Part Eleven

Wednesday, December 22
Several weeks ago, N and I were headed out to watch Taming of the Shrew—a former student of mine was in the cast. N got an email from T just as she was walking out the door, so she printed it out and brought it along to read in the car. As she read and I drove, she got quieter and quieter, and finally laid the letter down in her lap and turned her head away from me.

After a long moment, she said, “They got attacked on a patrol. . . . I needed a minute to catch my breath. Would you like me to read it to you?” So I drove, and she read:

“Our vehicle was parked a couple hundred feet west of a highway overpass, on a main road which ran perpendicular to this highway overpass. We had been ordered . . . to recon some small arms (handguns, rifles, or hand-held machine guns) firing in the vicinity that we were sitting in. Bad mistake to simply sit in one place in this case. The situation escalated after we parked. Audible small arms seemed to get closer and closer. . . .

“A car traveling towards our vehicle (which seemed to be accelerating also) seemed to come out of nowhere traveling east to west under the highway overpass. Our vehicle was facing west. I, however, (because I am the gunner) was facing east with my weapon facing east towards the accelerating car. I shouted "ohguf," which means “stop” in Arabic. The car was coming way too fast for it to even react to what I was saying or, it seemed like, to even care what I was trying to do. So when the vehicle was about 100 feet away I had no choice but to open up my weapon. I aimed for the base of the windshield—no, I take that back—I don't know where I aimed, but I could see rounds impacting at the base of his windshield. I fired my weapon into the car until he got within about ten feet from the back of ours.

“After that (which took seconds) we started taking tracers. I can distinctly remember several things about that moment, Babe. For one, the firing seemed to mainly be coming from the overpass (putting me at a disadvantage being on the lower ground). For two, I was very aware of the "nakedness" of my face and neck, which have no protection. The rounds were coming in a couple of feet from our doors. P told me afterwards that he looked out the driver's window and saw them ricochet off the ground near his door. Another thing that I thought was, “Lord, don't let me die.” It was a nervous prayer, a cry in my own head if you will. At the same time that all of this was happening, I started firing again in the direction of the point of origin of where the bullets were firing. I couldn't see, because of the vegetation covering the overpass, where exactly the firing was coming from.

“This next part of the story sucks, Babe. It involves my conscience. I don't feel justified in what I did. While I was firing at the overpass I saw a guy next to his car (in between the overpass and our vehicle) walking around. I was so amped up after the first car had charged me that I shouted "Ohguf!" again, only this time at the man walking around his vehicle. He kept moving so I lowered my weapon on him and his car and engaged. Bear in mind that I'm hearing the rest of the platoon shooting their weapons also, so there is just a mass of noise. I heard several explosions behind me as well. I don't know what to think about the second car and man. I don't know if he was completely innocent and was caught in a bull's red-eyed path or if he actually had ill intent. It's something that I'll have to think about and live with forever. Please pray for me not to take on too much of a guilty conscience, Babe. I don't want that right now. Maybe when I return, but I don't want it to effect me militarily here.”

We sat in silence for a few moments, and then N said, “I had hoped this would never happen.” So did I—hoped and prayed. It’s not the unimaginable—my emotional imagination can’t comprehend opening the door to find a chaplain in uniform standing outside—but it’s heart-breaking.

We were running late, so we hurried into the auditorium and took our seats just as the play started. During the intermission, I found myself sitting, dazed, as other audience members stretched their legs. I felt fractured, surrounded by talking, laughing people, while my mind was still reeling from T’s letter and my heart was aching.

When the play ended, we walked through the empty parking lot to the car in the chilly, late-afternoon air. Neither of us felt like going home, so we went to a small restaurant by my house for dinner. We sat in the dark, held hands across the table, and cried—for our husbands, for each other, for ourselves, for the Iraqis.

I wish the people who say, “I support our troops, but not this war,” could have experienced that day, that grief, with us—could know that T never wanted to have to make that decision, could know how it haunts him, could know how it hurts us all.

That was a hard day, and it’s taken me a while to be able to write about it. A month later, we’re a little more than three months from the day Dan and T are supposed to be back in the States. The Family Support Group is starting to make noises about reunion briefings, and the last time Dan called, we talked about plans for “afterwards.” When I think about him coming home, though, the thought rises unbidden: What if we’ve come this far, and he doesn’t make it back after all? The longer I live without him, the more it hurts to live without him, the worse that possibility seems.

This Christmas, the promise of peace on earth is more important to me than it ever has been before.