The Long Walk: A Story of War and the Life That Follows (21 page)

Tadasana. Uttanasana. Chaturanga Dandasana. Urdhva Mukha Svanasana. Adho Mukha Svanasana. Tadasana
.

Blessed and mailed and armed and mounted, we charge to the call.

When we got to the deserted street corner in southern Kirkuk the Iraqi Police were already on scene, shooting at the IED with their AK-47s.

“How many times have we told them they can’t do this anymore?” I vented in frustration, to no one in particular.

“It’s their country and they’ll do what they want,” Castleman replied. “But if they don’t quit it now we’re leaving.”

The Iraqis lacked robots and training, and so shooting at an IED with a rifle was an attractive option to the desperate or slightly sane. The more typical Iraqi Army soldier or policeman, however, had little compulsion with invoking
Insha’Allah
and simply walking up to the IED and cutting it apart by hand. This is precisely what happened, in fact, as Mengershausen unloaded the robot and I started to build an explosive charge. Castleman was still chatting over security requirements with our local infantry fire team when a plainclothes cop walked up to us with a plastic box in his hand.

“It is okay now,” he said in broken English. “It is safe now. All done. I do it. Okay now. You go home.”

“What’s okay now?” I asked, taking the plastic box from the Iraqi policeman.

“I cut it off the bomb. No boom. It’s all okay,” he replied.

“Where is the bomb you cut it off of?” I asked, a bit more directly.

“Right there, you see it,” he said, and pointed to a large concrete block sitting in front of a pile of garbage not twenty yards away. Too close, too close.

I resisted the urge to throw the potentially dangerous bomb component away like a live grenade and instead looked at it closely. A black plastic box the size of my fist, large enough to hide triggering components. Several heavy-gauge white and red wires, the ends recently sheared from this cop’s knife, led from holes in the box. But something didn’t look right.

“Where was this box?” I asked again.

“On the side. On the bomb. Right there. I cut it off. It’s all okay now. Very good for you now,” the young cop insisted.

I recognized this particular policeman. He was one of their nominal detectives and leaders, with a slight build and embarrassingly thin moustache on his sweating upper lip. I didn’t trust any Iraqi policeman, and they didn’t trust us, but this one was a Kurd, and he had never specifically led us into any trouble that I knew of. Younger than me, but he probably had a brood of eight kids and a wife at home in some hovel across the river. They all did.

I looked at the box and I looked at the IED he had indicated. Why would the bomber put an easily accessible trigger mechanism on the outside of otherwise solidly encased concrete? The heavy block itself was now flecked with divots and cracks, evidence that the police had been shooting at the device for a long time but had made little headway at breaking it apart. Why would the bomber give us an easy target to remove?

I looked up at the rest of my team. Mengershausen had the robot nearly on top of the concrete block now, and was reaching toward it with one heavy stainless-steel arm. Explosive workups done, Keener was mounted in his normal spot behind the steering wheel. Castleman was out in the open, looking at the concrete block through binoculars, guiding Mengershausen in. To our north, west, and south dense, impenetrable slums and faceless tenements closed us in. To our east lay the river, and beyond, on the far bank, onlookers gathered on rooftops of shanties, watching our every movement. Watching and waiting.

“Hey, Castleman, check this out,” I called, and threw him the black plastic box.

Castleman caught it, looked it over once, and then popped it open with a flick of his knife tip. The plastic box was empty. The wires led inside to nothing; they were simply knotted and tied off, so they wouldn’t fall out.

It was a hoax.

“Hey Mengershausen, be careful of this one. It’s not right,” Castleman called in to his robot driver.

But it was too late. My world erupted in thunder and hate and confusion, ears cleaved from my skull. A shock wave threw me to the ground and overwhelmed my senses and capacity to reason. A cloud of choking dust swept by and chunks of concrete fell about us, hailstones that bounced off my helmet and the top of the Humvee. Did we get hit by a mortar? Rocket-propelled grenade? An accidental detonation of one of our explosive tools? I shook my head and tried to get up and found I couldn’t stand. It was only when a robot tire came bouncing toward us, like a child threw it in a game, rolling between our armored truck and the next, that I understood.

I learned later that Mengershausen had tried to wedge his robot gripper under the leading lip of the concrete block, to flip it and examine its soft underbelly. Was it the lifting action? The pushing? We never found out.

When the IED detonated twenty yards away it tore the four-hundred-pound robot to pieces, mangled it beyond recognition, leaving only the rear stump of an amputated arm and a single set of knobby tracks behind. The blast sent molten metal fire and jagged rock in all directions, blowing out the windows and tires of the soft-skinned Iraqi Police trucks and peppering the broadside of our armored Humvee. Keener and Mengershausen were safe from the frag in the truck. Castleman had taken cover behind the engine block when he recognized the danger of the fake trigger mechanism. By luck or unconscious habit I had kept the bulk of the Humvee’s cab between me and the IED; only my shins and the top of my head were exposed.

I calmly patted down my legs and boots and was amazed to find no blood. I tried to stand again and found myself only slightly steadier. All about me our security was suddenly energized, the platoon sergeant barking orders for his turret gunners to wake up and scan rooftops for gunmen. The Iraqi Police huddled to the side confused, except for the weaselly mustached detective who had cut off the hoax black box. He waved his arms in the air and wailed that he was stupid and suicidal and would never walk up to a bomb again.

I raised my rifle to my cheek and looked through my optics across the river and into the slums. The site picture bounced violently. I checked my grip and arm placement; every muscle remembered where to go. Why can’t I get a steady shot? I latched on to the rifle tighter, but still I couldn’t settle it. I took a deep breath, just as I was taught, and tried again. The red dot danced from riverbed to sky.

“Hey Captain, you okay?” called Castleman, checking and confirming the safety of the team.

“Yeah, I’m good,” I called back.

“You sure,” he said again, and pointed at my leg.

I looked down. My left leg was bucking and shaking uncontrollably, twitching like a dead animal in its death throes. I willed my leg to be still, but it was possessed and the wild spasms continued unabated. No wonder I couldn’t shoot and could barely stand. As the physical symptoms of the coursing adrenaline took over, my veins began to boil. Detachment yielded to anger, shock to bloodlust. They tried to fucking kill me. Fuck them. Fuck this place. We’re going home.

I raised my rifle and scanned rooftops again, but smartly no silhouettes remained after the detonation. I wanted a target, somewhere to vent my frustration and powerlessness, but none appeared. The weapons of our security stayed quiet too, and an odd silence settled as it became clear the booby trap was not a signal for ambush.

“I’m going down,” announced Castleman.

“The fuck you are,” answered Keener.

“I am. Someone has to clear it and we don’t have another robot. Get the bomb suit. Put it on me. I’m doing the search for secondaries alone and then we’re going to get the fuck out of here.”

The Long Walk. Armor on, girded with breastplate and helm and leggings and collar. Eighty pounds of mailed Kevlar. No one can put on the bomb suit alone; your brother has to dress you, overalls pulled up, massive jacket tucked, earnest in his careful thoroughness. One last check, face shield down, and then into the breach alone.

There is no more direct confrontation of wills between bomber and EOD technician than the Long Walk. Donning the suit, leaving behind rifle and security, to outwit your opponent nose to nose. The lonely seeking of hidden danger. To ensure no more hazards lie in wait to snatch the next soldier to pass that way, the next EOD brother or sister, the next local shopkeeper or taxi driver or child playing in a garbage-laden sewer.

No one takes the Long Walk lightly. Only after every other option is extinguished. Only after robots fail and recourses dwindle. The last choice. Always.

But when the choice comes, when the knife’s edge between folly and reason finally tips, training affords a decisiveness to guide your higher purpose. Castleman went so Keener didn’t have to. So Mengershausen didn’t have to. So I didn’t have to. You take the Long Walk for your brother’s wife, your brother’s children, and their children, and the line unborn.

No greater love does one brother have for another than to take the Long Walk.

Tadasana. Uttanasana. Chaturanga Dandasana. Urdhva Mukha Svanasana. Adho Mukha Svanasana. Tadasana
.

Tadasana. Uttanasana. Chaturanga Dandasana. Urdhva Mukha Svanasana. Adho Mukha Svanasana. Tadasana
.

And Chair. I shake, from high extended fingertip through outstretched arm, chest full of the Sounding Breath, hips and quivering thighs, down to the end of my toes. The
vinyasa
evolves, flows from
Adho Mukha Svanasana
to
Virabhadrasana
. Warrior.

I am Warrior and my Om and my free mind. My Crazy has melted under the radiant
vinyasa
. I am Warrior from all ages. But I am also Warrior without my rifle. It lies discarded and forgotten. I am the river and I let it go.

“Now we move to Tree,” the Yogini says. “Root yourself into the ground. Spread your toes wide. Lift your leg. Hands to prayer position.”

I lift my right leg up, and try to push it into my inner left thigh. I stumble the first time, and try again.

“Do not judge yourself,” the Yogini says. “If you have trouble balancing, note it and throw it away. If you easily balance, notice and let it go.”

I lift my leg again, and retake the position. I press harder, and this time it holds. I stare ahead, a spot on the wall unmoving, and place my hands. I sway. I hold. My vision starts to swim as my eyes grow unfocused and inward. Outward.

“Root yourself to the floor, the rock beneath our feet,” says the Yogini. “Feel your Om pass silently out of you and in you.”

I am my Om. My Om is not mine. I let it go.

“Open yourself to sight,” says the Yogini. “Feel your Third Eye Chakra open on your forehead. Allow yourself to see. Let go of what you see.”

I am Tree. My roots are deep. My trunk is slender. My arms are above my head. I sway. I stare into the void.

Spinning and swirling and profound depth. My Third Eye opens. The gray hairy spider crawls out of my forehead and never comes back.

IX
|
The Foot in the Box

T
HERE WAS SOMETHING
about the number one hundred. No one liked getting to a hundred missions. You might not start counting right away, but after a month or two most would go back and make the tally. Seventeen IEDs. Twelve post-blast investigations. Seven weapons caches, buried in dirt floors of crumbling houses. Thirty-six missions. Then, a month later, fifty-three. Sixty-eight. Eighty-seven. As the counter kept clicking up, as you closed in on a hundred, the always-present stomach rumble that came with leaving the FOB gate now grew in intensity. The milestone of one hundred held no particular significance, except that it indicated you had been working too long and soon your luck would run out.

In EOD culture, the role of Chaos is personified in the minor deity Murphy, of the popular Murphy’s Law: anything that can go wrong will. Murphy is invoked as a force of random failure by even the most hardened EOD operator to explain any chance occurrence that conspires to kill him or hamper his mission. Ropes that inexplicably loosen or snap. Blasting caps that fail to detonate the plastic explosives they are encased in. Robot batteries dying prematurely despite having been charged the night before. Knives falling from sheaths.Gear coming up missing from prepacked and inventoried bags. Flat tires and cracked brake lines. A bomb suit’s cooling fan breaking only in the worst of the summer heat. In training, Murphy bred annoyance and frustration. In combat, Murphy killed.

An EOD technician learns to respect Murphy at a young age. Like Vikings slaughtering a goat to the sea gods before an expedition to secure good sailing luck, students about to take their final exams in the Ground Ordnance Division of EOD school leave sacrifices and gifts before a totem of Murphy, a wooden pole stuck in the ground with a gorilla mask perched on top. As per tradition, the offerings were cases of beer, cartons of cigarettes, and piles of porno magazines. A purported pragmatic reasoning exists to explain this form of sacrifice, as it was the instructors about to observe and grade your practical test who discreetly snatched up the early-morning presents. I doubt that this ceremony, replayed every couple of weeks when each class completed the division, actually made a bit of difference; my instructors were too bitter and cynical to be easily distracted by smokes and a fresh pair of tits. Still, the psychological benefit for the student was unmistakable. It gave a false impression of control over the random.