot. Bullet doesn’t even nick O’Malley’s SAPI plate.”

Adam was breathing harder now. His eyes darted about, seeing phantoms everywhere. The sweat on his forehead began to drip down his face, as if he was back in the Afghani heat.

“A couple guys jump on O’Malley right away. But I’m focused on the kid. He fires again, but we’re all moving now so he doesn’t get a clean shot. Now I’ve got good lines on him. My AK is up, and I get off a burst. Rat-tat-tat. Rat-tat-tat.”

Adam raised his hands as if he was holding his gun. He trained the imaginary weapons on patrons at the coffee shop. A few noticed and flinched in response. Adam’s voice choked with raw emotion, and he sucked down air in gulps.

“I ripped him apart. You know?” Tears streamed down Adam’s face. He wiped them away with the back of his hand.

“I fucking tore this kid in half. Pink mist everywhere. And we’re all scrambling for cover, thinking T-Men are right there and now it’s an ambush. But there weren’t any T-men — just IEDs all over the side of the road. The kid knew he was going to die. He just wanted us to scamper. To be careless.” With the tears, the sweat, the snot, Adam was clearly reliving the moment, as he probably did most every night in his nightmares.

“Sure enough I heard the boom, and then another, and then somebody’s arm hit me in the face. There were limbs everywhere, man. Fucking flying everywhere. Bodies aren’t supposed to be blown apart like that. Blood and limbs and guts everywhere you looked.”

David’s heart was racing now as well.

“So we’re all over it, you know. Fix our wounded! Fix ’em! Four things. Restore the breathing. Stop the bleeding. Protect the wound. Treat for shock. We got this QuikClot shit, and I can see Doc P working on O’Malley, using it like caulk on a leaky window. But blood’s spurting out of him like a whale shoots water out a blowhole. And I’m just looking around. My ears are ringing. It’s like I’m underwater. And LT Carlson is coming toward me, doing a commando crawl, but then I can see his legs are blown off and he’s dragging his intestines behind him.”

Adam fell silent and bowed his head. When he looked up his eyes were ringed in red, but the tears had stopped falling.

“Bodies aren’t meant to be broken apart that way.”