UNIVERSITY of CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE Nothing Follows A

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE

Nothing Follows

A Thesis submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of

Master of Fine Arts

Creative Writing and Writing for the Performing Arts

Colby Calvin Buzzell

December 2015

Thesis Committee: Professor Rob Roberge, Co-Chairperson Professor Andrew Winer, Co-Chairperson Professor Mark Haskell Smith

The Thesis of Colby Calvin Buzzell is approved:

Committee Co-Chairperson

University of California, Riverside

Nothing Follows

A novel.

By Colby Buzzell

"Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really care for anything else thereafter.

You will meet them doing various things with resolve, but their interest rarely holds because after the other thing ordinary life is as flat as the taste of wine when the taste buds have been burned off your tongue.”

-Ernest Hemingway

PRELUDE.

I should probably end it. That could work. But, before I do I should perhaps insert a series of traumatic and vivid flashback scenes to the war within the next several pages of this story, maybe a long-forgotten recollection from the war that comes to me while I’m doing something random, something rather mundane while I’m stuck in traffic or pushing my half empty shopping cart through the check out aisle at some over-priced grocery store. Though predictable and highly cliché, a nightmare might work instead, have it take place on my very first night back home where I wake up screaming Rodríguez’s name over and over again or some shit, have my

Mother or Father enter the room asking me what in the hell was wrong while I come to, sweating, frantically searching for my weapon. I could attempt to do all that but the problem is, I don't…I don't really want to do that and it wasn't really like that for me when I came back home. Perhaps it was for others. I wouldn't know.

My nightmare began on the happiest day of my life: the day I exited from the

United States military. This was sometime around the earlier stages of the war, mid- or late-2005. The weather outside was overcast with a slight drizzle. My Combat

Infantry Badge bumper sticker and infantry blue chord fourragère were hanging from my rearview mirror. With my middle finger drawn I laughed out loud in excitement when I passed the sign right before the main exit: You are now Leaving

Fort Lewis. Drive Carefully. Thanks for visiting. Please come again soon.

A long line of incoming vehicles sat bumper to bumper trying to get onto post. I.D. Check In Progress. Have I.D. Ready. The reverse road leaving post had no 3 one in it except me. I made my way slowly through the exit, where there was a smashed-up four door sedan parked on the side of the road with a sign reminding soldiers what could happen to them if they chose to drink and drive. For a second there I thought of the vehicles that I came across in Iraq that looked far worse than that one did; the ones that told me not to re-enlist. Military vehicles that were blown to bits thanks to some 155mm IED and or the ones that burned down to the ground thanks to being hit by an RPG.

I was looking forward to exiting those military gates until I noticed how my blue infantry cord dangled from the mirror like a limp-hanging flag. As “Main-Post” receded in the rearview one last time, I let go on the gas a bit and caught a look at myself in my new hat. I looked depressed. This was supposed to be the happiest day of my life. I’d waited for nearly my entire enlistment period for this day to arrive.

Why did it feel like a mistake to leave the Army? That would be strange, seeing as how our retention NCO kept hassling me those last months, trying to get me to drink the Kool-Aid and re-enlist with such persistence you’d think he’d got a very nice little commission for each and every soldier he retained, always asking what kind of job I thought I’d get once I got out, what marketable skills I now possessed thanks to the Army, or whether I was going to put “shoot, move, and communicate” or “Locate, capture, and kill all anti-Iraqi forces” on my resume, or if I was going to apply my GI

Bill towards a rewarding liberal arts degree. I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to do with myself once I got out, other than get laid, get laid and…get laid. However, the

4 one thing I did know was that I wasn’t a “lifer,” like this Retention NCO was. I wanted to become a civilian again. This was my goal: CIVILIAN.

What exactly is a civilian? It’s someone who is totally unaffected by the war. I wanted to be one of those again. They seemed like happy people.

“You’ll be back,” he said, confidently dressed in full Desert Camouflage

Uniform. “I was just like you once, all excited to get out and move on with my life. I got out, too, and guess what happened? That’s right. You’ll see.”

The Army usually gives you a good two weeks to clear. Once your orders get cut, you're handed an ETS out-processing checklist of things you have to do in order to get out, like turn in all your equipment, make sure you don't owe the PX any money, or have any overdue books at the on post library, et cetera. You have to get a signature for each one once you complete it.

One of the last signatures I needed on my separation checklist was from the

Retention NCO. While I spoke with him one last time in his office, with the bold words “STAY ARMY” painted in black and gold on the office wall behind him, he kept pressing me on what job I was expecting to work on the other side of the fence. I could see by the Sergeant’s rank that he was mid-career, halfway to a retirement pension. He also wore a combat patch sewn onto his right shoulder, denoting that he had been deployed as well. I explained to him that the very first company to which I was going to apply for was McDonald’s.

He thought I was kidding. He even laughed.

“No,” I said gravely. “Sergeant, I’m serious. I want to work at McDonald’s.” 5

“Have you been to mental health yet?”

“I’m not crazy, Sergeant.” I assured him I’d already been to mental health and, believe it or not, I'd passed. Even got the signature on my checklist to prove it but I could tell by the way he was staring at me that he didn't believe me.

For every inch I gave, the Army took a mile. For the last four plus years I was unable to ever call in sick, show up late, go half-ass, or refuse to work. I just had to suck it up and drive on. You’re just not allowed to quit in the Army. It was all blood sweat and tears, 24/7. Once in Iraq, near death with the flu, I had to beg and plead with them to send me over to sick call where I was essentially handed a single

Motrin the size of a pebble, told to take a knee, drink more water, and stop being a pussy. Hooah? And guess what? After that, I still had to go out on missions that day.

Three of them! I told the Sergeant that I wanted to be able to know what freedom feels like again, to be able to walk around with my hands in my pocket or call in sick again, or not be sick at all and call my boss up and simply tell him that I wasn’t coming into work that day, that I just don't feel like it and hear him say, “Okay. Fine.”

I want to know what it’s like again to show up five, fifteen, or even just four point five seconds late to work and not be punished for it by being assigned extra duty and told to do push ups, sit ups, and low crawls as a form of corrective training until

I’m fucking puking my guts out. I want to be able to work the fryer at McDonald’s and have the boss come up to me at tell me that I’m not doing it right, that I’m doing it all wrong, and me, telling him, hey you know what? Fuck you. That’s right, fuck you. You don’t like how I’m doing the fries, then you fucking do it. You know what I 6 mean, Sergeant? I want to be able to work a job where I’m able to say fuck you to someone without fear for my life afterwards. I want to be able to have the freedom of tearing my apron off in anger, throwing it down on the ground if need be and say, you know what? Fuck this shit, I’m not taking it anymore, I quit. What? You want me to run out across the street over to where Third Squad is, while we’re all pinned down just so I could draw fire so that you guys can find out where they’re shooting from? Yeah, okay, you know what? Fuck you. I’m not going to do that, you do that.

But guess what? I couldn't say that! I just couldn't, I had to do it! And, guess what? I did! I’m a fucking retard! I had no choice! I got up and I fucking did it! Zoom! Zoom!

Zoom! What. Duh. Fuck. Holy shit! Bullets all whizzing by my f’ing head! People all screaming and shit. Or, better yet, I wanted to get fired. Yes, I wanted to be fired from a job again. I wanted to work at McDonalds just so I could remember what it felt like to have the boss to tell me to pick up my shit and get the fuck out of here and to go home and never come back again. You know what? I might’ve even shed a tear of joy when it happened.

After a pause for effect, I asked him, “Do you know how many times I wanted to do that, or wanted to have that happen to me Sergeant, while I was in? Do you?”

“So, what you’re basically telling me is, you want to know what it's like to be a quitter again? Or a loser?”

“No, well…huh, I never really looked at it that way, but yes. But not exactly.

Not permanently, Sergeant, I just want to do it for a little while. Just to know what it feels like again. To be in control of my shit.” 7

Seated behind his desk he squinted at me, deep in thought. For a second there I wondered if he saw a bit of his former self on the other side of his desk.

While focusing his attention on the room’s lone window, he reminded me that I was forgetting one major detail in what he called my “backwards” way of thinking.

“You’re forgetting what it was like out there in the civilian world. You should remember why you joined in the Army in first place.”

I almost laughed, but didn’t. While he was talking, the only thought on my mind was for him to just sign the goddamn checklist so that I could get the fuck outta there. Once he was finished saying whatever he needed to say, he went back to staring at me blankly.

“Can I ask you a question?” he said finally.

“Sure, Sergeant.”

“Where in the hell you from anyhow?”

“California.”

He smirked then signed off on my packet and threw it back at me. “Get the fuck out of my office.”

“Roger that, Sergeant.”

Feeling good that I was no longer government property, I applied a bit more pressure on the gas and turned on the radio, escaping the thought of that final experience. Finally, I pulled onto the freeway and was on my way home, passing by several red and yellow billboards indicating the Golden Arches were at the next exit.

NPR was reporting that the chow hall in Mosul, the one I used to eat at daily, had 8 been attacked by three rockets; at least a dozen dead. I stared at the road ahead of me. I briefly envisioned the color of the pools of blood that was all over the cement streets whenever our platoon got called up to appear to the aftermath of multiple car bomb detonations in heavily occupied civilian areas. It reminded me of the time our battalion commander, a man who already had several combat deployments under his belt from previous conflicts—his boots alone have spent more time in war zones than I have in uniform—held one last company formation over by the airfield.

This took place in Iraq. There he announced that since we’d all “survived the war,” our next mission was to “survive the peace.” This, he claimed, would be the most difficult part of our deployment. He told us to expect a lot of things to be entirely different when we returned. Several times, he stressed not to doing anything stupid, such as drinking and driving, getting arrested, beating the shit out of our wives, or blowing our fucking heads off.

Then I thought why in the hell is my shit set to NPR? My war was over and here on out life was going to be good music. I quickly changed the station just as a song I’d never heard before came on, something about how there was this girl and everything was different now.

Years later, everything was different. By then the VA had diagnosed me with

PTSD, even though the military’s mental health physicians cleared me when I first got out. I nearly cried tears of joy when I finally received the news. It was the best thing that ever happened to me, at least since being discharged. It would also go on to become the worst thing to ever happen to me. 9

Ever.

ONE

Not all wounds are visible and not all veterans end up a stereotype discharge; however, all roads lead to the VA. At least, all the ones I took did and this bright idea of mine to get PTSD came to me not immediately, but a couple years after I exited the military. Around that time, everyone else in my platoon was getting diagnosed, too.

Maybe it had to do with how some of us were greeted when we finally returned home. Unlike what you see depicted on TV, movies, the internet, “PTSD

Awareness” events, or the goddamn Anderson’s place located directly across the street from my parents, there were no flags posted or any handmade celebratory banners hanging up in the front of the house thanking me for my service. No sign that said “Welcome Home, Hero!” up in the living room. The only thing that was different about my new permanent duty station was what I call my Obituary Photo.

My Obituary Photo was taken right before I graduated from Fort Benning where I was trained to be an infantryman. Apparently, my mother had it framed while I was away in Iraq. It’s sandwiched right between me graduating from high school and my family on vacation in Maui when I was thirteen or so.

Everyone who goes through basic training gets their photo taken. A high school senior-like photo where they drape an American Flag behind you, have you in uniform, and get you to stare with as little expression as possible into the camera while they snap away. My face looks like I just made the biggest mistake of my life.

Also like school photos, you can purchase packages of these images to give to loved 12 ones so they can frame them or keep them in their wallets or whatever it is they'd like to do. The Army also keeps a copy of these photos for their shelves as well. They don't tell you this at first, but they keep these photos, not because they are proud of you, but so they’ll have something to give to the media in case you get killed in combat. So, in other words, my Obituary Photo hung in my parents’ living room. It also occurred to me while staring at my basic training photo that my experience enlisting in the military and going off to fight the war was also like vacation pictures: nobody cares. It was like going on vacation and coming back with an entire photo album filled with a bunch of pictures of that trip that you’re really excited about, that want to show to people, but nobody else really wants to be bored to death viewing them. Part of the reasons why I stopped hanging out in bars is because I didn't want to be that drunk veteran telling war stories to people who are totally uninterested. Sadly, I made that mistake several times and never again.

I’m not sure what I expected it to be like when I got out of the military, other than life being full of happiness that would never end, but I didn't expect it to be the way it was. Nothing changed yet, at the same time, everything had changed. In my hometown, the only noticeable differences were all the mega big box stores, the “For

Sale” and “For Lease” signs posted on dozens of local businesses that were edged out by the mega big box stores, and how nearly everyone I knew from high school had left. Of the few that didn’t, they all seemed the same, except for an extra fifteen pounds or so. There was also a ton of foreclosure notices nailed onto boarded up

13 doors in my neighborhood. Other than that, everything remained the same as if the war had never happened. I even got my old job at the grocery store back.

For a while, life after the Army consisted of repeating the same exact shit over and over again everyday. The items would be scanned by the cashier and I’d place the saran wrap, 1% milk, corn chips, wheat bread, eggs, laundry detergent, toothpaste, and whatever in either paper or plastic. The only break I got from this was when I’d be sent off on a mission to go and do a price check on some item or when they’d request my presence over the loud speaker to go to such and such aisle to clean up a broken jar of pasta sauce somebody dropped.

After work would always be the same as well. I’d drive home, usually while still wearing my blue apron and name tag along with my mini combat infantry lapel pin that nobody ever noticed. Then I’d pull into the driveway, the same exact slab of cement I came home to all my life, and I’d just sit there in park zoning out to the sound of my car in idle. Every now and then I thought about parking the car inside the garage, closing it, and running the engine till I’d be out of my misery, but I couldn't do that since it was already fully occupied with my parents’ cars.

Sometimes I’d do this for only a couple minutes, this sitting while in park in my car staring blankly at the nothing ahead of me with the motor still running.

Other times I’d do this for much longer. It all depended on how shitty a day I had or how many false smiles I had to force myself to give whenever people from my past such as old coaches, teachers, hot moms, and high school classmates came through

14 my checkout lane and ask me what I’d been up to, how I was doing, how it was great to see me, all while I was bagging their fucking groceries.

Sometimes, I dreaded the thought of heading home after work so I’d just drive around town aimlessly, for no reason at all, sometimes only briefly, other times for much longer.

There was no escape.

The sight of my 1987 station wagon still parked on my parents’ driveway after all these years irked my mother about as much it did me. When I first moved back home, she requested that I park it on a different street so that the neighbors wouldn’t see it. She not only found my car to be an “eyesore,” but an indicator to all that her kid couldn’t make it out in the real world and was now living back at home.

Again.

For years, she had to deal with people asking her, “Oh, how’s your son doing?”

And she would tell whoever asked, “Oh, he’s fine.”

Period. That’s it.

It wasn’t till I joined the military that she began telling people a little bit more about me. “Oh, he joined the Army! Oh yeah, he’s doing great! Yeah, he’s in Iraq right now. Oh yeah, he’s doing good. He really likes it.”

Now, like before, she just told people, “Oh, he’s fine.” Period. The end. Then she would quickly go on and on about how her garden was doing. She was more proud of her annuals and perennials then she was of me, I think.

My mother had no problem whatsoever informing me that she did this when 15 people asked her about me, thinking that by doing so it would somehow motivate me to move out and do something else with myself.

Yes, there were moments of insanity where I thought briefly about re- enlisting but then I’d turn on the radio and they’d be reporting about a death of a soldier, adding how it was his or her second or third deployment. I’d turn on the TV and there up on the screen would the crying parents of a soldier who was killed overseas, again, on his or her second or third deployment. The magazine covers by the cashier racks and over with the periodicals would sometimes have a full page color photos of a soldier my age missing limbs or returning home in a flag draped coffin. I’d turn on my computer and there’d be articles posted by my fellow platoon mates on their social media feeds talking about guys I personally knew, vaguely knew, or didn't know at all who served in my old unit and got killed, either thanks to a re-deployment or after a long night of drinking whiskey when they decided to end it all. People, both strangers and acquaintances, would ask me about death. They’d ask if I'd ever killed anyone or if I’d lost any buddies and I’d be forced to think about both.

I thought about death whenever I looked over at my left wrist, which had a black stainless steel “KIA bracelet” around it engraved with the names of three guys from my platoon. My right hand had my trigger finger, a finger that our government invested a lot of time and money into training. A finger that got to do just that from time to time when the government thought it was a good idea to deploy the person that finger belonged to. 16

Death would cross my mind whenever my cell phone rang because from time to time it’d be Sgt. Mendelson or Spc. Thomas asking if I’d heard about how Spc.

Nelson got hit by a sniper while out on foot just outside of Baghdad or how Sgt.

Adelman, who re-enlisted after he couldn’t find a job, lost both his legs and is currently recovering at Walter Reed. Yes, I was living at home and still bagging groceries but things could be worse.

At first, I was okay with this job, maybe even liked it even. Nobody was yelling at me and nobody was trying to kill me. I showed up to work every day with a smile on my face and excited to be alive and working. Many aren’t. I did have to deal with little old ladies taking forever to get the change from their purses.

Nonetheless, I did find myself putting more and more thought into a career change.

It was sometime in the middle of the work week, towards the end of my shift, when I’d just finished packing all the items the cashier had passed over the scanner and slid down the stainless steel counter towards me that a voice broke my concentration.

“Hey!”

I didn't want to look up, but I did. It was a guy I went to high school with whose name for the life of me I can’t recall. Wayne? Tom? Frank? I couldn't remember. Even though I was wearing my blue work apron that has my nametape predominantly featured right above my left breast pocket, he didn't refer to me by name either.

“Haven't seen you for a while,” he said. “What the hell have you been up to?!”

“Oh, you know…paper or plastic?” 17

“Paper.”

“I was in the Army for a bit, out now, went to Iraq, home now, doing my thing, bagging groceries, thinking about applying to Harvard business school. You?”

“Oh, you know, just getting some groceries for the week, you remember my wife, right?”

I looked over; it was Claudia. This girl I once had a crush on back during sophomore year. She was still beautiful, tall, blonde and slender with an enormous rock on her left hand. She smiled at me quickly, then went back to tending to their two daughters, one of which was trying to do jumping jacks while standing in the shopping cart, the other attempting to shoplift a Snickers bar.

I told the guy yes, I remembered her.

“You remember him right?” he said to Claudia, “He went to school with us, he, uh…you were on the baseball team right?”

“Basketball. But, I stopped after freshman year.”

“That’s right,” he said. “You got busted for smoking pot right?”

“Something like that.”

After ringing up the final item the cashier gave the guy his total, which I noticed far surpassed how much I was pulling weekly at my thirty hour a week job by a good hundred dollars. After swiping his ATM card, he told me I “looked good” now. I said he did, too.

“Seriously,” he said. “You really do. Umm, you should add me or something on

MySpace. We should hang out sometime when you’re not doing anything. Have a 18 couple beers, catch up?”

“Yeah,” I told him while getting the bags ready for the next customer in line.

“That'd be great. Do you need any help carrying out?”

“No. That's alright. I got it. Take care man. See you around?”

“Sure.”

They exited the grocery store and I told Peggy, the cashier, that I was going outside to take my break.

Once outside, I lit up a smoke and sat on a cement bench. I wondered how in the fuck this happened?

Exhaling, I glazed out onto the parking lot and watched my “friend” from high school place all the groceries into the back of their late-model sport utility vehicle while his wife, my former crush, strapped the two little girls into their car seats. The two kissed. I stared at their vehicle backing out and driving off the parking lot. The also had a dog. I knew this since the back of their vehicle had those white stick figure vinyl clings of a mommy, a daddy, two daughters, and a dog. Soon there would probably be another sticker on that family vehicle of theirs I thought. Glancing over to where my vehicle was parked way off in the very back, I saw that it had no such stickers. All of mine were military-related. It occurred to me then that I’d once had a job that encouraged you to put as many people into body bags as possible. Now, I worked a job where I had to put as much food into bags as possible, including the groceries of people I went to high school with.

After flicking my butt off into the street, I got up and removed my combat infantry pin from my name tag, placed it in my pocket, untied my blue work apron, and placed it in the garbage on the way to my vehicle.

I told my parents I quit my job at the diner table. My mother said, “About time” and my father suggested I look into using my GI Bill which I told him how I would,

“eventually.”

Shortly after I went up to my room, got in bed, closed my eyes, and tried to go to sleep. Problem was I couldn't.

The Infantrymen’s Creed, I thought… I am the Infantry. I am my country's strength in war. Her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight... Always I fight on... through the foe, to the objective, to triumph over all, If necessary, I will fight to my death…

The next morning, with the sun peeking in through the curtains, I woke to sharp pains all throughout my body and a throbbing headache. At first, I thought I’d slept wrong until I started to recall certain aspects of a dream I had.

Throughout the night, I kept waking up from nightmares what felt like every five minutes. I didn't feel like I’d slept at all. At one point, I dreamt that I somehow got up out of bed and stumbled over to my bedroom’s lone window. The world outside appeared vacant, black and white, and the air smelled of exhaust, but the crispness felt good. The silence felt comforting for a moment, but out on the street 20 corner stood a little blonde-haired girl, dressed like she was on her way to Sunday school holding a stuffed teddy bear. I thought, “Was today Sunday?”

Barefoot, wearing nothing but a pair of boxers, my black metal bracelet around my right wrist and my dog tags hanging around my neck, I watched her make her way to the other side. She paused halfway across the street to pick something from the ground, maybe a penny or a rock. You never know what will distract kids.

Out of nowhere, a beat-up Ford pickup whipped around the corner and slammed on its breaks just barely too late, sending the girl flying into the pavement.

The truck idled for a couple seconds, sputtering exhaust from its back tailpipes, then it started to move again. Slowly, it backed away, turned onto a side street, and drove off. I tried to catch the license. It was one of those old black and mustard California plates, difficult to read. It was gone before I could make out the numbers.

I looked back at the girl and stared at her lying there in the middle of the road. Right in front of the house I grew up in. She was dead. Perfectly still, like I’d seen before. I felt kind of tired, so I turned around and got back in bed. I went back to sleep pretty fast.

Awake now, while staring blankly at the walls that belonged to the room I grew up in, replaying this dream over and over again in my head for god knows how long, my mother knocked on my door and quickly opened it. She was holding a bunch of folded up laundry of mine to be placed in my dressers. This was normal 21 behavior for my mother. She always insisted on doing my laundry for me since she was a strong believer that I couldn't do my own laundry as well as she could. I got a bit of déjà vu when I placed the laundry into my drawers and she started talking about the weather, how it was a nice day outside and I should go out and enjoy it.

She also suggested that I open up the curtains and let the light in, which she did for me. After that, she exited.

She used to say that to me all the time: it’s nice outside, go out. Sometimes I would, I’d get on my bike and peddle around the neighborhood for a bit or I’d hang out in the front yard and play with the other neighborhood kids, all of whom have moved out now as well as their parents. New families with new kids have moved in their places. Nobody my age still lived on my street anymore. They’d all moved on.

From my bed, while seated on the mattress that I used to stash porn mags and bottles of jack Daniels under as a teenager, I started concentrating again on the four white walls that surrounded me. Over the years they served as a bulletin board of where I was in life. I’d post items that reflected what I was into. Back in junior high, it was posters of pro athletes such as Will Clark, Kevin Mitchell, Jose Conseco, Joe

Montana, Michael Jordan, et cetera. That was when I played sports, mainly baseball and basketball. This was the room I returned home to after the games. I used to lay down for hours on my bed with a mitt and toss a baseball, dreaming of one day catching the game winning out during a World Series.

Then right before high school, the walls in my room changed. It was all pages torn out of Rolling Stone. Nirvana. Hole. Jane’s Addiction. Red Hot Chili Peppers. 22

There was the stereo that I asked for one Christmas and that was also once in my room, a dual cassette and CD player with two speakers. One night back in high school I stayed awake until sun up making a mix tape for a girl I liked. Her name was

Sophia. She gave me a smile and a sweet hello one day between classes. I was in love, so I handed her the mix tape the next day at school, downplayed the entire thing, and told her I was bored so I made her something. “Nothing special.” She said thanks and a couple days later when I ran into her again, she was hand in hand with

Bobby Marshal. It was in this room that I spend way to much dwelling on how much of a loser I was. I think I might have even painted my nails black out of depression.

The smell of breakfast in the morning still made its way to the room, same as it always did. My parents still had a land line phone located downstairs by the kitchen.

Sometimes I could hear it ringing from my room followed by footsteps walking to the bottom of the stairs to yell up my name, how I had a phone call. I’d go and get the phone, return to my room. Sometimes it’d be a girl wanting to talk to me, but nine times out of ten it’d be Pete or Chad asking what I was up to, how they’d scored some beer somehow, and were planning to go out and drink it either at the park or up on the hill by the golf course. Or how such and such band was on tour and if I was be interested in going to the show.

That phone hadn’t rung for me once since I’d been home.

I also did some praying in this room of mine, but that was way back when I was a young adolescent, asking god to if it’d be cool to one day grow up and be just like Indiana Jones or for me to please have a little brother or sister one day, if not at 23 least a little puppy.

Those prayers never got answered nor all the others later on in life where I asked god to please get me the fuck outta here, I don't want to live and die in the room I grew up in.

Then 9/11 happened. The stereo in my room no longer played music. Instead, it tuned into the news stations and the ones with the angry male voices. I quit my job bagging other peoples groceries mid-shift, walked over to a nearby recruiting station and signed up.

Maybe god finally answered my prayers.

I was convinced at this time in my life that this was my generation’s Pearl

Harbor. I could either spend the rest of life asking people paper or plastic or I could be like Indiana Jones and perhaps go off on some kind of an adventure with brothers

I never had before. Perhaps I was a bit suicidal. If I lived to tell about it, then I lived to tell about it. If not, at least they could say in my obituary that I did something with myself.

My room no longer resembled the room I had at the time I made the decision to enlist. If anything, it now resembled the walls in my barracks room back at Fort

Lewis and the ones in my room while serving in a combat zone: relics and memorabilia I scored while in Iraq all scattered around the huge American Flag I had thumb tacked above my bed.

In spite of this change, I was back to doing what I was doing before the military, which was nothing. I shook my head at this thought when my cell phone 24 rang. I looked over and glanced at the screen. It read RESTRICTED NUMBER. When I answered, after a few second of silence, the guy on the other end coldly referred to me in his mid-western drawl by my rank and last name.

I paused. It had been awhile since I heard someone address me like that.

“Let me guess, you're the Army, right?” He laughed and affirmed. He introduced himself as a Staff Sergeant and asked how I was doing. I told him I'd been fine until he called.

He wanted to know how things had been going since I got out of the Army and if I found a job yet. I didn't want to answer or talk to him about what I was doing and not doing, so I asked how he got put on this assignment. He let out a sigh and said,

“You know how it is.”

Yeah, I did.

Before the question even came up, I knew he was going to ask me if I wanted to re-enlist. We went back and forth for a minute or two, but when he realized there was no way in hell I'd voluntarily re-enlist, he got all confrontational and, in an angry tone, said that if I didn't sign up for the Reserves, the Army would probably call me back up anyway and send me straight back to Iraq. If I didn't go then, I'd go to jail.

I hung up on him.

The next night, I found myself at the diner table once again heavily fixated on that 25 color photo of mine, the one taken at basic training. I remembered the day it was taken and how I thought it would probably be my obituary photo in the local paper if I ever did kill myself. Funny, how I later learned that’s exactly what it was for.

Snapping out of it, I finally informed my parents that instead of looking for another job I had decided to move down to Los Angeles and make a new start.

Instead of being excited about me leaving, asking me more about it, or anything related to that, my mother brought up how she’d heard that one before. My father asked for the ketchup. That was it. My mother went back to concentrating the newspaper she had open and my father stared straight ahead at the TV while chewing.

When it cut to a commercial, my father asked, “What in the world are you going to do in Los Angeles?”

“I don't know,” I said, while dumping some dressing onto my salad. “Find a place, work a job? Go back to school…”

“Why don't you do that here?” My father suggested. “Go to school while living here?”

My mother shot my father a look then said; “You know, you should have done that years ago. Left home, gone to college first, then the military, if you wanted to. I don't know why you insist on doing everything in reverse.” Taking it a step further, she said how I probably wouldn't be having such a hard time now if I had done it that way to begin with and casually brought up how I’d probably still have my girlfriend now if I would have done it that way. 26

“How so?”

“Come on. What girl wants to be with a guy with no future? Making minimum wage?”

“Is that what you think happened?”

“No girl, unless she’s garbage, like some of the ones you pick up, wants to put up with that. I can understand why she left you. Face it, nobody wants to be with someone who bags other peoples groceries for a living. I wouldn't. Look, finish school, get a job, get some work experience, okay? No more playing GI Joe. You’ve already done that and you’re at least five years behind everybody else your age, you know?”

“Thanks mom. Yes, I know, I’m well aware of that.”

My mother corrected herself, “You know, you may even be ten years behind everybody else your...”

“Thanks mom. Yes, I get that.”

“I’m just saying.”

“I know you are.”

After mentioning how she needed to get to sleep she grabbed her plate and excused herself from the table. She grumbled something inaudible while slamming her plate into the dishwasher and then she mentioned something about how there was a letter than came in the mail for me on the counter and how, it looked important.

I figured it was just another notice from another collection agency, so I didn't 27 put too much importance into getting my ass up to go look at it.

When my father got up to go to bed, leaving me seated at the table slowly nibbling away at what little was left on my plate, I sat there for some time and listened to the sounds of my parents get ready for bed, the sounds of running water and doors opening and closing behind them.

When I got up to put my plate in the dishwasher, I saw from the corner of my eye a large manila envelope on the counter with the words IMPORTANT

DOCUMENT printed in all caps in the center of it.

Holding it in my hands, my heart sank when I saw not only who it was addressed to, but who it was addressed from: the Department of Defense. I put two and two together, recalling the phone conversation earlier. Holy fucking shit.

Inside were my orders and mobilization packet. Purpose: “Operation Iraqi

Freedom.”

I nearly fainted. I love all-expenses-paid business trips, but fuck me.

The next morning was solemn. On the table was that damned manila enveloped with the words IMPORTANT DOCUMENT printed in all caps in the center of it. Also on the table was my mobilization packet and orders. With concern my mother asked, “So, what are you going to do?”

My father went ahead and gave an answer for me. “There’s nothing he can do, our son has to go.” Giving me a look, he added, “You are going, right?” 28

“I have to.” Which reminded me, “Hey mom, is it okay if I park my car here for a bit, while I’m away?”

“Yes, you can park here. Do I have a choice?”

Did I?

My father tried to get me to look at the situation positively. “At least you got a job now.” My mother was a bit more skeptical. My appetite was gone as was my mother’s. She excused herself from the table to get ready for work.

It was just my father and I at the table now. Between commercials, a brief mention of the upcoming surge strategy came from our living room TV. The journalist reported in sound bite fashion how a certain number of soldiers were supposedly coming home from the war with PTSD and it was yet to be seen what impact this might have. I kept repeating those four letters over and over again in my head as I began heavily dwelling on this report, specifically the part where they said soldiers were “coming home” from the war with this “diagnosis.”

“Coming home” with this “diagnosis.”

My father was a Vietnam veteran and the fact that he had been in the military had a lot to do with him still being with my mother. I have many vivid memories of being in the back seat of my parents’ car, listening to my furious mother screaming and yelling all kinds of shit at my father about how he was going the wrong way or too slow, how he never listened to her, how he needed to be more like the other fathers who spent time with their kids and taught them how to play baseball at the park, and not once did my father ever raise his voice or argue back with her. He just 29 always tuned her out and took it the same way I did whenever a drill Sergeant at

Basic Training yelled at me.

One of the main reasons why I survived the military was because of my mother. Thanks to my mom, I was made for the military. She’s not aware of this, but she actually spent her whole life preparing me for life in the Army. For example, back at basic training, many times I saw grown men, adults, break down and literally ball up and start crying like a little baby whenever a drill Sergeant get all up in their faces yelling at them. I never did that. Whenever a drill Sergeant got in my face screaming all kinds of names or pointing out how fucked up I was, I’d be like this is nothing. This ain’t shit. This is like being back at home again and no different than tuning my mother out whenever she yelled at me. I also realized that the soldiers who did “lose it” and start crying whenever times got hard were by ones who had mothers that probably never once yelled at them. They weren’t used to that. I was.

Since I wasn’t quite sure what my father thought of PTSD, I decided to ask him.

With a frown he stopped chewing as soon as he heard me say the word PTSD, as if I just uttered the words Berkeley, Liberal, or Bill Clinton to him.

“PTSD?” he said, turning sour. “What do I think of it?”

I nodded yes.

His reply: “I don't.”

I told my father how I knew of several guys in my platoon who got out and were now getting diagnosed with PTSD and how some, I heard, were seeking 30 treatment at the VA. He froze and looked over at me from the corner of his eye, suspiciously.

“Really?” he said. “PTSD?”

“Yeah,” I said.

He paused. “Liberals. Think about it.” he said. “They just love soldiers with

PTSD. Oh, look at this veteran. Look, he’s all messed up from the war. See! See how terrible war is! They love that. It’s anti-war, anti-military. It’s exactly what they want. They don’t really care about soldiers who are all messed up.”

I was amazed my father said as much as he did—I could count on one hand all the times my father brought up his memories about his experience in Vietnam. If it weren’t for my grandmother, I would have never found out that my father had been awarded both silver and bronze stars for his service, as well as two Purple

Hearts. He never talked a word about his time in the war, nor did he ever talk about the treatment that he received from the VA other than to say that it was “Hell” and how it was “way worse than Vietnam.”

When I was a little kid my grandmother told me how my father once sang at their church choir and how he was a “good Christian boy.” This was a shock since the only time I ever heard my father speak of god was with the word “dammit. “I asked my grandmother what happened, why my father never spoke of god or went to church anymore and she became distant and said. “Vietnam.” Almost in tears, she told me how my father never came back from the war the same. She told me that on the night he got injured, she woke up with a bad feeling. She shook my grandfather 31 awake and said something was terribly wrong. Their son was in grave danger. Sure enough, he was. His platoon was dig in up on a hill which had been overrun and got injured when an RPG exploded right next to him. After that he returned home and spent the next year or so in and out of the VA hospital. Again, nobody knows what that experience was like for him since he’s mute on all the details. He’s fully recovered and fine now, runs daily and appears to be in great shape. No one would ever be able to guess that at one time the VA doctors predicted that he’d never be able to walk again.

My father also didn’t look anything at all like the stereotype veterans from that era. He didn't look homeless. He didn't look like a biker. He didn't look like an alcoholic. He just looked like a middle class father who wore a tie every day. Yes, my father had no hobbies whatsoever, hardly ever talked to his own family, can’t recall him ever watching a movie, and he has zero friends. Other than that, he seemed totally normal to me. He also wasn't one of those anti-veterans either. When he did comment on the war, he’d say things such as how we could have won if Washington let them and whenever a homeless or psychopath Vietnam veteran was depicted on television he’d say, “Not everyone came back like that.”

The day I asked him about PTSD, my father reluctantly began telling me about how he and his platoon mates were once on a foot patrol down some dirt road and were ambushed from their right, so everyone ran for cover down in a ditch that paralleled the left side of the road. The ditch, they soon discovered, had been booby- trapped with explosives. 32

“A lot of guys got hurt that day.” By the way he said it, I understood that a lot of guys got killed and he had no idea what in the hell was going on. When they finally gathered together, they noticed a couple of guys were missing, so he and a few others went out to look for them. He had this gut feeling that one of them was still alive and, sure enough, hidden in a rice paddy, was one of their guys. When they got to him, he was ghost white, shaking and unable to talk. In fact, he was unable to communicate a single word to anyone for three whole days.

“That guy was really screwed up.”

“Was this the time you got hurt?” I asked.

He laughed, “No. Now, if I saw that guy again today, and he was all homeless, living on the streets, doing drugs, messed up with PTSD, I’d say yeah, I believe that.

He’s got PTSD.” He chewed on piece of toast, periodically focusing his attention back to the news.

He felt sorry for all the guys who’d gotten messed up back then. During his war, after a firefight or an ambush, they didn’t remove shell-shocked soldiers from the battlefield like they did now. In fact, that guy they found in the rice paddy, he had to continue going on patrols with them for the next several weeks while they continued their mission. With a warped chuckle he ended the conversation with a smile, “We didn’t have all that mental health physicians or any of that group therapy crap back in my day. You just sucked it up, drove on, and continued mission.”

I nodded as I let that sink in. When he asked me why I was asking all these questions about PTSD, I told him I was just curious, that was all. He gave me a look 33 just as the news cut to a commercial. Some Memorial Day mattress sale with free delivery and no sales tax.

“Why?” he carefully asked, “You don’t…you’re not thinking about…”

“No.”

“Good.”

The hold muzak when I called the VA was punctuated with various female voiceover messages. "Welcome to the Department of Veterans Affairs. The VA can provide free medical care for conditions possibly related to your service, regardless of your income status. Please contact the Enrollment & Eligibility office at a VA healthcare facility near you or call. The VA Health Care System is here to serve you. If you are thinking about committing suicide, please hang up and call 9-1-1. A VA representative will be with you momentarily. We’re proud to serve our country's veterans because we know that the price of freedom is not free. Thank you for your service and for making the VA your provider of choice."

This was my third attempt at contacting the VA. When I finally got through, a man named John answered and I explained that I was an O.I.F. veteran, had gotten out a couple years ago, and how I needed a PTSD diagnosis. I mentioned how I knew of several others in my platoon who also had PTSD as well and I needed it now, too.

He put me hold.

Minutes later another person picked up and he asked how I was doing and how he could help me. I told him not good, and before I could tell him any more 34 than that, he placed me on hold. He then picked up and asked for the last four of my social and contact information.

Shortly after, he asked if I had any issues since returning. I thought about that one for a second and then I told him yes.

“My sleeping patterns are a little bit weird now. Sometimes I get dreams. I’m at work bagging other peoples’ groceries. I drink a little bit more than I used to. I like to spend days by myself holed up in my room. I don’t really go out as much as I used to. Can’t stand traffic. I beat up this guy who stole my parking spot at Whole

Foods. Sometimes I think life is pointless. People bore me. I see happy people and

I’m like, why not me? My ex-girlfriend left me because I’m a loser. This one guy in my platoon killed himself and what’s weird is a part of me kind of understands why he did. I don't like sports. I can’t stand contemporary pop music. I quit my a job. I still live at home. Still don't have a girlfriend. But, other than that, sure, my life’s fantastic. I’m totally fine.”

The guy on the phone commented that he himself was a veteran and, “I knows how it is.” He then put me on hold and transferred me over to a female doctor. She asked me if I had ever had any experience that was so frightening, horrible, or upsetting that it bothered me regularly.

“Have you had nightmares about it or thought about it when you did not want to?”

“Yes,” I answered.

“Tried hard not to think about it or went out of your way to avoid situations that reminded you of it?”

“Everyday.”

“Were constantly on guard, watchful, or easily startled?”

“No. Not really.”

“Felt numb or detached from others, activities, or your surroundings?”

“I don't know. Maybe?”

Other than PTSD, she asked if I had any other mental health issues and if this was an emergency and whether I was contemplating suicide. I assured her no, that I wasn't contemplating suicide and how I, again, was just calling to set up an appointment so I could perhaps get some help. After placing me on hold, she asked about physical problems or whether I’d had any head trauma in Iraq. I answered no since I couldn’t think of anything physically wrong with me.

“Did you receive any injuries while in theatre?”

That Dear John email I received immediately once my unit entered Iraq from that one girl I briefly dated hurt, but I told her, “No, all three times our vehicle got

IED’d I was fine. No blood. We got RPG’d a couple times too, same thing, bit rattled, but fine.”

“No head injuries?”

“None that I’m aware of, no.”

“Okay,” she said. Just to be sure, she asked if I’d like to schedule an appointment to see if I had any TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury), adding that she could 36 schedule me in next month, if I’d like. Again, I told her thanks but there was no need for that. “I’m fine. Physically, there’s nothing wrong with me. I just want a PTSD diagnosis, and I don't know, maybe get some help or talk to someone about it, that's all.”

She told me the soonest that the VA could schedule an appointment to see me was in twelve weeks, “Would you like me to…”

I hung up.

I had called Sgt. Mendelson prior to calling the VA and he warned me that I’d probably have difficulty setting up an appointment. He suggested that if I did, I should physically go down to the office and demand to see someone. So I did.

A bronze plaque greeted me outside the main entrance of the VA hospital. It read: “To care for him who shall have borne the battle, for his widow, and his orphan. – A. Lincoln.” Just inside the sliding glass doors was a nice-sized framed photograph of the then Commander in Chief, smiling like a politician, encased in plexi-glass. It looked like a number of people had spit on it.

The huge rubber doormat leading into the office read: The Price of Freedom

Can Be Seen Here!

I walked over the mat and into the air-conditioned main lobby. The place looked like an open-call audition for the sequel to “Born On The Fourth Of July” was taking place. One guy was mumbling to himself about something. The others sat in silence, sullen and disheveled. There was a guy who had a 101st Airborne Screaming

Eagle hat with a silver Captain rank pin on it, pushing himself in a wheelchair, pant 37 legs hanging limp. He wasn’t the only guy in a wheelchair with missing limbs; there seemed to be dozens of walking wounded.

In comparison, I looked fine. My body was telling me to leave. I pressed on. If

I didn't, I might end up like one of them and that’s if I was lucky.

While walking down the sterilized halls to find out where I needed to go to try and get my PTSD diagnosis, I passed by even more veterans in wheelchairs— guys who were visibly fucked up. Some had miniature American flags on their wheelchairs. Almost all of them had a prosthetic limb of some sort.

One guy sitting at a table was this cool-looking, heavyset black guy wearing a huge belt buckle and this black felt cowboy hat with a shiny gold Marine Corps globe and eagle pendant on the front. I wondered if he polished it before he came over because it sure looked like it. The guy seated across from him looked like he’d been smoking a carton a day since he was twelve. He had on a sun faded Combat Veteran hat with a C.I.B. embroidered on the front of it. An older, Filipino-looking man with a

US Navy Seabees hat and t-shirt sat in silence in his wheelchair, which was decorated with an American Flag and a bumper sticker that read “God Bless

America.” I looked down the hall and wheelchairs lined the corridor. Some faces seemed defeated, others heads still held high. I wondered if maybe some of these guys were there everyday because they had nothing better to do. It wouldn’t be surprising. You had those types at the PX back at Fort Lewis, guys who retired after a couple decades of service and didn’t know what to do with themselves. All they’d do every day was hangout at the PX and try to talk to anyone willing to listen. 38

It took some time but I finally found an info desk. The little old lady seated behind it was in a wheelchair. I asked her for directions on where to go for PTSD.

With a smile, she told me I was at the right spot and to look straight down and how I was standing on it. Three thin lines were painted on the linoleum floor, one painted blue, one yellow, and the other red. She told to follow the red line and it would take me to where I needed to be.

After following the red line to a different desk, I was told to follow the blue line. At the end of that line, a gentleman in a suit and tie behind the desk directed me to yet another hallway and told me to walk down and find the yellow line and take that all the way to the end where the mental health ward was located.

When I got there the guy working behind the desk informed me that since I didn't have an appointment with the VA, they couldn't see me that day. When I asked for an appointment so that they could see me, he informed me that the earliest that they could possibly see me was sometime in July, which was over eight weeks from today. This was exactly what they told me when I called earlier to try and schedule an appointment with them. I told him that I had been placed on hold for forty-five minutes and said exactly what I’d explained to the guy on the phone: that wasn't going to work. He basically told me too bad, that’s “the best we can do.”

“Bullshit,” I said.

Taped up on the wall of this bureaucrat’s desk was something titled, “IT IS

MY JOB.” Underneath that it read: “What is a veteran? A veteran is the most

39 important person in our business, They are the life and blood of our business.

Without them we would have to close all our doors.”

Using my trigger finger, I pointed over to the poem or whatever the hell it was and asked, “Well, what about that?”

“What about what?”

“This is the VA right?”

“Um, yes.”

“And it’s the VA’s job to care for him who shall have borne the battle, right?”

“They say that but…”

“Look, I’m a goddamn combat veteran. Borne the battle, all that shit. I’m supposed to be the most important person in your business. What I’m saying is if the price of freedom needs to seen by somebody today, here, like right fucking now today, here and now then fucking…”

He told me hold on, that this was the VA and not a Burger King, where you can’t have it your way. He also warned me to watch my language. Said it was unpleasant. I reminded him once again how I didn't give a fuck and was about to get all PTSD on his ass, especially when he reminded me about the Welcome Mat at the entrance that said the price of freedom could be seen here.

As a last resort, I pulled out my wallet for him to see and set it on the counter and casually asked him if there was perhaps an amount this price of freedom could pay to be seen that day. Uninterested in my empty wallet, he basically told me that I

40 had to be suicidal or on the verge of killing myself for that to happen, “But even then…”

I cut him off, telling him how there was a very good chance that if I couldn't be seen today, I might not be here tomorrow, “if you know what I mean.”

Finally, he gave in. “Fine.”

“Thank you.”

The guy appeared irritated that I was now requiring him to do his job. After all, without me, they would have to close all their doors and heaven forbid they wouldn't want that to happen now would they? He pulled out a huge stack of forms for me to complete. It took me fifteen minutes to fill out the forms and when I turned them in, I was handed another series of forms that were all more or less identical to the forms he had just completed. Once finished, the guy handed me one other stack of forms to fill out. While diligently working through the forms, the pen died. I asked for another, but the guy didn’t have any and had to borrow one from a co-worker.

Once all the paperwork was finally complete, there was a dozen or so other forms that also required my signature. After filling out more of those forms and yet again one last stack of paperwork, plus a couple forms that required only my initials and signature, I was handed a little tab with a number on it and instructed to go out and wait in the lobby. He told me I’d be able to see somebody when my number was called. My number was 42. I looked up sign at the wall which indicated “We are now serving number: 13.”

I sighed. After thanking the guy, I glanced down at my watch to see what time it was. With a smile, the guy warned me, “Don’t do that.” He told me it was probably going to be a long wait.

Above the television set in the waiting room was a red, white and blue sign welcoming O.I.F./O.E.F. Veterans. There were about a dozen or so other people in the waiting room. I was the only one there who looked like he participated in that conflict; everybody else looked considerably older. Nearly everyone was wearing a campaign hat from the various wars or conflicts the nation had fought – WWII,

Vietnam, Desert Storm. One guy even wore a “Cold War Veteran” hat. Some also wore T-shirts of their respective military branch.

I wore no such clothing other than a KIA bracelet and my old military dog tags around my neck that were tucked away under my white undershirt. I’d worn them on my neck every single day since I was issued them back at Fort Benning and, for whatever reason, I am unable to ever take them off. I thought about displaying them outside of my shirt but that’s obnoxious.

I felt naked. I wondered if they thought I was here waiting for my dad or something like that. Down the hall I could see a gift shop. Since I had nothing to do other than wait, I decided to kill some time by checking it out. There, I came across a hat that you see old timers from previous wars wearing at parades, as well as many homeless people and folks waiting around at the VA hospital. They had hats for nearly every war and military branch and in bright yellow embroidery, set on a black background, I found one with my name on it. It read: OPERATION IRAQI 42

FREEDOM COMBAT VETERAN. Three multi-colored embroidered ribbons stretch across the crown. Ribbons I earned, but pretty much everybody in the military post-

9/11 is awarded the same: a National Defense Service Medal Ribbon, a Global War

On Terrorism Service Medal Ribbon, and a Global War On Terrorism Expeditionary

Medal Ribbon. The tag underneath read: Made in China. I put it on. I couldn't figure out if I looked cool or not. I also couldn't believe that they were asking twenty-two dollars for one. Though I was only 27 at the time and not homeless, I thought I might as well go ahead and purchase one of these things since it seemed like everyone at the VA was wearing something like it. I also purchased a bag of potato chips.

Back in the waiting room with my new hat on, I noticed that the walls of the waiting room were decorated with these huge, close-up portraits of men and women, all around my age. So, while munching away on some Cool Ranch Doritos, I got up to stretch my legs out for a bit and get a closer look.

The portraits were part of a PR campaign by the Department of Veterans

Affairs. All these framed photographs were behind glass and were all of soldiers who participated in O.I.F./O.E.F. who later on had been diagnosed with PTSD by the

VA but had positively “overcome the stigma and stereotypes that are attached to

PTSD and have gone on to live meaningful and successful lives.” There was a portrait of a civil affairs specialist, a Navy Intel analyst, National Guardsman food service specialist, Telecommunications Operations Chief, a Marines finance specialist, Air

Force water treatment reservist and so on and so on. All poster boys and girls for

PTSD and all smiling as if having PTSD was fun! I saw my reflection in the glass of 43 many of these framed portraits while giving them a confused once-over as if they were all Rothko paintings at the MOMA. Statistically, there are seven support soldiers to every one infantryman in Iraq and Afghanistan, and even though it was a diverse mix of PTSD cases, both genders and many ethnic groups represented, what perplexed me the most about all these abstract pieces was that I couldn’t find a single one who had served in the Infantry or combat arms. I wondered why that was? Maybe it was because there’s not as many of them, who knows? I also noticed how I really needed to shave.

When I sat back down in my seat I felt tired so I put my hat down over my eyes and closed them. Everything went to black. After waking up from my nap, I chatted for a bit with a veteran who was seated next to me. He noticed me in my new hat and complimented me on it, which I thanked him for. He didn't wear a hat like mine but he looked to be about my father’s age. Curious, I asked what branch he served in and he said Marines and how he was a Nam vet. He then asked if this was my first visit to this particular VA hospital. It was, and the guy welcomed me by saying, “You know, they say the military is for serving your country— that’s all bullshit. Thank you for serving? No, thank you for being expendable. You don’t serve your country. No, you serve because they needed people to be expendable. We’re expendable! What they needed was people willing to get blown up, maimed, killed, or torn apart. That’s all. If they were really honest, they wouldn’t say we needed people serving their country, they’d say we need people willing to be killed or injured, and look at how they’re treating us now? Now that they don’t need us 44 anymore for that, we’re still expendable! How long have you been waiting? Yeah, me too. Get used to it. Oh, we don’t need them anymore so fuck ‘em, that’s why we get shafted.”

My father never spoke this way about his service. But then again, he hardly ever talked about it either. Before getting up to leave, since it was now his turn, he says, “You know what ‘never forget’ really means?”

I shook my head no. He said, “It means to never let them forget what they put us through because trust me, they will.”

I pulled out my journal and wrote this all down. I picked up this habit while in Army. We all used to carry notebooks in our cargo pockets so that we would write down Op-orders and I ended up using that journal also as a dairy of sorts. I often wrote in it whenever I was bored or, for whatever reason, felt compelled to record something. I wrote about the way a civilian contractor looked as we placed his lifeless body into a bag and the time mortar rounds landed by our motor pool, injuring a half dozen soldiers. There was also when I witnessed the aftermath of a car bomb detonating in a highly populated part of town and what that smelled like just minutes after it happened.

Back home, I carried the notebook around to jot down to-do lists. This was the first time I wrote something else in it since the war.

An hour and a half later, a guy came around with sack lunches and handed them out to everybody. When he got to me, I told him I wasn't hungry. I already had some potato chips. The guy said I should take one anyway—if I wasn't hungry now, 45

I would be later. Inside the brown bag was a ham sandwich, generic brand chips, an apple and a boxed drink. It kind of reminded me of the meal I got once when I spent the night in the drunk tank. However, at the VA people handed what they couldn’t eat to somebody else, the same way soldiers do when sitting around eating MREs. A soldier will eat what he wants and hand out what he doesn’t so that nothing goes to waste. Across a range of combat and life experience, it was heartwarming to see that go on at the VA, yet sad at the same time.

I looked around again at all the other veterans; black, white, Hispanic, one or two Asians, male and female, nearly all with some sort of flare, some marker indicating they were a veteran. Even the sullen janitor wearing a blue jumpsuit and working the mop and yellow bucket had on a mini Purple Heart pin by his name tag.

A couple had spouses with them, but most were alone like me. Some looked as if they’d gone through more hell than others, but one thing was for sure: none of these veterans who had fought for their country looked rich. You could tell none of them rolled up to the VA in a late model Mercedes looking for a valet. They all looked blue-collar and poor. I then realized that in 30 years, that was mostly likely going to be me and many of the other guys in my platoon. “All of us.”

Finally, after nearly five and a half hours of waiting, they called my number.

I was fixated on the various professionally framed degrees and accolades nailed onto the white wall behind the mental health physician’s desk when he kindly asked 46 me what was wrong and how he could help today. In no mood for bullshit or small talk, I got straight to the point and said, “Give me some of that P.T.S.D.”

He gazed at me blankly from across his desk, especially when I added

“please.”

Silence followed.

“I’m serious,” I told him, “I need it.”

“Are you on any medication.” He paused. “Or, on any drugs?”

I told him no.

He appeared surprised.

A part of me was, too.

He then asked if I was feeling suicidal or was contemplating suicide. I told him that I was, but that was just to speed up the process at the VA. He again asked me the same question, rephrasing it: was I currently, as in right this minute, feeling suicidal?

“That depends…” I said.

“Depends on what?”

“If I get that PTSD or not.”

“What if you don't?”

“Don’t what?”

“Don't have PTSD?”

“Huh?”

He wasn't making any sense. Shaking his head, he asked if I had with me a copy of my DD-214, or “Certificate of Release or Discharge From Active Duty,” which

I was told ahead of time to bring. I carried it with me inside a large manila folder.

The one with IMPORTANT DOCUMENT printed on the outside of it. This single piece of paper in that every single soldier receives upon discharge indicated that my previous employer was the United States Army and my position for them was in the

Infantry.

While waiting in the lobby earlier, I decided to glance over the DD-214 to see what was on it since I’d never really read it before.

Box 13 had all of my decorations and medals:

//National Defense Service Medal, Global War On Terrorism Expeditionary

Medal, Global War On Terrorism Medal, Army Service Ribbon, Iraq Campaign Medal,

Combat Infantryman Badge, Expert Infantrymen Badge, Army Commendation

Medal, Air Assault Badge and a Parachutist Badge// NOTHING FOLLOWS.

14. MILITARY EDUCATION

//None//NOTHING FOLLOWS.

18. REMARKS

//Solider served in support of Operation Enduring Freedom Iraqi

Freedom//Place of duty: Kuwait & Iraq// Solider served in an imminent danger pay area//NOTHING FOLLOWS.

I noticed his eyes widened up a bit as he reviewed it.

“Wow. Infantry.” He said when he looked back up at me. "You must have seen a lot."

I didn't respond.

He told me about how he was starting to get a lot of Infantry guys now.

I wasn't surprised.

We had to wait for his computer to restart since it froze on him. It looked to be a PC from the early eighties, and he mentioned that the software that the VA uses seemed to be from that era as well, so we engaged in some more friendly small talk.

He told me all about how he and his family just got back from Florida and how there was this new Thai restaurant on the outskirts of town that I should really check out since it was really good. Their prices were also decent. Then he asked me what I was doing for work and I told how I wasn't really. I had been working my old job as a bag boy back at the grocery store but then I quit not too long ago. I was going to be laid off anyway once they reduced the amount of cashiers they needed thanks to putting in a dozen more self check out aisles. I told how I was currently running around looking for a job. He asked how that was going and I kind of shrugged and told him not good.

“There are a lot of vets having a hard time finding a job. You’d be surprised how many vets there are from this war who are living out of their cars.”

“Really?”

“Yup, we get a lot of them who come in here. They tell me they’re living out of their cars and can’t find work.” 49

“That’s sad. Why don’t they just re-enlist?”

“I don’t know. Why didn’t you re-enlist?”

“Okay, I see what you mean now.”

Finally, after three more attempts to reboot and a call to IT, his computer finally came to. Watching him typing on the keyboard and moving the mouse around a bit, my stomach audibly growled as he mentioned something about scheduling me for an appointment to be assessed for PTSD sometime in late September, which was four and a half months from now. My heart rate skyrocketed as I told him that wasn't going to work— at all. I was on the verge of seeing red. I didn't come down all the way here to the VA just to be put on hold or scheduled for a goddamn appointment four and a half months away. When he saw that I was upset, he matter- of-factly informed me that this was soonest the VA could see me.

Taking a deep breath, I calmly explained to him the severity of the situation I was now in. “Look, I don't think you understand. I’m not going to be here in

September. In fact, I might not be here period by then, if you know what I mean if I don't get me some of that PTSD right here and now and...”

He cut me off, “Sorry, but that’s the soonest we can see you.”

A grenade pin almost went off in my head as for a second there, I thought he was about to crack a smile at me to kind of ease the situation. With nothing left to lose, I begged for him again to see if I could be diagnosed with PTSD any sooner and how that’s all I wanted: a PTSD diagnosis— that’s it. Nothing more, nothing less.

He said sorry again and explained how he couldn't just give me PTSD as if it was a goodie bag that the VA gives out for free to every single veteran who enters their system. He claimed PTSD didn't work that way. He said the VA could possibly give me a clinical diagnosis for PTSD, but that was only under one condition and one condition only: “You really have to have it.”

“Well,” I eagerly blurted out, “let me fucking have it!”

“Again, you’re not listening to me. And please don't swear. The soonest we could let you have it is in September, do you still want me to…” He then stopped, as if he just had a realization about something and with one eyebrow lifted asked, “Can

I ask you a question?”

I nodded.

“I’m curious, why do you want PTSD so bad?” He asked, “You’re not trying to get out of a redeployment, are you?”

Eyeing me suspiciously, I eyed him back suspiciously. I didn't know how to respond. Was it that obvious, I thought? Probably, so I reached into my manila folder and I pulled out my re-deployment orders and handed that over to him.

While reviewing my re-deployment orders, he nodded with understanding and said, “I thought so.” After that he set the orders off to the side and placed it over by my DD-214.

“So, you want PTSD so that you can tell them you have it so you don't have to go back?” He asked. “Correct?”

“Correct.” 51

He sighed. Glancing quickly at his watch he explained how he could give me a triage evaluation if I wanted to and how if I did in fact have PTSD he could quickly write up a letter of recommendation for me to show them when I got back to Fort

Benning. But, he emphasized, from his experience at the VA the success rate for what I was attempting was fifty-fifty. He's written plenty of letters for guys he's evaluated who've been called back up and didn't want to go, and some come back, others don't. He told me all about this one guy who he evaluated who was in really bad shape and really shouldn't have gone back to Iraq, and he kept on calling the

Army telling them how this guy really should not be going back, and the Army's attitude toward him was thank you for calling, but we have our own doctors who can make their own decisions on whether or not a soldier is deployable, and we really don't need your suggestions. Click.

He asked if I still wanted to give this a shot. I told him fuck it. “Lets go! Let’s do this shit.”

“Ok.”

Surprisingly, it all happened rather quickly. Maybe even too quickly. After another glance over my DD-214, I was asked if I witnessed a life-threatening event in Iraq that caused me intense fear, helplessness, or horror?

After thinking about that for a second I told him, “Who in my platoon, hadn’t?”

He politely asked for me to talk a little bit about one of these events with him.

While thinking about which incident I should bring up, since I had several to choose from, he asked for me to just talk about whatever event that first came to mind. So, I did. I told him about the dog.

“A dog?”

“Yeah.” I reminisced, “A dog.”

“What kind of dog?”

I shrugged. “A brown one?”

He seemed unimpressed. “That was traumatic?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

The mental health physician released a sigh. I didn't want to blow this PTSD diagnosis so I went ahead and told him all about how there was this one day in

Mosul, back in August 2004, when my platoon was on this a routine movement-to- contact mission through a major artery of the city, called Route Tampa, and we got ambushed. I told him, “It all just came out of nowhere” and how we were taking fire from all over: multiple RPG’s, small arms, the works. All of our vehicles got hit with at least one RPG. One vehicle was on fire. There was all this smoke and I remember people were screaming. I then told him how in the middle of all this our platoon sergeant, who I was standing next to, got shot in the head, our Lieutenant got sliced in half by an RPG-7 that penetrated his vehicle, and there was all this confusion—I had no time whatsoever to process what in the world was going on.

“I remember pointing my weapon and pulling the trigger towards this crowd of people. I remember seeing these muzzle flashes coming from the crowd but not everyone in this crowd of bodies had a weapon. They were just there and running for their lives. I pulled the trigger…I remember seeing bodies dropping.” I stopped talking since I think I was getting off topic so I pulled myself together and brought up the dog again. I told him how in the middle of all this shit, with all this expired brass shell casings splashing all around me, right there in the middle of this fire fight was this fucking dog. It came out of nowhere and was running for its life trying to cross the street and somebody, I don't know who, either one of us or one of them, who knows, but some sick fuck shot it. Not once, but multiple times.

It was brown dog, I told him again, but I had no idea what breed or any of that. All I remember was how it was just kind of scruffy. It looked homeless and terrified, exactly how we all were that day. I remember that.

“That bothers you?” He asked. “Keeps you late at night?”

“No. Not really.” I thought for a moment. “I guess I’m not really a dog person.”

“No. Not the dog, but the experience of that day? That still bothers you?”

“I don’t know. I mean, yeah. Totally.”

This was bullshit. I could function just fine and I hardly ever thought about that day or at least I try not to. It was like an awful dream that happened to me once and is all but forgotten about now, I think. I did think about that dog every now and then and that crowd of people, but that's it. I explained to this mental health physician. I told him how I don't avoid dog parks or cry whenever I see a puppy or 54 view a dog food commercial, but I do think about what it all means from time to time. He asked how so and I tried to explain how that was mentality of this fire fight we were in. It was shoot everything, kill everything, blow everything up. Seeing that dog get shot, the same way that those people did just moments prior, reminded me of this quote I came across either online or in a book that said in war “you will die like a dog for no good reason.”

“Mailer?” He asked.

“No,” I said. “It was no one like that. I think it was Hemmingway.”

“Oh.”

“But whatever, for some reason,” I told him while looking at him, “that always stuck with me. That quote, the dog, the watermelon stand somebody blew up, death, crowds of people. That child standing next to guy who pointed his AK at me. The ‘no good reason.’ How hot it was that day. The Sergeant who took a bullet in his back, the guys who got all fucked up with shrapnel wounds, my hands shaking, chain smoking, the idiot who released the smoke grenades in the middle of all this so that I couldn’t see where they were shooting from, and that image of the dog being shot in the middle of an ambush. Why?”

He was jotting this all down.

“Ever since then,” I added, “I never understood why human beings kill one another. It makes no sense to me at all…” I drifted off while staring at the many framed photos that this mental health physician had of his family, all placed on the bookshelf behind him, especially the wedding photos of his smiling beautiful blonde 55 daughters wearing their white dresses standing next to the shmucks that they chose to marry. I couldn’t understand that either, I thought, and then I told him, “Nothing makes sense to me anymore. Nothing.”

After typing away at his keyboard for a couple minutes, he handed over his assessment documenting my PTSD diagnosis. It was all typed out on piece of legal paper with the VA’s letterhead on it. He asked me to see if there were any errors. If there were any, I wouldn't have noticed since my grammar, according to the ASVAB test I took prior to enlisting, indicated that I was at a high school freshman level.

Personally, I don't give a shit about grammar. I should, but I don't. That’s a job for copy editors. I’m not a copy editor. I’m a veteran. What I give a shit about is content and basically I loved what I read. A lot. It was like when I first read Kafka: I was totally blown away. I told him it was “beautiful.” I even said how I wanted to get it professional framed and hang it by my desk just like his many diplomas. Having pride in his work, he told me, “Thank you.”

I then placed this golden letter of recommendation of mine inside my large manila folder with IMPORTANT DOCUMENT printed on the outside of it. He suggested that my next move be for me to file a claim for service connected disability.

He said the office for that was located down the hall, right next door actually, and that if I followed the green line on the floor, it would take me straight there. If I wanted to, I could probably see them today.

“I got what I came down here for,” I said. “Thank you, but I’m not interested.”

When I got up to leave, he told me to hold on and wait right there, to sit back down. He strongly suggested I reconsider. “Trust me, you’re going to want to file for service connected disability. Better to do that sooner rather than later. Or, if they do in fact send you to Iraq, to do it as soon as you get back. Keep in mind there is no miracle cure for PTSD, but we do have programs in place to help you deal with the trauma.”

“How can you erase what happened to me?”

“We can't erase what happened to you, but we do have trauma-focused cognitive therapy sessions, individual and group therapy, various support groups, and, if need be, medication.”

“Drugs?”

“If need be.”

“Drugs… scare me. Those kind of drugs, that is.”

“We can prescribe medication for your anxiety, lack of sleep, depression. The right dosage of meds could help you, along with some good therapy. You might want to look into it. There’s also plenty of books you can read on the subject.”

“Like what? PTSD For Dummies?”

“Actually,” he said, “ yes, they have that and you can read that one if you want, but there’s plenty of other titles out there as well.”

“I’ve heard.”

I was then handed some VA swag, such as a yellow ribbon with the VA’s logo and phone number on it, a VA refrigerator magnet, VA beer koozie, and a VA water bottle all with some 1-800 for me to call in case I ever felt like offing myself, as well as a series of full color pamphlets for me to go over once I got home. One had a long list of various phone numbers for me to call in case I needed to “talk” to someone.

There were also several that listed the contact information for other services that I might need “if or when you get back.”

Out in the hallway, I threw on my hat and chucked the VA junk and PTSD pamphlets into the trash. While passing other veterans twice my age from other foreign wars on my way to the exit, I sent a text message to a friend of mine from the

Army, Sgt. Mendelson, to tell him the good news. I had to tell somebody since there was no way in hell I'd ever tell my parents I had PTSD.

He texted me back almost immediately: “Congratulations!”

I replied with a smiley face.

Outside I put my sunglasses on and lit up a smoke. The sun was out, the grass looked and smelled freshly mowed, and a fellow veteran was playing his acoustic guitar on a park bench. On my way to my car, another doctor wearing a white lab coat walked by. I could see his eyes viewing my O.I.F. “combat veteran” hat. He gave me a subtle head nod with a smile and said, "Welcome home." 58

I ignored him.

After a long night celebrating my PTSD diagnosis at the bar, I decided to call it night when the bartended cut me off. While driving home, going way under the speed limit, reeking of whisky, swerving in and out of my lane, I came to a light and stopped. While I was waiting for the light to turn green, I thought about my life. I wanted to cry. It then hit me that if a cop saw me, I'd probably be pretty fucked.

When the light changed, I slammed on the gas and seconds later saw the blur of red- and-whites flashed in my rearview mirror. Hiding an open container under the seat,

I pulled over. I hit the curb. A hubcap fell off. I got out of my vehicle and straight up told them the truth. "Look, I'm wasted and..."

One of them said, "No shit."

They asked for my registration and a driver’s license. I handed them my VA hospital card and a cigarette lighter. The items I provided were immediately rejected. “That’s not a drivers license or a vehicle registration.”

"I can explain," I said. "I'm an Iraq veteran and — "

"I don't care!" He was getting his handcuffs ready.

He doesn't care? Wait, he doesn't care? Perfect.

"Exactly!" I screamed back, pointing at him inexplicably. "That's the problem.

Nobody cares! Nobody!"

There was silence as the three of us stood there, cars slowing as they passed by, the drivers and passengers no doubt gawking at this scene. The officers looked at 59 one another as if hoping the other would know what to do. I broke the silence, told them I lived a couple blocks away, so I could park the car here and walk home. They stalled, then agreed. As they turned back to their cruiser, my dumbass decided to ask if it would be okay to park my car over on an adjacent street since where I was currently parked would require me moving it prior to 8am to avoid a ticket. They both, at the same time, told me to shut the fuck up and to walk home. Now.

So I did.

Wherever the hell that was.

10.

On the day I was to report back to active duty my parents gave me a ride to the airport. I wasn’t quite off the hook yet—I’d have to show proof of my diagnosis to whoever deals with that once I arrived at Fort Benning. While heavily hung over in the backseat of my father’s car, I noticed that my mother had placed a blue tarp to put over my car which was parked on the driveway. It looked like a body bag to me.

The ones we used to put people in. While backing out from the driveway, we all turned to see that the neighbors getting their boat ready to go fishing. My parents nonchalantly waved at them from the front seat. I couldn’t bring myself to do the same. With rods in hand, they waved back, a gesture that seemed totally oblivious to me considering where my parents were taking me and why. They were going to have a pleasant, quiet day on the water, hoping to catch fish they probably could just by at the grocery store, and I was headed back to war. Even though I had my 60 diagnosis, I wasn’t trusting it until I was officially clear. In the meantime, I told myself to assume that I’d be going back to Iraq.

My father liked to listen to the radio while driving and immediately tuned into a news station. Of course, the first story we heard was about a recent car bombing. “Dozens were killed,” the reporter said, no emotion or inflection in her voice at all. My mother immediately shut the radio off and, much to my surprise, quietly sobbed while my father tried to merge onto the freeway. It was strange to see her express any feeling like that. It always seemed to me that she tried to hide those kind of outbursts from others.

When I asked if everything was okay, my father answered that she was just upset that I was leaving. “That’s all,” he added.

“It’s just not fair,” she said.

My father quickly turned the radio back on and switched to a station that played Classical music. Just a string serenade without any lyrics. He turned the volume up, I suspect, to down out my mother’s tears.

11.

Fort Benning, Georgia. Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, I thought while standing there like a dumbass in my favorite Hawaiian shirt, flip flops, and dark sunglasses to hide how hung over I was. Once more, I was half asleep at a

0530 formation when I realized a dramatic change had taken place. It was something that I’d never witnessed before, both here and back at Fort Lewis. It was 61 the number of soldiers in uniform walking around with missing or prosthetic limbs.

Not dozens, just one or two here and there, but everywhere I looked nonetheless.

Everywhere.

Fucked up as it was, I couldn’t help imagining myself becoming one of them one day, watching them walk and limp by. I had been warned that this was going on, but was not fully prepared to see it up close and personal.

In the past when a soldier got his limbs torn off by the enemy, the Army would more or less kick him out, maybe give a disability check, a free wheelchair, priority seating at parades, and that’s about it. Now, the Army provides not only state-of-the-art prosthetic limbs, but also give these soldiers the option of either getting out or staying to train other soldiers on their way to war. The logic is, and it makes sense, is that a soldier who’s been to war has experience that just can’t be taught and is thus invaluable to the military. This is especially true for a soldier who’s been blown up before and can use that to show others what to do. I’d been lucky, I think. I’d survived my first tour in Iraq and successfully dodged death, multiple times, but this upcoming deployment was going to be another game of

Russian roulette. The more times I played it, the higher the chances my card would one day get pulled. I didn't like the thought of that.

The formation looked like a lineup of disgruntled half-asleep draftees. All of them wore mismatched civilian clothing from head to toe and radiated defeat. About half still had military-style haircuts and a handful who were poorly shaven with shaggy hair. The sun was not even close to up yet and all around other platoons 62 were already conducting physical-training exercises. The last time I recalled waking up this early was back when I was in the Army, and the only time I’d conducted any

PT whatsoever since being discharged was wind sprints to the liquor store fifteen minutes before closing. While waiting for the Platoon Sergeant to show up, I kept telling myself over and over that this was not happening.

Half a decade ago, I took a white bus filled with fresh recruits from the

Atlanta airport straight here to basic training; a "soldierization" process wherein a small handful of months one is transformed from civilian to infantry soldier, also known as a grunt, a government-trained trigger puller, a Deadly Infantry Combat

Killer. While waiting for the formation I remembered how I was back then — excited, nervous, scared, and, most importantly, willing. It was what I wanted for my life, so this was the place I wanted to be. Now, I just felt very sick.

Finally, the Platoon Sergeant showed up. After a warm welcome, the NCO in charge did a head count and one by one we sounded off. One! Two! Three! We stopped around sixty. Out of 150 IRR soldiers recalled and ordered to report to duty, only a third showed up. It was a bit too late, but I realized that I was in the wrong group. I should have been one of the ninety no-shows.

After attendance was taken, they marched all of us over to the chow hall and, while we waited in formation for it to open up, another Staff Sergeant walked over.

"How many of you guys are glad to be here?" he asked. Nobody raised their hand.

One soldier yelled out a mocking "Hooah!"

"How many of you are not glad to be here?" he asked. 63

Before he could even finish asking this question, every single hand shot straight up in the air. In the far distance, you could faintly hear a platoon of soldiers standing in formation, all singing "The Army Goes Rolling Along."

"How many of you have already been deployed?" Staff Sergeant asked. All the hands in the formation stay up, including mine.

At the chow hall, I recognized a face that I hadn't seen in years. I couldn't believe it at first, but it was Kelley, who was in my platoon back at Fort Lewis. After exchanging what-the-fuck-are-you-doing-here’s, he asked what I’d been up to since getting out. I told him about my entry-level gig as a bag boy and the nightmares it gave me. He told me how he moved back home to Cambridge, Ohio and got a job sorting and delivering bread for nine dollars an hour. When I asked how he felt about being called back, he shrugged. ”Look at how fucked-up we are now. Imagine how fucked-up we’re going to be when we get back this second time.”

I asked how his wife felt about him being here. He lifted up his left hand, which was ringless. "Fuck it," he said. "Give me back my gun and send me."

I was ringless, too. Always have been and probably always will be. For a split second, I thought about bringing up Whitmer or Spc. Thomas, both of whom were once married, to see if he heard what happened to them. He must have. We all had.

Not about their divorces, but about how neither of them were around anymore.

Whitmer supposedly committed suicide by driving his motorcycle drunk at one- hundred plus miles an hour into a cement wall after a fight with his ex-wife. Spc.

Thomas was served divorce papers while on redeployment. Shortly after, he was 64 killed when his vehicle ran over an IED. Since Kelley appeared willing to go back, I decided not to bring all this up. It just seemed like the wrong time to do so. After chow, we walked out together and he invited me to hang out with him later that night, saying that he had a bottle and we could catch up more then. I told him that I couldn't, how I had plans, but would some other time if that was all right with him.

“Don’t worry about it,” he told me. “We’ll have plenty of time to hang out when we get over there.”

Our first day back at Fort Benning was spent in single-file line going from station to station, getting all our documents checked and rechecked. It became clear to me during this process that the soldiers being recalled to active duty were vastly outnumbered. For every one IRR reporting back to active duty, there were at least three civilian contractors here as well, getting their packets ready for deployment.

They all seemed eager and more than willing to deploy. Joyful even. Half were gratuitously obese, almost all looked severely pathetic. A great majority of them seemed to be living in a Blackwater fantasy with a perverse fetish for highly expensive tactical gear, which they were wearing in overabundance from head to toe, as if they were a member of Seal Team 6. They gave preference to the contractors and zipped those guys right on through. While all of us were patiently waiting, one contractor passed by happily and commented, "You guys don't look like you're having too much fun." None of us bothered to look up. While waiting, I overheard the guy next to me say, "Why the fuck are those people so goddamn

65 happy?" The guy next to me grumbled, "Shit — if I was making six digits doing absolutely nothing, I'd be walking around with a hard-on, too."

Six hours later, I received a new ID card. I was beginning to panic. Not only did I appear to have fat face, but I also now knew, thanks to the provided checklist, that I was only two steps away from being boarded onto a plane headed straight to

Iraq. There were only things left on my checklist: medical and dental. The following day was set aside for dental and the day after for medical. In other words, the whole process to see if you're mentally and physically able to deploy to a war zone takes roughly thirty-six hours from the time you show up.

While walking back to the barracks, I ran into Kelley again. He asked what I was up to that night. I told him that I had a lot of stuff to do and was going to pretty much hang out in my room that evening.

“You’re not avoiding me, are you?”

“No, why?”

“What about tomorrow night? You wanna go out? Hit up the bar on post?”

“Sure,” I said.

That evening, I took a cab off-post to Broadway in Columbus. I didn't want to hang out with Kelley or any of other the other soldiers. I didn't want to be attached to any of them. I didn't want to know their names or them mine. I’d been through that before and didn't want to go through it again.

The bar had a sign outside advertising $2.50 drafts. Inside, it reminded me of the place we all used to go to off-post out in Olympia. It had that same neighborhood 66 feel to it. While evaluating my life at the bar, I decided fuck it. After a few shots and a couple beers, I sent Helen a text. She was the girl I met and briefly dated while I was in the Army. The one who broke up with me while I was in Iraq. She didn't flat out say it but it was implied. I didn't tell her that I was on the verge of heading back to

Iraq. Instead, I just said hello, how I was thinking of her, and how I hoped she was doing well. After I made that mistake, I looked over and noticed the guy a couple seats over who’d clearly had a couple and appeared to be there by himself as well.

We nodded a friendly hello to each other. Minutes later the guy told me, out of nowhere, that he’d just got back from Iraq four days ago.

"Welcome back," I said. "Are you with 3rd Brigade?"

"Yeah," he said. "How'd you know?"

"There's 'Welcome Home 3rd Brigade' posters and banners all over

Benning."

He nodded. "What unit you with?"

I told him that I was with 2nd I.D., but wasn't assigned to a particular unit at the moment. I told him that I was back here at Benning because the Army called my ass back up to active duty.

Pleasantries were exchanged about how the Army was now doing that a lot, with the surge and all, and after some military small talk (What unit were you with?

What's your MOS? Where you from? When and where were you in Iraq?), the two of us both went back to drinking in silence, sitting right there next to each other. I looked back over at him to see how he was doing — he was slouching with both his 67 elbows on the bar and seemed to be having trouble keeping his head up at times. He reminded me of myself when I got back. I pointed this out to him. “This is the worst part. Coming home,” he said. I nodded while making a mental note to write that down in my journal later on, though part of me knew I’d already written those words before. I wasn't sure. Just in case, I wrote it down on a beer coaster and placed it in my back pocket.

It was around last call when the “Veteran Cab Co.” driver dropped me back on post, and I was feeling blue that Helen never texted me back. At the barracks there was a guy with a cooler of beer with his truck doors wide open blasting country music. As soon as I approached him, I was handed a tall can, which I happily cracked open. Fuck it. After a hearty swig, I asked the guy who handed me the beer if this was okay because I was under the impression that alcohol was prohibited in the barracks area. He told him me not to worry. "I've been here for a little over eighteen weeks. It’s all cool."

Eighteen weeks. He went on to say that he’d been waiting on paperwork to get out. He was trying to claim some Hail Mary family-lineage reason — his father recently died and he's the only one to pass on the family name, or something like that. He was the first guy I’d come across who was trying to get out of being deployed, so I went ahead and asked him about PTSD. He said he tried that one, but those doctors don't give a fuck and they'll say you're deployable no matter what you tell them.

"I fucked up," he said. "They asked me if I wanted to kill people. I said no, which I now totally regret — not wanting to kill people is normal. What I should have said was 'Fuck yeah! I want to go to Iraq and just fucking kill everybody! I don't care who the fuck it is, I just want to kill everything and everyone!'"

I was a little distracted by drunk guy who couldn’t stand up no matter how hard he tried. He was in a bit of a trance saying, "I just want to go over there and kill some fuckin' hajjis, man!" over and over again. He was in bad shape and I was trying hard to ignore him by asking the other guy how many people he'd seen get out of deployment.

"Not many," he said. “Why? Are you trying to get out of it?"

Cautiously, I nodded yes. I didn't want to go home again either.

"Do what you gotta do. If you don't want to go back, then don't go back. You and I — we've already done our part. We've already been to Iraq. We’ve already served our country. Ain't no shame at all in not wanting to go back. Your only chance is to try and find a way to the main hospital, and once you get there, find someone in mental health and talk to them."

The drunk guy had no idea what we’d been talking about and tried to bro with me, extending his hand to shake, which I did, and when he asked me if I wanted to kill some hajjis, too, I told him no. "Why not?" he hollered.

Why not? That was a good question. I didn't know how to answer. Perhaps it was because I knew that if they're within range to be killed, so were you. I didn't like that feeling, nor did I want to relive any of that. 69

It was time for me to leave, since I didn’t care to answer his question. I thanked the other soldier again. ”Do what you gotta do,” he said again. While I was walking away, I could hear the drunk soldier say “fuck that guy” and something about how he should kick my ass, which I ignored.

First formation was in a couple hours, but instead of going back to my room, I decided to bring a couple beers with me up to the "off-limits" fourth floor of the barracks. My brain works in very, very strange ways when I'm inebriated. I was stumbling about, exploring the vacant floor, thinking, Wow, they could, like, convert these historic barracks into, like, cool artist lofts! Then I came across a half dozen or so gallon paint cans in the corner and looked at the walls in a drunken fog.

They appeared to me as huge, blank white canvases and I couldn't help but think of the abstract expressionist Jackson Pollock.

The next morning I was awakened by a loud pounding on the door and somebody yelling.“Wake the fuck up!” Still slightly drunk and wearing the same clothes I wore the night before, I made my way over to formation. Kelley asked where I was last night cause he’d been looking for me and I told him, “I don't know.”

Afterward a head count was taken and formation was released, I excused myself from Kelley and walked over to the Staff Sergeant. I told him that I wasn’t doing so well and that I had to go to the main hospital. He told me that he could not send me directly to the hospital —I had to go to sick call first. A driver escorted me to sick call where a receptionist handed me a form to fill out. For "Reason" I simply wrote: "illness." I felt that this was good enough, but she handed the form back to 70 me and told me to be more specific on my reason why. I wrote "mental" before the word “illness” and handed it back to her.

When I finally spoke with a doctor I told him that I was not doing so well, that

I was having head issues being here, and requested to see a psychiatrist over at the main hospital. The doctor informed me that the only way that could ever happen was if I had an appointment. When asked if he could set that up and if it was possible to see someone that day, he laughed and told me no. The average wait time for that was at least four to five weeks. This wasn't going to work.

Thinking of going AWOL, I walked back to the shuttle van that was waiting for me outside. The driver was smoking a cigarette and asked how it went. I told him not good, not good at all, and that the people at sick call told me that I had to be dropped off at the main hospital immediately.

The receptionist at the hospital told me that a doctor couldn't see me that day, but if I wanted to see a mental health professional they could set up an appointment, the earliest of which would be in four to six weeks.

“Six weeks?!”

Jesus Christ, I thought, this is like dealing with the VA.

“Well, more like six-and-a-half. We’re flooded. We just had another unit return and they’re all wanting help. Sorry.”

"What if I told you that I'll kill myself if I don't see somebody today?"

"Uh," she said, staring at me for a second or two to see if I was serious or not.

There was a ballpoint pen on the counter. I was thinking that if I didn't hear the 71 answer I wanted, I swear to God my plan was to not only to one day write about this but to pick up that pen and stab myself in the arm to prove to her that I needed to see somebody that day. She got up and walked out of the room. A minute later she returned. "Just take a seat in the waiting room and a doctor will see you shortly.”

After taking a seat in the lobby, I noticed some paint droplets on my shoes, which reminded me of the night before. I also felt something in my back pocket and when I pulled it out to see what it was I saw that it was the beer coaster from the night before with the message, “This is the worst part: coming home.” I forgot all about that. Then I filled out the paperwork and watched two full episodes of some corny Soap Opera called General Hospital. Those TV show patients, I noticed, received excellent treatment at their civilian hospital. There was none of this waiting around crap like what I had to deal with.

I'd only had a couple hours of sleep in the past several days, so when I took a seat, the chair slid a few inches. The doctor frowned and asked me how I was doing.

I handed her my beer coaster and told her that I wasn't doing so well. Being called back to war was bringing up a bunch of memories that I'd prefer not to relive again.

Her voice was soft and gentle and she asked what I’d been doing with myself since I got out. I told her that most of my time was spent bagging groceries, being alone, getting drunk, or feeling broken hearted, sometimes all of the above. I handed her the medical documents from the VA about my PTSD diagnosis, the letter of recommendation from the doctor saying that I should not to return to a war zone,

72 and the medical questionnaire I had to fill out in the lobby. She looked over it without speaking.

She noticed that didn't answer “Have you ever thought about killing someone?” and asked why this was.

“I didn't know how to correctly answer that one,” I told her. “I was in the

Infantry. That’s like, all we did was think about killing.”

I explained to her how we were trained from day one to do just that and how

I lost of track all the times we would have to scream “KILL” at the top of our lungs over and over and over again. I told her about all the countless hours we spent at

Fort Lewis learning how to effectively kill people with either a weapon or our own bare hands. We were told that our job as Infantrymen was to go out and kill. We were instructed to think about the most effective way to kill and how every single mission that I was sent on in Iraq involved “locating, capturing, and killing all anti-

Iraqi forces.”

When I went out on patrols or raids, I didn't think about how I was going to one day use my GI Bill. I thought about which one of these motherfuckers was trying to kill me and how to kill them before they killed me.

“It was all killing. Twenty-four seven. Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill! All we did over there was think about killing,” I told her. “Well, we thought about other stuff as well...”

I spent a lot of time, perhaps way too much time, thinking about getting laid if

I ever returned home, but I didn't tell her that part. 73

“How often,” she began, taking her eyes off the paperwork, “or when was the last time you thought about killing yourself?”

“Ten minutes ago.”

Prior to this moment, it hadn’t occurred to me that what I was trying to do would irreversibly flush my hero status down the toilet. I didn't want to go back because I didn't want to come back home again. I didn't want to go through that hell a second time. I was, in my mind, now no different than the person who refused to go to war to begin with, which made me feel sick. I didn't want to end up in an obituary on the second or third page of my hometown paper with the words "it was his second deployment." We’d been told we were fighting them there, so we wouldn’t have to fight them here at home and I found myself not so worried about that anymore.

When I got back to the barracks we had an end-of-the-day formation and, for some reason, the First Sergeant was there. He came out and told us that the other evening there had been an incident up in one of the main rooms on the off-limits fourth floor, where someone completely vandalized an entire room, splashing paint all over the walls. He mentioned that he's been here at Fort Benning for a couple years now and had never seen anything like it happen and he suspected that somebody — probably drunk out of his mind and pissed off about being called back up — decided to throw a hissy fit and trash the hell out of the place. First Sergeant asked anybody in the formation who knew or had seen anything to write it down on a piece of paper and slip it to him in his office. I didn't know anything about what 74 happened, so I didn't write anything for the First Sergeant. I couldn’t remember that part of the night, so technically I couldn’t confirm or deny that I had anything to do with what happened. Nonetheless, I did have a strange, newfound respect for Mr.

Pollock's work. It took a shitload of paint — a lot more than I originally thought — to do what he did.

I wouldn't believe I was free until they stamped me NOT DEPLOYABLE. And because the Army is the Army, I still had to fill out more paperwork, have a hearing test, blood work, quick eye check, hand over my dental records, and then wait in line to see a medical provider who'd tell me what shots I needed.

While sitting on a folding chair in the waiting room— I had my head down, lost in thought, wondering if I was really going to get out of this or not — I heard my name. I looked up and it was Kelley. He was talking to a couple of guys seated next to him. He pointed at me and with a kindness in his voice said, "That guy right there.

He was my team leader in Iraq." He was talking about how he had been on my gun team and hearing him reminisce made me think of the times we'd set the M240, my machine gun, down out on some observation post and just sit there together for hours bumming cigarettes off each other, staring out at the city and thinking about home. The hours spent together up on the guard towers. Sitting next to him in the back of the Stryker vehicle. And the day we received fire from a mosque and Kelley was behind the .50-cal beautifully engaging said mosque while the combat medic next to me was yelling "Get some! Get some!” with unmatched joy.

The string of memories was interrupted when I heard my name again. It was the guy behind the desk where I’d have the very last item checked on my list: my medical health. I handed my records and in-processing packet to him— he seemed to be having a great day at work — and when he opened up my packet, he asked me what I did for work before this. Avoiding conversation, I told him I was unemployed.

He laughed, “Well, you don't have to worry about that anymore."

I glared at the guy, who ignored me and continued asking questions. “Are you on any medication?”

"No. Just alcohol."

“Have you ever been to the emergency room?”

"Yes. I visited the E.R. a couple days before coming here."

“What for?

“PTSD.”

“When was the last time you had an anxiety attack?”

"Yesterday."

I pulled out the business card of the kind lady over at the hospital who had seen me the day before. “I spoke to this person and she documented that I was non- deployable. She said that it'd all be in the system.” Without missing a beat, he started typing on his computer, presumably to find my file or whatever. After a few moments, he found what he was looking for and the happy-go-lucky smile disappeared. He must have been reading my psychological assessment. I swear his

76 face turned kind of pale and, like a zombie, he stamped my packet NOT

DEPLOYABLE. ”Don't worry, you can go home now."

Stepping outside to a picnic table, I lit up a smoke. Kelley came and sat with me. ”Everything I know about the M240 machine gun I learned from you."

I smiled.

"But now I don't know shit," he said.

I told him not to worry about that — he'd pick it up real quick. "After a while it'll be second nature operating that thing," I said. I knew I had nothing but selfish reasons for getting out again and it hit me that I could save lives by going back. I had something that none of the new guys had, and that was experience. I knew what it was like over there — what to look out for, what to expect, and what to do in certain situations. I told him what I still remembered about the 240 and when I ran out of things to say, I took a long drag from my smoke. I looked at him, knowing I needed to say this as directly as possible.

"I'm not going to be able to be with you on this one."

He took a drag from his smoke and nodded. I could tell that he knew exactly what I meant by that.

"I'm sorry, but I just can't go back there again."

He looked away.

“I’m sorry…”

“Is that why you’ve been avoiding me?”

“Yes. I…” 77

“No, don't worry. I thought so. I get it.” He paused, looking as let down as a person possibly could. “Leave no man behind, right?”

I let him have that. I deserved it. Speechless and filled with guilt, I didn't respond. We just sat in silence smoking until the shuttle bus pulled up to give us a ride back. We stood up, flipped our butts, got in, and sat down next to each other. I tried to enjoy the ride back but that was impossible. My thoughts kept being interrupted by the dips and rises from the tires going over the bumps in the road.

12.

In the living room, I tried to explain to my parents what happened.

At first, my mother was slightly confused to see me back home. Then she seemed happy for a little before going back being pissed off , then on to tearing up a little when I told her that they didn't want me anymore.

“You mean to tell me the Army, the United States Army, turned you away and they take retards. People who are too dumb to go to college. People with no future and who don't know any better. Poor people, they take them! And they don’t even want you anymore?”

I told her that was inaccurate. That they don't take retards and I wasn't retarded. I had PTSD.

Silence.

“You have what?” My mother spoke softly in disbelief.

“Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder,” I said. “Google it.” 78

My mother immediately opened up her laptop instead of just asking me what it was, which might have been easier. I don’t know, maybe she was too freaked out to think clearly.

“Yeah, we know what that is,” my father said. “But, what does that have to do with you getting out of a redeployment? You’re not really AWOL, are you?”

“No,” I told my father, “I’m not AWOL. I have PTSD, big difference. That means you don't have to go back to war because…”

My father stared at me long and hard as I was explaining this to him. I could tell he wasn't listening to a word I was saying. Fading off, he started talking about the TET offensive, and stuff about how there was no PTSD back in his day. He then excused himself, saying he needed to pour himself a drink. I was blown away. My father hardly ever drank and here he was making his way to the liquor cabinet.

My mother read the symptoms of PTSD out loud: anxiety, vivid memories, nightmares, numbness, loss of interest, depression, difficulty sleeping, getting upset over things that remind you of what happened…

“If that’s the case…” She paused, as if she had an epiphany. “Then I must have

PTSD then from raising you! I have the PTSD then!”`

Concerned, my father returned to the table, drink in hand, and asked if I knew how this PTSD diagnosis was going to negatively affect me, perhaps with employers. I told him I wasn't quite sure if it would since, according to the VA, many veterans with PTSD do go on to lead a happy, well-adjusted life. If not, then effective treatments are available. 79

My mother commented that she now needed a drink.

“So, what are you going to do now?” My father asked. “Now, that it’s officially documented that you have a mental illness?”

“Like I said before. I’m moving to Los Angeles.”

My mother smiled. She liked this idea of mine and she even commented

“good,” and “about time.”

While walking up the stairs back to my room I heard my dad tell mother not to worry and how, “He’ll be back.”

“I know.” Said my mother.

Like hell I would.

TWO

Located on the corner of Franklin and North Cahuenga, the building was a multi- level, 1940s-style “modern,” probably built during the housing boom following the

Second World War and painted a pale peach color. I discovered this place online where I responded to nearly every single roommate post I could find using free Wi-

Fi at coffee shops. The first living situation I checked out was the first to respond back:

$775

One private room

unfurnished w/shared bath/kitchen

Safe and quiet neighborhood

cool roommates

(Franklin Village)

I went to see it as soon as I could. A couple of mid-sized palm trees and a nice little courtyard completed the picture. The room was in a four-bedroom apartment, tucked away in the far back. They were asking “only” $775 a month for a room vacated by a guy who gave-up the Hollywood pipe dream and was homeward bound. The room was the smallest out of the four. Though it was smaller than the room I had grown up in back at my parents’ house, as well as my barracks room at

Fort Lewis, I told them it looked fine, perfect even. “I’ll take it.”

I thought, Hey, this is easy. No enlistment contract or anything. They’d say

“That’s great, welcome to the club.” I’d be issued the keys, same way the Army 82 issued a rifle and everything else I once needed, we’d shake hands and we’d all be roommates just like on Friends, maybe even become friends. But no, not in the real world. Out here in “the real world” these sadistic fucks wanted to first make a reality show of the whole process by interviewing me to see whether we were

“compatible.” A part of me wondered if there was a hidden camera.

Beads of sweat crept down my forehead. There was no begging in the Army. I was simply issued everything I needed. Out here, it was Darwin’s survival of the fittest where I was rediscovering that you must beg, fight, and steal for everything you needed. I had somehow survived military training, lived with a group of

“roommates” regardless of our “compatibility,” and avoided being blown up by an

IED or shot with an AK47 by enemy non-compliant forces. The Army saw that as enough to qualify me for having my needs met. And yet, here I was in civilian world, essentially starting from scratch as if I had just graduated from high school and tossed out aimlessly like a lone mortar round into a major metropolitan city where it was hard to distinguish between civilians and enemy combatants.

There was an Ikea chair in the center of the living room area. The television was playing a Seinfeld re-run, the one where they all visit a Chinese restaurant.

Seated on the casting couch in front of me, the three gatekeepers. I smelled weed.

I was placed in the center of the room in a fashion which felt like a simulated hostage interrogation, or the backdrop to one of those POW beheading videos that the insurgents liked to post up on YouTube with all of them yelling, “Allah, Akbar!”

The lights felt uncomfortably bright. A bag of buttered popcorn was in the 83 microwave for the ensuing inquisition. I could feel the moisture build under my armpits.

There were two girls and one guy. Before we got started, one of the girls got up to dump the popcorn into a plastic bowl and passed it to everyone but me. The cloying smell of the chemical butter made my stomach uneasy. A barrage of inane question ensued. What do you do? Who do you know? What do you do for fun?

Where you from? Are you on Facebook?

Under article three in the Geneva Convention, I was only required to state name, rank, and serial number. I kept my replies as to-the-point and pointless as the inquiries. I was in the Army. I just got out a year or so ago. I’m 29. No, I don’t know anyone here, yet. No, sorry, I haven’t seen that movie. I just like to, I don’t know, hangout, read, go on walks, explore. I like pizza and umm…chili mac. I really like chili and macaroni. No, I never went to college. Maybe. No, I don’t have a job yet, but hopefully I will soon.

None of them asked me anything more about being in the Army, why I’d joined, what it was like “over there,” if it was hot or even about my cool-looking veteran hat. The guy asked me the majority of the questions and was the only one of the three who I think was actually paying attention. One of the girls occasionally stopped texting to say things that weren’t really questions, but more statements about herself and the roommates. “We all like to sometimes go out and hang out together. We’re not like the typical roommates,” she explained. After furiously typing answer to what was apparently a very urgent message, she continued almost 84 as if she was unaware of the conversation that was happening. “We’re all pretty chill. We all get along. Every now and then we all go out. Sometimes we get a little bit crazy.” She laughed a little, realizing how that made them sound. “We’re a lot of fun!”

The third roommate, who I’m pretty sure was the owner of the vintage

Honda motorcycle parked outside, wore dark sunglasses indoors and appeared totally uninterested in me. She didn’t ask a single question, not one. If anything, she looked like she was trying her best to stay awake.

I tried answering all of their questions to the best of my ability, though it was clear they'd become bored of me quickly. All of them were white and I didn’t get the impression that they were looking for a token veteran for a fourth roommate.

When they were through, I was released and they escorted me back to the front door. With phony smiles they thanked me for coming down, all except the girl wearing the sunglasses, who had made a beeline to her room.

They informed me that they had a lot of other potential roommates to interview before making a decision, and that they’d give me a call in a day or two “if” they decided to choose me as their fourth roommate. If I didn’t hear back from them, that meant they’d selected somebody else. “Sorry,” the one girl said, again as if she was aware of how rude they were being.

Right before they shut the door, I said thanks and told them I understood.

Instead of walking back to my car, something told me to wait a second, to hold on. I could have sworn I heard laughing. I leaned back to the door and listened. 85

“Seriously, come on now, who un-ironically still wears flannels?!”

“What was up with that hat?”

The laughed, just like high schoolers. There was another thing that hadn’t changed about being back.

I lowered my hat to just above my eyebrows and slowly walked back to car.

My decision to move down to Los Angeles came to me one day at work, back when I was bagging groceries. During a lull in the action, I was hanging around the magazine rack sifting through the periodicals. I came across an article on all the protests that were going on across the country on the third or fourth anniversary of the war. The article came with a colorful side graphic that listed estimates of how many people showed up to each protest in each major city. New York. San Francisco.

Seattle. Portland. Of course, they were all near the top. But the major city of Los

Angeles was at the very bottom. When I saw that, a light went off in my head. What better way to distance yourself from the war, to become a civilian again than to move to a city where they didn’t seem to care about the war. And considering the

Hollywood lifestyle the area was infamous for, it would also be full of narcissists, people bound to be so caught up in themselves, they’d leave me alone. They don't care about the war! They don’t even think about it! I thought it would be great for all of that, including myself, to be overlooked.

While driving to and fro all over Los Angeles, I kept remembering how I found that article and the idea it gave me. I sensed something fascinating yet very odd about the city and I couldn’t quite put my finger on it until I was in some neighborhood near Hollywood where I passed this coffee shop. Their large outdoor seating area was packed with people wearing sunglasses and casual clothing. None of them looked like they were on a lunch break. I wondered what day of the week it was. “Wednesday,” I said. “It’s fucking Wednesday. Shouldn’t these people be at work, at a job or something?”

I started noticing this type of thing all the time. It was like everybody here was always handing out like everyday was Saturday.

I wanted to live my life like that, but knew it wasn’t going to happen. I was already beginning to think that this plan of mine was going to backfire when the sun was setting over Los Angeles and the city was cooling down for the night. I parked my vehicle on some quiet side street near the 10 freeway, behind a rustic-looking

RV, and watched cars pass, wondering how long the jasmine climbing along a fence actually bloomed. A guy with a black dog walked past. I turned the engine off, climbed into the backseat, and wrapped myself in a multi-colored Mexican blanket that purchased on Alvarado. Then I tried my best to go to sleep, cramped in the little space of my car.

Staying at cheap roadside motels while trying to get settled, even the ones way out in the outskirts of Torrance, was quickly sucking away what little savings I had left. In spite of what people might think, it gets pretty cold at night in L.A. and 87 sleeping in my car was making me feel homeless, but all this was temporary. All of this was going to change, I thought. It had to.

When I couldn’t stop shivering, I promised myself all this was going to change by any means necessary. I was Infantry and I’d be damned if my ass was going to end up as some predictable cliché or just one more head in yet another one of those depressing veteran statistics.

That would be just fucking pathetic.

At five a.m., right around the time the sun started to rise, it got so unbearably cold that I had to start the car up and let the heat run to thaw out a bit. After about twenty minutes, I turned the ignition back off and settled in for another hour or two of half-sleep.

Out of desperation, I headed to this one hotel I’d kept driving past. The Hotel Troy sat on the corner of Hollywood and Western. There was a liquor store on the corner next to the neighborhood methadone clinic, gang graffiti tagged on virtually everything, homeless human trash heaped over the bus stop bench at all hours, and a lonely church a block away. Conversely, there were a couple of newly placed stone flowerpots along the street—maybe I should jump on a place here now since this

“up and coming” neighborhood was probably on its way towards gentrification.

L.A. has many hotels like this one, especially in the “downtown” area. Not the glowing downtown L.A. that had been sprouting up over the past few years at that point, the one that came up due to the Staples Center, but the downtown just west of 88 the 110. The section that some claim is “un-gentrifiable.” Though many might argue that most of metropolitan Los Angeles is ghetto, this hotel wasn’t “in the ghetto.” Or at least it didn’t appear to be but, then again, after sleeping in Mosul with mortar shells flying over your head on any given night, caked in goat shit, living on a

Forward Operating Base that’s surrounded by thousands of people who want to kill you, what’s a ghetto? Perhaps my perception of what’s considered a bad neighborhood was a bit skewed at this point.

This Depression-era building appeared to be just another one of those hotels, very old school with the rusty neon signs hanging down the corner. There also seemed to always be a crowd of seedy homeless-looking individuals either passed out in front or drinking malt liquor out of brown paper bags while playing dice. An advertisement was painted in bold colors that had been faded by time and year- round sunny weather with the last line in cursive:

Rooms for Rent

Daily, Weekly, Monthly

Special Rates

They don't have hotels like that where I’m from and every time I drove past this particular place I’d say to myself, thank God I don't live there. My life can’t be that bad right? I cried when I had no shoes till I met the man with no feet, correct?

But for some strange reason, I noticed this hotel whenever I drove past it and a part of me strangely felt drawn to it even though I did not know why. The building itself

89 was like a beat-up street hooker wearing fishnets and a leather mini working a corner that you just couldn't help but look over and stare at.

According to “Map To The Stars Homes” I had purchased off a guy on the street wearing a red windbreaker, the hotel was located in Hollywood. I kind of liked the sound of that and hey, if the homeless could afford it, then it should be in my price range. I also liked the fact that there was a 7-Eleven within walking distance.

After debating whether or not I should check it out, I finally gave in, parked my car across the street and went inside.

The entrance had a revolving door. A shopping cart filled with what appeared to be somebody’s personal belongings was parked in the lobby. As soon as I walked in, a disheveled man, who I swear to God looked exactly like Gary Busey, drinking a midday tall can out of a brown paper bag told me to be careful and watch my step.

“That’s fresh puke there. Be careful now and don’t step on it and get it all up in this mutha fucker.”

There was an old beat-up wooden baseball bat behind the counter and a vinyl sticker stuck to the bulletproof glass that said, “Thank You For Not Smoking.”

The lady working the front desk was slouching in her seat with a lit Pall Mall dangling from her cracked lips. She wore an eye patch and gave the impression that she really didn’t want to be at work. Or living, for that matter.

I asked if she had any vacancy.

“Yeah,” she said without looking up from her Globe magazine. I guess she didn’t care to assess her future tenant and became instantly irritated when I asked about the price. “Nightly, weekly or monthly?”

I fucked up and asked for all three, which required more effort than she was willing to accommodate.

She glared at me directly with her one eye and attempted to convey menace that quickly faded to boredom. “Nightly is forty, weekly is two-eighty and monthly is a grand.”

“What about the special rates?”

“They’re all special, sweetheart.”

“I see. I’ll take the weekly.”

She didn’t ask me what job I had or if she could look up my credit report.

There was no deposit or upfront fee of any kind. Hell, now that I think about it, she didn’t even ask me what my name was or for any ID. This was almost as easy as enlisting in the military during a time of war, minus the drug test. All she asked was the $280 a week in cash. I laid the money on the counter, all twenty-dollar bills. She proceeded to mark them with a counterfeit pen and gave me the keys.

With a groan, she directed me to the fifth floor. The elevator was an old, vintage Otis one lined with wooden panels and opened like a cage. I pushed the worn black button and the elevator jerked upwards. A backwards swastika was carved on the wall and a spot of dried-up phlegm was crusted on the faded red carpet. 91

The antiquated lights in the hallway shone dimly and the lack of windows made the hallways perpetually dark and cool. The sound of daytime television shows emanated from each room I passed. Cracked doors allowed the smell of ethnic foods wafted in the darkness, reminded me briefly of the home cooked meals my mother would make over the holidays. I walked past one door and could hear people talking in what I assumed was Chinese. Another cracked door revealed an elderly woman eating chips on a Laz-e-Boy, watching television, mesmerized by the hosts of The View. Another door quickly shut as I walked by, the sound of double locks clacking in a rush of paranoia.

After passing by a really torn-up looking tranny wearing pink curlers, I found my room. I inserted the beat-up key, opened the door, and took in my new residence. The walls were bare except for the peeling paint. It was furnished with a military-style folding cot, nightstand, Gideon’s Bible, and chipped ceramic lamp from the seventies. The hardwood floors were nice a nice touch, along with the small utilitarian bathroom which consisted only of a toilet and shower. No frivolities, no art on the wall, not even a mirror. Just four white walls that glared at me as if they were blank canvases and a slim one-person bed to remind me that I’m damned to existence of living alone and being alone. That’s it. Nothing more, nothing less. Home sweet home.

I’ve lived in worse situations, but at this particular moment it was difficult for me to recall one of them. My barracks room back at Fort Lewis had been more luxurious than this. Hell, my living connex back in Iraq was the Four Seasons 92 compared to this shit. However, this was a step above the privacy-vacant tents we lived out of after arriving in Kuwait and way better than sleeping on the ground whenever our missions lasted for more than a few weeks. This was fine for now.

This room, like my enlistment in the Army, was just temporary. This wasn't going to be a lifestyle and remember, I told myself, things can always be worse. As soon as I got situated with an entry-level job doing something, I was out of this dump and onto something else. I would just do what my parents did. They had to struggle, starting off in a tiny apartment, then a one story, and then, finally, a two story out in the suburbs. I could do the same. Think positive.

I gravitated towards the room’s single window and pushed the yellowed curtains to the side. Right in the middle of my view was the iconic Hollywood sign up on its hill. It felt like its light was beaming directly into the room and I stared in awe as if I was witnessing a miracle.

This heavenly sight, even with the smog, was so beautiful to me that I felt a tear rolling down my cheek. I had a similar reaction shortly after when I brought all my stuff up to my room and proudly hung my American Flag up on the wall by my bed. It was the first thing I unpacked.

With housing now secured, I needed to find a job. I went online. Again using free

WIFI from a nearby coffee shop, I first went ahead and logged onto my social media account. I changed my location to “Los Angeles” and even went ahead and posted a 93 photo of my view so that all my friends could hate me. After that, while scrolling down my feed, between posts of YouTube music videos and pictures of epic diner plates, I noticed something by one of my old platoon mates, Spc Cohen. He was a

S.A.W. gunner in Third Squad and got out of the military the same time I did. It indicated that he changed his profile picture which, if I remembered correctly, was just an old photo of him and his weapon in Iraq.

In its place, he put up a photo of a pistol and a bottle of whiskey. It had only received three likes, but several dozen comments. Curious, I read through them.

Most of them were the other guys in our platoon asking if he was alright, what was going on, and to please call them immediately.

One person who I didn’t recognize, and was obviously a civilian, posted an image of a bald eagle with an American Flag backdrop. Along with he wrote, “I care!

I support the troops and I thank you for your service!” It got twelve likes. The guy posted this comment right after Cohen had written, “Fuck it. I don't care anymore.”

All of a sudden, I wasn't as excited about moving to Los Angeles anymore.

This was a huge kill joy that replaced my good mood with a ton of worry, so I called up Sgt Mendelson to find out what in the hell was going on with Cohen. Mendelson didn't pick up. I left a message saying to call me, that Cohen was posting weird shit again online.

Cohen was one of those guys who got out and spent all his new free time posting military related shit on his social media profiles. He also wrote these long- ass essays in defense of his military service and how “nobody gets it.” 94

I logged out my account and decided to stay on task and focus on finding a job by checking out one of those career websites that cater to veterans. It had the word “Hero” featured prominently on its red, white, and blue homepage The site boasted a Military-to-Civilian Job Search feature where if you tell it what MOS

(Military Occupation Skill) you had in the service, it'll tell you what jobs are available for you. Moments after I clicked on the 11B-Infantrymen button, a bunch of words in red font appeared on my screen: “There is no civilian occupation that is directly equivalent to MOS 11B. Sorry. But the specific skills, teamwork, and discipline you gained in the military are valued in many civilian jobs!"

My phone chirped. It was a text from Mendelson saying he couldn't talk right now because he was at work, but he spoke to some of the guys in our platoon and they had reached out to Cohen. They had convinced him to check into the VA and now he was on some kind of suicide watch.

I texted back, “Good.”

All I could do after that was in my room thinking. I couldn't figure it out.

Cohen was in my platoon and had gone out on every single combat mission that I had. Saw and did many of the same things I saw and did. Why was he having such a hard time? I didn't really know him since he kind of kept to himself, which only made me wonder about it more.

While staring up at the Hollywood sign, I forced my mind to change the subject and I figured that I was probably better off leaving my room to find a job.

In my life, I’ve often found myself thinking fondly of my mother when we’re 95 apart. For some reason, distance makes it easier for me to see past our fights and notice some of her good qualities. This moment brought up one of several times my mother told me about her first job hunt in America. It was right after I’d finished high school and I was complaining about how hard it was to find a job. She immediately started the story the way she always told it, how one day she just decided to walk into her favorite discount clothing chain and asked the manager for a job. She was brutally honest and told him that she had no work experience. With no irony whatsoever, she said “I can’t even speak English!” This, of course, wasn’t true at all. She just had a slight accent since she came here from another country.

She also told him how she had no college education, how she didn’t even finish high school because she had to take care of her family due to their father leaving, and how she would make up for all this by being a hard worker. He hired her on the spot and a year after that, since somebody complained, the store’s corporate office placed a max on the amount of times one could receive the highly coveted Employee of the

Month award to three. They did this because of my mother. She won the award for thirteen consecutive months. That was years ago and now my mother is regional manager in charge of eight different locations.

So with this all being the case, I decided to go ahead and channel my mom, along with my military experience and apply all the specific skills, teamwork, and discipline that I had gained. I headed straight to a temp agency over in nearby

Glendale.

5. 96

Wearing a solid blue tie over a white button-down dress shirt, tan khakis, and my miniature Combat Infantry Badge lapel pin proudly on my coat collar, I walked into the temp agency. I told the lady behind the counter that I was a veteran who’d recently relocated to Los Angeles and how I was searching for an entry level position somewhere.

Engrossed in online solitaire while gnawing away at a Snickers bar, she lazily informed me, "We don't call them entry-level jobs here.” Addressing her again as

Ma’am, I apologized as she lazily pointed over to a clipboard on the counter, barely looking up from her game. Looking half asleep, she told me to write my name down at the bottom of the list, fill out all the forms from the pile to the left, and check all applicable boxes.

After filling in my name, address, phone number, and email address, I came to a question asking me what type of work I was interested in. I wrote down “any” since I didn't care. In the checkboxes reserved for full-time or part-time, I checked both since part-time was becoming the new full-time. For skills I simply put down

“many.” Then I got to the part where they asked if you were a veteran of the Armed

Forces. With a smile, I proudly put down a black X in the box indicating that I was.

I’d never done that before and, at the time, I didn’t think I’d ever get sick of doing that.

There was also this five page questionnaire, kind of like the PTSD tests they make you fill out at the VA, in which I had to fill in the bubbles indicating, “Strongly

Disagree,” “Slightly Disagree,” “Not sure/in between,” “Slightly Agree,” or “Strongly

Agree,” for all the statements given:

“I prefer to work in situations that require a high level of ability and use of my talents.”

“I find unexpected change to be frustrating.”

“I don’t keep a record of my accomplishments.”

“I believe that others have good intentions.”

“I dislike the unknown.”

The last one said, “I find it hard to lie.” I circled “Strongly Agree.”

Filling out these questions, I remembered the PTSD survey the Army had us complete back in Iraq at the very tail end of our combat deployment. At first, I’d thought it was going to be like one of those customer service surveys where they ask you questions such as “How was your stay?” and “Was the staff helpful?” It wasn’t like that at all.

After waiting in this long line, they herded us into this room located over by the airfield. Inside this room we were all handed a PalmPilot. With this device in one hand and a toothpick-like stylus thingie in the other, we had to answer a couple dozen yes-or-no-type questions: Has your sleep pattern changed? Have your eating habits changed? Do you have nightmares? That kinda stuff. But there were a couple questions on this test that really stuck out to me because it seemed obvious if you answered yes to any one of them, you'd come up positive for post-traumatic stress disorder: 98

1) Have you been in a situation where you felt that your life was in danger?

Yes or no.

I wondered what kind of question is that? That's like asking, Did you masturbate while you were in Iraq? I clicked yes. I remember looking around the room and I could tell from the smiles on a couple other soldiers' faces that they, too, were on this question.

2) Have you been in a situation where you had to discharge your weapon?

Yes or no.

I lost track how many times I secretly “combat jacked” in Iraq, kinda like I lost track how many times I discharged my weapon. I clicked yes.

3) Have you seen any casualties? Yes or no.

I clicked yes.

Who didn't? It then asked you to click on “all that apply”: friendly, enemy, and civilian.

I clicked yes to all three.

Everyone else I knew did the same.

Once I’d completed all forms for the temp agency, I handed them back to the lady behind the counter along with a copy of my resume, which I worked on the night before at a Kinko’s. She told me to take a seat in the lobby and that a job rep would be with me shortly.

The lobby was quiet, empty, and brightly lit. Taking a seat in a dingy green upholstered chair, I found myself fixated on the magazine sitting ominously on the 99 off white table in front of me. It was pointed directly at me, as if God himself placed it there for me to see. The blurb blasted on the front cover read, “THE NEXT

GREATEST GENERATION.” It was the latest issue of the iconic, red-bordered magazine. It featured a half-dozen people, standing there, all dressed somewhat fashionably in business casual, sort of like how I was now dressed, but all smiling proudly. They appeared to be about my age and each person held an artifact from their days in the military — a Class A uniform, helmet, assault bag, etc.

I leaned toward it and picked it up. This was the same publication that named

“The American Soldier” as its “Person Of The Year” while we were deployed.

Opening it, I began to read. It read like a happy ending. The article was written as if the war was over which, at this time in 2006, still raged on. Heavily featured was a small handful of Iraq and Afghanistan War veterans who all made it back and were now highly successful, doing all these great and wonderful things with their lives, becoming “leaders” and “game changers.” And, as if speaking to an audience, the article stated how “we” could all learn from their example since this next “greatest generation” of war veterans was perhaps our only hope to fix the near-apocalyptic disaster that the Boomers brought upon America. That we should do what these veterans were doing to save the country they’d been put in danger to defend.

I wasn’t sure what to make of the story, particularly given the fact that I was currently unemployed, living out of some dive hotel, and sitting in the lobby of a temp agency— the same exact kind of temp agency I once frequented years ago pre-

9/11 and prior to enlisting. One vet in the story had started a veteran advocate non- 100 profit group, one rode his bike clear across America to help raise awareness on veterans’ issues, another took up the art of clay sculpting as way to deal with her

PTSD, another had gone on to become principal of an inner-city school he was going to rehabilitate, and so on. The article was nothing but success stories. One right after the others.

Finally, at the sound of my name being called, I snapped out of it. Chucking the magazine back on the counter, I got up and shook hands with a middle-aged woman, who greeted me warmly and sincerely apologized for the wait time. Her name was Nancy and her floral brooch fit nicely on her oversized leopard-print wool-knit sweater. She showed me to her office where I viewed a wide assortment of framed photographs of Nancy and all her kids and grandkids, some in little league baseball outfits, graduation cap and gowns, and wedding finery. Some had clearly been taken by professionals who did a good job depicting a loving and happy family.

There were also a couple of framed pictures of her cat, including one of it wearing a red babushka. My resume and the paperwork sat on her desk. After adjusting her reading glasses, she began to scan my resume.

“Oh, wow, so you were in the Army?”

“Yeah.”

“Did they send you over there to Iraq?”

“They almost did again.“ I nodded, adding that I’d already spent a good year of my life over there.

101

She placed her right hand over her heart and gasped. “Oh my goodness.” She softened her voice and with a bit of a dramatic flare to emphasize her sympathy, she added, “That is soo sad.”

I sat and stared at her. The fluorescent lights made a faint buzzing sound.

She said, “Well, I just want to tell you that I’m glad you’re back and thank you for your service.”

She smiled. I forced a smile back. It was painful. What I really wanted to hear was that she had a good job prospect for me, followed by the words “You’re hired!” and maybe a congratulatory handshake to seal the deal. For now, a “thank you” for my “service” would have to do.

She asked me what kind of work I was looking for specifically since “any” was somewhat broad. It was true, though. I’d do anything, really. I wasn’t picky, as long as it provided a paycheck. I just wanted to start working again, preferably as soon as possible. There hadn’t been a lot of options in my hometown other than gas stations, chain retail outlets, fast food joints, and the grocery store where I’d worked part- time both before and after the military. This was a major reason why I went down to

Los Angeles. That and I needed “a change of scenery.”

Getting down to business, she asked if I had a degree or any college experience at all. I told her no, but did mention that I was planning to go back to school soon thanks to the post-9/11 GI Bill, just wasn’t quite sure when. She firmly explained that no college and limited work experience was not ideal. Most of the few jobs available now were administrative, like claims filing and data entry, as well as a 102 couple call center positions for collection agencies. She mentioned also having a variety of hospitality positions at senior centers and hospitals.

She asked if I’d be interested in any of those fields. I nodded. “Sure.” She added that nearly all were part-time positions, available four to five hours per day and offering around minimum wage with no benefits.

“Sounds… good?” I said.

She agreed. But the problem was, for the office positions, I needed to be proficient in all of the Microsoft programs including Access, PowerPoint, Word, and

Excel. For the hospitality positions, I needed previous caregiver experience. I had none of the above. When I pointed out that I completed the Combat Lifesaver Course while in the Army, she placed my resume off to side and advised me to take a computer science class at the local community college then to come back and see her after that. She then asked, “Would you be interested in day labor?”

“Maybe. Why?”

“We can set you up right away for work with our sister company just down the street. They specialize in general labor. Basically, how it works is, you fill out a

W-2 and you show up there every morning at 5am. You have to be there on time at exactly 5am, or else you can't get on. If they have a job for you that day, they send you out. If not, you wait in their lobby until a job comes in. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t. It’s very sporadic. I don't know. Regardless, I know they have free coffee in the lobby. All you can drink. Most of the jobs are only for a day, but some jobs go are longer, like a couple days or even a maybe week or two.” 103

“What kind of work is general labor?”

“Mostly construction, maybe some industrial kind of work. It varies really, depends what they need that day.”

“I don’t know. If I wanted to do something like that I’d just go down to the

Home Depot out on Sunset Blvd and stand around the parking lot all day waiting around for a white truck to pull up with some work.”

“Yes, you can do that, but the thing is, this job is legal!”

She made that statement with such enthusiasm, that it made me wonder about the real benefit of legal versus illegal manual labor. Was there really a benefit?

I was also beginning to feel a headache coming on.

“Look,” I said, shifting again in my seat, “I’ll do that if I have to, but I’d rather do something else like, I don’t know, maybe work a job that has indoor air conditioning?”

I instantly regretted what I said, being a member of the Next Greatest

Generation, 2003 Person Of The Year and all that. I looked down sheepishly. She calmly explained that in order for me to land any one of the other jobs, the ones that paid closer or just slightly above ten dollars an hour, I again needed experience, training, or, better yet, a college degree—at least an Associate’s.

Noting my defeated body language, she took pity on me and looked over my resume again. She explained that beyond my need to enhance my office skills, which

I had none of, my resume needed some work. I could sense that she was about to take me on as a charity case, and began typing my contact information into her 104 computer, asking me a bunch of questions about my job in the Army, what it specifically entailed. When I told her that I was a heavy weapons machine gunner in the Infantry, she frowned as if I’d given her the wrong answer, especially when I told her it was my job to provide and employ a heavy and continuous volume of fire when needed.

“In Iraq,” I told her, “I was awarded a C.I.B., or Combat Infantry Badge.”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“It’s an award given to Infantrymen who participated in active ground combat.”

I grinned. She squirmed. I could see that she wasn’t quite sure how she could translate killing for a living over to civilian employment. She then asked “what else?”

I told her about my Army Commendation Medal. “If you Google it, it says it’s given for valor to those who served in direct action with the enemy, or for meritorious service, but to be honest they pretty much gave those out to everyone, or at least everyone I knew got one. It’s no big deal. Basically, as long as you did your job you got one. It was like a freebie medal.”

She bit her lower lip. After a brief pause, she clarified by asking me whether

I’d acquired any other special skills, specifically skills that might translate over to civilian employment. I stared her candy dish filled with Jelly Beans sitting on the corner of her desk, while I tried to think of something non-combat-related. Vivid memories of dispersing MRE candy to Iraqi kids came to mind. “Win hearts and minds?” 105

“Ok, good, perhaps we could say great at customer service. What else?”

I elaborated more on some of my other medals, such as my Expert

Infantrymen Badge prior to going to Iraq, and how I also graduated from Airborne and Air Assault school. Her keyboard was silent the entire time I was talking. Seeing and hearing this began to piss me off.

“Did you win any other awards?” she asked.

Since it seemed that anything I said resulted in no typing, I went ahead and lied by telling her how I had “won” a Purple Heart just so I could hear and see some goddamn typing taking place on her fucking keyboard.

“Hmmm...” she said, physically removing her hands from the keyboard. “I’m going to have to think about that one, not sure we could use that one or not…”

“Why not?” I wondered out loud. “Is it because it shows I got hurt on the job?”

“Well, kind of, yes… you could say that. You don't have PTSD do you?”

I was confused by this question. I did, but I didn't. So I told her “No, why?

Should I?”

“Okay good, what else?”

I couldn't believe this. Was she for real?

“Medal Of Honor,” I bullshitted flatly. “Two of them.”

No response. I don't even think she was listening to me anymore. She didn’t care or even know what all those medals and awards were. She asked about my previous jobs.

106

We chatted as she inquired at length about the jobs I worked pre-9/11. I explained my duties and what I liked the most about working as a bag boy, what I found to be the most rewarding at Toys R Us. She typed quickly, dressing up my resume. After a few more questions, like what I felt were my strengths and weaknesses at Rite Aide, she printed out the revised resume on a crisp, ivory- colored sheet of paper. With a smile, she proudly handed it over for inspection.

The first thing I noticed was the weight of the ivory paper, then the Times

New Roman font. Then I noticed that she had all but removed my military training and combat experience, emphasizing the jobs I had held prior to the Army. She converted me to a series of keywords and stock phrases like “Excellent team player” and “Great time management skills.” I noticed that there was no mention whatsoever of my deployment either. None whatsoever. My Army work experience bullet points were next to nothing and along the lines of “Works well under pressure,” “Follows orders well,” and, “Dedicated employee.”

“So, what do you think?” she asked.

“I think…”

I think I want to cry, I thought. Instead I stared off into space and I uttered,

“Thanks. I think it’s…great. Thank you.”

She smiled. “Anything to help a veteran!”

107

One night up in my room, after my seventh or eighth beer, or around 12:30 AM, I started hearing them again. It reminded me of the first couple nights I moved in, I couldn’t sleep or concentrate until the noise went away. I couldn't sleep. So I drank.

The noise came from the nightclub or bar located down on the first floor of the neighboring building, one of those hip joints with those monosyllabic names in all lowercase print, The place was called “blur” and though I couldn’t see the place from my rooms lone window, I could definitely hear them. No matter hard I try to not block it out, I couldn’t.

I noticed that it always came in the loudest around the time all the bartenders would yell “last call.” Shortly after that the noise faded and eventually disappeared. You got so used to the noise, some nights the silence woke you up, but mostly you just learn to sleep through it. Like mortar attacks, after awhile you get used to them and sleep right through them as if nothing happened. It was the sounds of other people. After those first couple nights, I got used it, it was just background noise I hardly paid attention to, like the news about the war in Iraq on

TV, but every now and then I’d tune in, wondering what it was like down there.

I’d lay down in bed with my eyes open and just listen to them. While staring at the rotating paddles to my ceiling fan I’d hear laughter, giggling, female voices, conversations, carrying on…every now and then you’d hear somebody drop their glass, shattering on brick, and laughter followed by explosive cheering.

I’d walk past the club during the day. It had a “Please Respect Our Neighbors

- Keep The Noise Down!” sign nailed to the front door. Over cigarettes and another 108 beer in my room, I debated whether or not I should go down and check it out. Finally

I said screw it.

When I got to the club, two overly perfumed and skimpily dressed females drunkenly tapped out of the front door in their high heels- one dressed in pink, the other purple. I said, “hello.” Neither looked my way.

The massive doorman asked for my ID. I pulled out my wallet and handed him my old military ID card. Why I did that, I don’t know, I don’t even think I’m supposed to still have it. Maybe I did it for the same reason I wear my O.I.F. hat, for recognition. Maybe somebody would be like, “Wow, you were in the Army?!” Or something like that. Though, I’m slowly finding out that this never happens or when it does, I’m not as thrilled about it as I think I would be. So I don’t know why I pulled out my old military ID out. It’s just one of those things.

He looked at the ID card closely, confused, asking where the date was. I told him on the back. He flipped the card over, handed it back to me and asked for my right hand. I stuck it out, and he pushed my black metal bracelet back, the KIA bracelet that had a couple names and dates engraved onto it. He put a fluorescent bracelet on my wrist in its place. He then asked for me to remove my hat. Said it was the bar’s policy and dress code. So, I did.

Once seated at the bar I glanced around, everybody else seemed to be there with a girl or boyfriend or mingling about in a co-ed group of friends.

At the bat I kept fixating on the fluorescent bracelet on my wrist; for some reason it really bothered me to have it on just as a guy seated next to me was 109 explaining to some girl how he doesn’t date women with headshots. A song then began playing from the jukebox that I recognized. It was a song off an album I had borrowed from a fellow platoon mate of mine prior to deployment.

It was at a bar off post, a lot like the one I was sitting in now. I was there with

Spc. Joseph prior to our deployment and I asked if I could borrow some of his CDs to burn onto my iPod; the next day he loaned me a bunch. I forgot to return them before we deployed, and when we got to Kuwait, I apologized to him about this. He told me not to worry about it, to just return them when we got back. I still have his

CDs because he never did come back. His name is one of those engraved on my bracelet. Feeling guilty, I looked away and focused on the television set behind the bar tuned to one of the major news networks. They were reporting about an attack that day in Mosul. I tried to listen over the music. Right when they said something about casualties, a guy, late twenties, early thirties, a couple seats to my right, interrupted what they were saying and asked, "Hey, man, are you watching this?"

I didn't know what to say, so all I said was, "No."

"Is it cool if I put on the game?" he asked.

"Uh... sure, go ahead."

He had the bartender change the channel over to the Laker game.

I finished my beer and left.

I hate the Lakers.

Outside the doorman commented, “That was quick.”

“Yeah,” I said, while exiting. 110

Across the street was a corner liquor store, I decided to go there again and pick up some more medication and after that I went up to my room to pick up where

I left off again.

The following morning, outside the hotel, I put my sunglasses on and lit up a smoke.

Still feeling slightly hung over from the night before, the game plan for the day was to set off and waste more of my time and money by visiting yet again another job agency, this one over the hills in North Hollywood. As I put my lighter back in my pocket, I noticed a desperate one-eyed homeless-looking man with a pirate’s patch on walking up to every single pedestrian on the street holding what appeared to be a white business ID card in his right hand.

Everybody he tried showing this card to pretended that he was invisible. I followed suit and made my way to the edge of the sidewalk to avoid him by crossing the street, but it was too late. The guy saw me and now, with me locked in his crosshairs, he steadily approached.

“Excuse me, sir! Excuse me, hey, you! Yeah, you!”

I looked away, trying my hardest to pretend I didn’t hear him. It was pointless. He came right up to me and pointed at my hat, which I still wear off and on from time to time, but over the past few days, it had become as much a part of me as anything else. I don’t even realize I’m wearing it. He held up his VA Hospital card.

Smelling kind of funky, he explained how he was a veteran as well, diagnosed with 111

PTSD, and a homeless. He kept forcing his card on me, wanting me to look at it so I could see him as a veteran; his mug shot next to the background image of a waving

American flag seemed to match the guy, maybe before his luck had run out. He explained how he didn’t have a place to stay for the night, and he needed a couple of bucks so he could get into a shelter, all he needed was a couple of bucks.

I never gave money to the homeless, but I didn’t think this guy was a bum. He was a fellow veteran, down on his luck, and it would bug me the rest of the day if I didn’t help the guy out. As they say in the Army, “Leave no man behind.”

I hesitantly reached into my pocket to see if I had any singles. All I had in my pocket was some loose change, my lighter, crumpled up receipts for God knows what, a ten and a couple fives. No ones.

Reluctantly, I pulled out one of the five-dollar bills and he quickly snatched it from my hand.

Now, down five dollars, I watched him cross the street. I wanted to say something, like hey, can I have some change back but instead I did nothing. He probably needed it way more than I did. It also hit me that even though I wanted to help a fellow veteran in need, I just couldn’t afford it. If I personally gave my money to every single veteran who was in need, I’d go broke myself. That reality was depressing. I also made a note to myself that I needed a VA hospital card as well.

I made my way over to the adjacent neighborhood where my car was parked.

To my horror, there was an empty space where I had left it. I double-checked the

112 signs posted up all along the street, “No Parking Wednesday 11am to 2pm.”

According to my cell phone, it was 10:37am.

For the next 45 minutes I frantically searched, at least two or three times on each street, just to be sure. Maybe my car had been towed by some over-eager tow truck driver with a busted clock. I walked over to this Mexican lady watering the yellow lawn in front of her Spanish bungalow and asked her if she had seen any cars being towed this morning. With a frown, she shook her head no, directing her garden hose towards another patch of scraggly desert grass. When I asked her if she remembered seeing a green station wagon parked on her street, she said, “No hablo ingles.”

I told her “thanks” and walked over to the empty spot.

No evidence of theft, like shattered glass, car parts, or a hostage note, just a huge oil stain on the ground, either from my piece of shit or junkers long gone. I could have sworn I parked it there. I finally concluded that my car must have been stolen. What are the chances of that happening? Who in the hell would want to steal a 1987 Oldsmobile station wagon? I couldn't figure it out.

The walls at the station were covered with LAPD recruitments posters, no doubt putting grand ideas into the heart and mind of the room's lone civilian, a Hollywood runaway in a filthy blue hoodie sitting on a duffle bag. The kid looked up at me with hateful eyes burning from a dirty, acne-scarred face. I gave him a little smile. 113

The blonde officer working behind the counter eyeballed my O.I.F. hat and stood up a bit in his seat, puffing out his chest. “Nice hat.”

I forgot I even had the damn thing on but I nodded. He asked: “Were you over there?”

“Came back, I don't know, three or four years ago?” I stated. He told me how he had some buddies over there right now, Reservists who got called up, and asked me what branch I had been in. When I told him the same, that I had some buddies over there as well and how I was in the Army, he shook his fist at me and shouted back, “Hoo-ah!”

Runaway teen looked over, confused.

I didn’t know what to say back to that—I sure as hell wasn’t going to return the hooah—so I just got down to business and told him the status of my vehicle.

We went back and forth for a bit. He asked me if I was sure, and I told him positive,

I’d checked every street in the neighborhood and it wasn’t anywhere, that I’d called downtown and had them run the description and it came back negative.

As I was explaining all this to him, I noticed the silver Airborne wings clipped to his left shirt pocket. This was confusing. Even though the LAPD sometimes ran like a military outfit, I was almost positive they didn’t have an Airborne unit. After he directed me to the Missing & Stolen Vehicles Department, I pointed to his pin and asked when the LAPD started jumping out of airplanes. He chuckled and told me no, he’d gone to jump school years ago when he was in the National Guard.

“The L.A.P.D. lets you wear military badges?” 114

He sort of hemmed and hawed, finally responding that no, not really, but nobody would ever say anything.

So I asked him ”You think if I became a cop, they’d let me wear my C.I.B.?”

“That’s not the issue. The force is always hiring, but right now there’s a freeze until the budget gets fixed. In fact, they’re laying officers off because of state cutbacks. I’m subject to a furlough myself. Sorry, man.”

The Missing & Stolen Vehicles Department office was decorated with movie posters: Dick Tracy, Beverly Hills Cop II, Red Heat, Miami Vice, all framed. There was a whiteboard with make, model, location, and date of a bunch of missing vehicles.

Some mustached Tom Selleck-looking guy, who was not in uniform, greeted me: “How can I help you?”

I told the same story I told Airborne and Tom Selleck pulled out a form for me to fill out. Basic questions like what type of car, when and where did you park it, and does anybody else have keys?

I could tell he’d done this a million times and could probably do it in his sleep. When finished he handed me his card and a photocopy of the paperwork so I could file an insurance claim, and said if for whatever reason the car did turn up, not to touch it, but to instead immediately call them so they could run prints on it. If they found the vehicle, they’d call me. He repeated, “We’ll call you.”

I asked what my chances were of getting my car back and he told me you can’t predict these kinds of things. “Sometimes a couple days, sometimes a couple months, sometimes never.” 115

Seeing that there was nothing more he or I could do, I thanked him, and on my way out I also thanked Airborne for his help. He asked how it went, I told him shitty – he told me to keep my head up, not to worry and, “Drive on! Hooah!”

I ignored him.

With my head down on my way back to the Hotel Troy, I stopped by a coffee shop and lit a cigarette at an outdoor table while sipping a dark roast, taking a moment to reflect on how great my day was going. I pulled out my journal and titled an entry, “fuck my life,” and I started writing about the day my car got stolen in Los

Angeles. Minus a vehicle, how in the fuck was I supposed to get around town?

Especially this town? Nobody walks in LA. I hated taking the bus. Maybe something wrong with my life, or with me.

As I was writing I heard a woman’s voice from the table next to mine say,

“You need to stop doing that.”

I looked over. The first thing I noticed was her ‘I just stuck my finger in a light socket’ hairdo and peacock blue eye shadow. I also noticed her colorful temporary tattoos pasted sporadically on her arms, the several piles of newspaper open in front of her, and by her feet were plastic bags filled with God knows what. Not in any mood whatsoever to talk with strangers, I ignored her. Why oh why God do you insist on having only crazy people talk to me? Why?

I ignored her and when back to writing.

“I’m serious,” she said, “You need to quit.”

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I looked back at her to see what her problem was. At first I thought she had an issue with me writing but instead she told me how I needed to quit smoking.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, I know, these things will kill me, I know. Don’t worry, one of these days I’ll join a gym and quit smoking.” I tried to say it in a tone that hopefully sent the message don’t talk to me, I’m having a shitty day, please bother somebody else as politely as possible.

“You need to quit drinking that coffee as well.”

I no longer could write, so I folded up my journal looked back at her and took a closer look; she didn’t look like anybody I knew, and nothing like my mother, just my own, personal rain cloud. Irritated, I asked, “Do I know you?”

She pointed at my Operation Iraqi Freedom Combat Veteran hat and smiled proudly. “I’m a vet, too,” she said. “Desert Storm.” She got up out of her seat, made her way over to my table and introduced herself. “Hi, my name’s Michelle.” She put her hand out. I needed to stop wearing this hat of mine. Reluctantly, since she was a vet, I shook her hand. “So how long have you been back?”

I sighed, resigning myself to her company. “I don't know. A couple years now.”

“Are you okay?” she asked with great concern.

I thought about that for a second. Am I okay? No, I’m not okay, I’m pretty fucked actually. I thought I was doing pretty okay up until my car got stolen. Other than that, I didn’t see any reason for me not to be okay. I told her, “Yeah, I’m okay.”

She didn’t seem to believe me. “Are you sure you’re okay?” 117

“Yes. I’m sure.”

“You don’t have post-deployment blues?”

”The post deployment what?”

”You know….”

“Oh dear God,” I said under my breath as I looked at my watch.

“Yeah. PTSD.”

”Please lady. I’m having a shitty day. Please.”

Then, without my asking, she began to explain how when she got back from

Desert Storm she was all messed up. I found this hard to believe. What? You saw some dead bodies? It was pretty fucked up? It forever changed you? Some people don’t exist anymore because of some of the split decisions you had to make?

Whoopdy fucking do lady, join the f’ing club. She went on and on—“PTSD is real!”— and explained how whenever she was in a room full of people, she always had to have her back up against the wall so she could see everyone else in the room. How, even to that day, whenever she heard the sirens from a fire engine, she thought it was a possible Scud missile attack.

I wanted to kill myself.

She again went on and on about her PTSD, and the way she talked about it, it was like having PTSD was some kind of red badge of courage. She was boring the shit out of me and if I’d cared, I might have asked more questions, for more details, but instead I just sat there, slightly irritated, hating my life. But yet I continued to listen. 118

I checked out a nice long-legged blonde walk out of the café holding two cups of coffee while carrying a tiny poodle. How come strangers like her don't come up and talk to me instead? The crazy woman broke my concentration by asking me if I smoke a lot, or a lot more now than I have in the past. I took a drag and I told her maybe a little bit more, but not too much. She asked about drinking, do I drink more now than I did, before, and I told her maybe, I don’t know.

She explained to me the reason why I felt the need to constantly drink coffee and chain smoke cigarettes. According to her, it was because I missed the adrenaline of being in combat, and how my body was making up for that combat zone rush by consuming large amounts of coffee and cigarettes to help release endorphins in my head to simulate what it was like over there.

While she was talking about all these endorphins, I wondered if that’s why she was slightly overweight. Was she over-eating all that comfort food to release endorphins to relive the war? If so, I could see why so many veterans are fat asses. I remember hearing about soldiers trying to eat their way to freedom, trying to get so overweight that they got chaptered out of the military for being too fat to serve. But

I’ve never heard of combat veterans getting flashbacks years after they’ve served while eating at a buffet.

She again told me how when she returned from Desert Storm, she couldn’t function and couldn’t hold a job. At times she thought about suicide; finally she went down to the VA hospital for help. After years of counseling, she was doing a lot better now. 119

“Do you miss being over there?” she asked.

“No,” I exhaled, “Not really. I like it here much better actually. The weather’s better. It’s not as hot.”

My answer seemed to amaze her. With a smile of nostalgia, she beamed about how she loved combat and wished she could be over there right now. “I’d do anything to go back to combat again.”

Hearing her say “combat” confused me. How could anyone who truly experienced such a thing like it? She liked to use the word combat. Finally finding the courage to end the conversation, I politely told her I had to meet up with some friends. As I got up, she had one last bit of advice to help me deal with what she irritatingly kept referring to as the “post-deployment blues.”

“Try to have sex at least three times a day,” she said. “If you can’t have sex three times a day, then jerk off three times a day.”

“Umm...” I told her, “thank you, that sounds like good advice, I’ll look into it.”

That’d probably cure most ailments, I thought. If she was hot, or semi hot, or at least didn't look homeless, I probably would have asked if she wanted to help me.

As I walked away, she reassured, “Hey, if you don’t believe me now, you will.”

“I’m sure I will, lady.”

When I got home, the elevator was busted so I had to take the stairs up.

Back in my room, I made myself a pot of coffee, smoked a cigarette, and fired up the laptop. All form rejection letters for jobs I applied to online. I also received an email from my old buddy, Sgt Mendelson, asking about how things were going, if I 120 was settled yet in LA and when I was going to come up and visit since he lived nearby up in Bakersfield. I replied back soon, once I had some reliable transportation again thanks to my car being stolen.

After that I called the insurance company about my car. After they placed me on hold for less than a minute, I was asked to fax the police report and car title, along with some other miscellaneous forms, which could be filled out online. Once they had all that, they’d be able to start working on my claim. When asked how long this process would take for my claim to go through, the lady assured me that though thousands of cars are stolen every year, my claim would be processed in a week or two. I thanked her and poured myself another cup of coffee. Then, lighting up another cigarette I wondered if I should perhaps switch to decaf.

At 0700 in the morning my car-less ass was seated on one of those uncomfortable benches waiting for the local downtown bus to arrive. Cars passed by in a blur and across the street were these three massive billboards advertising movies where all the lead actors sexily held firearms of some kind as if they were stylish fashion accessories. When my bus finally arrived it occurred to me briefly that for the entire time I was in Iraq, there was no public displays of advertising such as that in Iraq.

As I stepped on and pushed my dollar through and dropped my coins into the feeder, I felt as if all the passengers were looking at me like I was headed in the wrong direction. I seemed to be the only one who looked as if English wasn’t my 121 second language; most appeared to be poor working-class Mexicans or straight up homeless. Everyone else looked potentially schizophrenic. Still slightly hung over from the night before, I pulled my O.I.F combat vet hat down low over my eyes and stared at my feet. I needed new shoes. I need a new car. I tried to ignore the lurch in my gut each time the bus stopped. But hey, I was on my way to my very first job in my new home, Los Angeles. Upward mobility here I come. I should have been more excited.

When we got to my stop, over by Alameda Street, I walked a couple of blocks through what appeared to be Skid Row until I found Future Sun Lofts, which were technically more condos than the advertised loft-style apartments, but whatever.

The place was an old office building that had been completely gutted, beams- exposed. The administrative office was situated a couple blocks away in a line of window shops, now home only to a Launder World Coin Op, a 99 Cent Only store, and Future Sun Lofts, stubbornly plugging the American Dream of “home ownership” in the height of a recession. From what I'd heard in the LA Weekly, most of the places built to sell had been begrudgingly converted to rentals. I wondered what the deal was with Future Sun Lofts.

I applied for this job online and miraculously, I was hired. The headline to their post read, “Get paid while listening to music!” and when I approached the empty reception desk fifteen minutes prior to when I was supposed to be there,

Assistant Deputy Manager Marco appeared from his small back office at the sound of the door chime. After he commented how I was early, we shook hands and he 122 thanked me for applying to the job earlier online and the email I wrote back to him accepting the position. He was well-fed and cheerful, dressed in jeans and a blazer, hair slicked back, a slightly greasy appearance. He thanked me for my service and mentioned that he loved it when he could hire a veteran. I said that was great. He nodded and told me it was good PR for Future Sun Lofts, and that they also get a bit of a tax break for it. “It never hurts to get a break from Uncle Sam when there are so many low-lifes living off the government for free.”

He disappeared briefly into his little office. When he came back, he handed me a red sign with two handles on the back. It read “Zero Down, Anyone Can Afford

To Live the Dream.” He also had a backpack; he opened and showed me the inside.

Everything I needed was in there: a pair of gloves, a couple bottles of water, a bottle of sunscreen, a red t-shirt and baseball hat with FUTURE SUN LOFTS screen-printed onto the front. The shirt and hat were my uniform. I threw on the shirt and replaced my Operation Iraqi Freedom hat with the FUTURE SUN LOFTS one, folding my real hat and stuffing it in my cargo pocket with my cigarettes.

“You look great,” he said. “A real go-getter.”

Assistant Deputy Manager Marco led me out to his late-model Range Rover, which, while very L.A., seemed out of character for him, but what do I know. We got in and drove to the worksite.

While driving he made an attempt at small talk, “I betcha it was hella crazy over there, right?!”

“It was… interesting.” 123

“I bet it was, man! You’re probably really glad to be back from that shithole, right?”

“You have no idea.”

“How many people did you kill? You must have killed hella people, I know I would!”

“I…” couldn't believe this guy and wanted him to pull over and drop me off,

“…did my job.”

Marco held up his right hand to high-five, adding, “Sweet!”

I gave him a half-ass high-five and hated myself for it. “Hey,” he said, “you don’t think about or have thoughts of blowing your head off, do you?”

“Why in the world would you say that?”

“They say on the news you guys are all blowing your head off, coming back and committing suicide, it’s like an epidemic or something. PTSD and what not. Your not like that, are you?”

“No,” I said, amazed that this guy even watched the news, “I don’t get thoughts about blowing my head off. Why?”

“Oh, ok, good! Just checking!”

He drove me two blocks to where he wanted me to stand, not far from the bus stop where I got off earlier. Once dismounted from his vehicle, he gave me a detailed briefing of my job responsibilities:

“Okay, your job today is to stand here on this corner and hold the sign up so people driving by see that we’re having an open house. Now, the reason why we’re 124 paying you $9 instead of $8.50 is that we don’t want you to just stand there with the sign like a lump, but be really animated and dance around, twirl the sign around or do whatever you have to so you grab people’s attention, got that?”

He said the gloves were optional, but I should wear them to keep from getting blisters. He took the sign from me and showed me his technique, whirling it and lifting it and shoving it out in front of him like he was a cheerleader. Then he handed it back to me and told me to show him my stuff.

Was this really happening?

“You should be really good at this since you were in the Army,” he said, “and it’s just like when you twirl your rifles around at all those parades and stuff you guys do.”

Back at basic training, whenever our drill sergeants asked us, “What makes the green grass grow?” we’d all, in unison, yell back, “Blood! Blood! Blood! Bright

Red Blood!” I thought about that for a second as I stood there imagining myself twirling his head off his fucking neck with my bare goddamn hands. But, instead, I just spun the sign around a bit and did a half-ass little quarterback dance.

This, I discovered, was not good enough. He wanted more. He wanted more feeling, more soul. I should really go all out. “That’s why we let people listen to their iPod or whatever, so they get in the mood. It’s like, just rock out. Like in Top Gun!”

I nodded. After another take, me dressed in full battle-rattle, this time with a bit more enthusiasm, he grinned. “Good job, you’ll get the hang of it yet. Just keep at it, kid.” 125

He made sure I had my cell phone, and told me to call him if I needed anything. He said he’d stop by in a couple hours to check up on me and see how I was doing. “Great, thanks,” I said. He drove off, and I stood there on the corner. If only my old platoon mates could see me now.

Still, a job equals money, and money would keep me off the streets. Plus, this job was only temporary. I remembered what the drill sergeants always told me:

“Play the Game.” I lit a smoke and listened to some music and waved the sign around. With the morning sun glowing, it was a great feeling standing there moving my sign up and down like a moron, while cars I’d never be able to afford drove past, ignoring me.

At first I jiggled the sign and swung it around, shuffled my feet, tried to pretend I had some dignity left in me… (Cont.)

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