What Lies Underneath

While eating lunch, several soldiers sat down at my table. I zoned out for a while on my food and idly watched day old coverage of the Tour de France on the big screen TV in the back of the room. I was too far away to see what was going on in the race and it made me homesick so I struck up a conversation with the soldiers. They were E-6’s in an Army Airborne unit finishing up 14.5 months in the eastern part of the country, waiting for a flight to Manas and then home. This was their second tour to the same region in Afghanistan, and they said that things were getting worse. Their take on the problem was mostly related to low numbers of troops and not enough air cover and transport from helicopters.

They asked what I did, and I said that I was a combat stress control psychologist being forward deployed-- that I would travel around to several FOBs in the eastern part of the country. They laughed and pretended to get up, saying “why are we talking to you!?” They said they had been schooled from early on to avoid speaking with mental health personnel.

I eventually asked them to give me some advice—what I could do that would be helpful or useful when I go visit the FOBs and COPs---

Soldier Number One: “Don’t go. We don’t need you there. Maybe we need you back at home but not out there.”

Me: “But I have to go, that’s my job, so what should I do when I go?”

Soldier Number Two: “Sir, you should bring cigarettes and Copenhagen, they would love you.”

Soldier Number One: “Sir, when I get back from a mission the last thing I want to do is talk to some combat stress guy. I just want to take a shower, jerk off, and go to sleep. If I have to listen to some guy talk about combat stress I won’t be listening.”

The second soldier suddenly started to relate a story about coming home from his last deployment, how he lost friends in Afghanistan and when he came back he was paranoid and short-tempered, got divorced, drank too much. His somber confession seemed to catch his friend off guard as he moved the conversation into what sounded like a pretty dark time in his life. He said, “I don’t think it was PTSD but it was a weird time.” He knew that those experiences were related to his combat tour but he didn’t know what to make of it. He paused and seemed thoughtful, and I imagined that he was wondering what it would be like to go back after this tour, if the anxiety and anger was still inside him, dormant.

I just listened, and suddenly the spell was broken, the voices and the noise in the dining facility intruded, and we were done. I wished them both “good luck”, and wished them a good trip home, not without a twinge of jealousy.