Phil Klay - Redeployment

I was quiet when I got home, and I was quiet later that night when I went out drinking with a few friends from high school. They weren’t close friends. I didn’t have close friends from high school. I’d spent all my time with Rachel. But they were good guys to share a beer with.

As the night wore on, more and more people came into the bar, and it got to be a regular high school reunion. I kept wondering if maybe Rachel would show, but of course she didn’t. I drank more than I usually do. It made me start wanting to tell stories.

One of the guys there, who was a few years older, told me he had a cousin who’d died in Iraq. At first I thought, Maybe I processed him. But the cousin died before I got in country.

The guy was a mechanic, and he seemed like a sympathetic sort of guy. He didn’t talk about killing hajjis or act like it was so awesome I’d been over there. He just said, “That must have been rough,” and left it at that. I don’t remember his name. Once I got drunk enough, I told him what I’d wanted to tell Rachel.

It was a story about the worst burn case we ever had. Worst not in charring or loss of body parts, just worst.

This Marine had made it out of his vehicle only to die in flames beside it. The other MPs from his unit had taken his remains from the pile of trash and gravel where he died and brought him to us. We documented his wounds, distinguishing marks, and missing body parts. Most of what made it through the fire was standard. He had the Rules of Engagement in his left breast pocket. The flak had protected it, although the laminate had melted and the words were illegible. He had charred boots and dog tags and bits of uniform. Some plastic mess in a butt pack we couldn’t identify. A wallet where the credit cards and IDs had melted into a solid block. There was no Kevlar, which he must have been wearing but which didn’t make it to us.

Some of the remains we dealt with would have very personal items, like a sonogram or a suicide note. This one had nothing.

The hands, though, were clenched around two objects. We had to work at them carefully to pry them out. Corporal G had the left hand. I had the right. “Careful,” he said. “Careful. Careful. Careful.” He was saying it to himself.

While I worked, I tried to avoid looking at the face. We all did that. I focused on the hands and what might be inside. Personal effects are important to the families.

We worked, slowly, carefully loosening the fingers. Corporal G finished first. He held up a small rock, probably from the gravel pile. After a minute, that’s the same thing I found in the right hand. A little gray rock, mostly round, but with a few rough edges. It was embedded into his palm. I tore skin getting it out.

A few days later, Corporal G talked to me about it. We’d had more remains come through since then, and normally Corporal G never said anything about any of the remains once we’d finished processing them. We were smoking outside the chow hall, looking toward Habbaniyah, and he said, “That guy could have been holding on to anything.”

I tried to tell the story to the mechanic. I was very drunk, and the guy tried very hard to listen.

“Yeah,” he said softly, “yeah. It’s crazy.” I could tell he was searching for the right thing to say. “Look, I’m gonna tell you something.”

“Okay,” I said.

“I respect what you’ve been through,” he said.

I took a sip of my beer. “I don’t want you to respect what I’ve been through,” I said.

That confused him. “What do you want?” he said.

I didn’t know. We sat and drank beer for a bit.

“I want you to be disgusted,” I said.

“Okay,” he said.

“And,” I said, “you didn’t know that kid. So don’t pretend like you care. Everybody wants to feel like they’re some caring person.”

He didn’t say anything else, which was smart. I waited for him to say something wrong, to ask me about the war or the Marine that died or the rocks that G and me had kept with us, that I still had in my pocket that night at the bar. But he didn’t say another word, and neither did I. And that was that for me telling people stories.

I hung out in my parents’ house for another week, and then I went back to Twentynine Palms and the Marine Corps. I never saw Rachel again, but we’re Facebook friends. She got married while I was on my third deployment. She had her first kid while I was on my fourth.

EOD handled the bombs.SSTP treated the wounds. PRP processed the bodies. The 08s fired DPICM. The MAW provided CAS. The 03s patrolled the MSRs. Me and PFC handled the money.

If a sheikh supported the ISF, we distributed CERP. If the ESB destroyed a building, we gave fair comp. If the 03s shot a civilian, we paid off the families. That meant leaving the FOB, where it’s safe, and driving the MSRs.

I never wanted to leave the FOB. I never wanted to drive the MSRs or roll with 03s. PFC did. But me, when I got 3400 in boot camp, I thought, Great. I’d work in an office, be a POG. Be the POG of POGs and then go to college for business. I didn’t need to get some, I needed to get the G.I. Bill. But when I was training at BSTS, they told me, You better learn this, 3400s go outside the wire. A few months later, I was strapped up, M4 in Condition 1, surrounded by 03s, backpack full of cash, twitchiest guy in Iraq.

I did twenty-four missions, some with Marine 03s, some with National Guardsmen from 2/136. My last mission was to AZD. A couple of Iraqis had driven up fast on a TCP. They ignored the EOF, the dazzlers and the warning shots, and died for it. I’d been promoted to E4, so PFC was taking over consolation payments, but I went with him to give a left-seat right-seat on working off the FOB. PFC always needed his hand held. In the HMMWV it was me, PFC, PV2 Herrera, and SGT Green. Up in the turret on the 240G was SPC Jaegermeir-Schmidt, aka J-15.

There wasn’t a lot to look at on the MSR south of HB. We scanned for all the different types of IEDs AQI would throw at us. IEDs made of old 122 shells, or C4, or homemade explosives. Chlorine bombs mixed with HE. VBIEDs in burned-out cars. SVBIEDs driven by lunatics. IEDs in drainage ditches or dug into the middle of the road. Some in the bodies of dead camels. Others daisy-chained together—one in the open to make you stop, another to kill you where you stand. IEDs everywhere, but most missions, nothing. Even knowing how bad the MSRs were, knowing we could die, we got bored.

PFC said, “It’d be cool to get IED’d, ’long as no one got hurt.”

J-15 snapped, said, “That’s bad juju, that’s worse than eating the Charms in an MRE.”

Temp was 121, and I remember bitching about the AC. Then the IED hit.

PV2 swerved and the HMMWV rolled. It wasn’t like the HEAT trainer at Lejeune. JP-8 leaked and caught fire, burning through my MARPATs. Me and SGT Green got out, and then we pulled PV2 out by the straps of his PPE. But PV2 was unconscious, and I ran back for PFC, but he was on the side where the IED hit, and it was too late.

PFC’s Eye Pro cracked and warped in the heat. The plastic snaps on his PPE melted. And even though J-15 left his legs behind, at least he got CASEVAC’d to the SSTP and died on the table. PRP had to wash PFC out with Simple Green and peroxide.

The MLG awarded me a NAM with a V. Don’t see too many 3400s got a NAM with a V. It’s up there next to my CAR and my Purple Heart and my GWOT Expeditionary and my Sea Service and my Good Cookie and my NDS. Even 03s show respect when they see it. But give me a NAM with a V, give me the Medal of Honor, it doesn’t change that I’m still breathing. And when people ask what the NAM is for, I say it’s so I don’t feel bad that I was too slow for PFC.