Matt & Zoe - Charles Sheehan-Miles Page 0,20
to say I was one of the most hard-nosed MPs in our unit. That I never depended on anyone. And when Sergeant Ryan said that, she didn’t mean it as a compliment. She meant I wasn’t a team player. My default mode has always been to try everything on my own, to depend on no one, to be self-sufficient.
You can’t do that in a war zone. You have to learn to depend on other people. We depended on our drivers and machine gunners, on the men and women who delivered ammo and food, on the weather and on the people who delivered the mail.
More importantly, we depended on our squad mates. And when things got bad, they got bad quick. I’ll never forget the terror when we were ambushed on the way back to Iskandiriyah. Half a dozen guys went down in the first couple minutes, and our SAW gunner, an infantryman, panicked and wouldn’t get back on his gun. You couldn’t blame him—it was a dangerous, bloody mess. I was on the ground, but Nicole jumped up into the truck and got on the gun and kept shooting until the barrel got so hot the machine gun jammed.
Later though, it was all bullshit. I loved Tokyo, but I was one of two women in our unit, and every time I turned around one of the jerks would be trying to play grabass. I quickly regained my reputation for being a loner.
What do I do now? Jasmine can depend on me, but it’s just us. And deep inside—I don’t want us to be all alone. I guess I did depend on at least two people.
My Mom and Dad. I depended on them. It never even crossed my mind that they wouldn’t be there, today, tomorrow, next week, next year.
It never occurred to me that when I left last February, it would be the last time I saw them.
And what hurts … I can’t go back. I can’t go back and say to my mother that I’m sorry. That I was a self-absorbed bitch, that I was inconsiderate, that I didn’t consider her feelings. It’s too late. It’s too late to go back and repair it, it’s too late to put my arms around her and beg her forgiveness.
What. The. Hell? As I approach the traffic circle near Atkins where I collided with Matt Paladino’s car the other day, I struggle to get a grip on myself. Seriously? This isn’t who I am. This isn’t who I want to be.
I turn on the radio. I was so out of whack when I got in the car that I didn’t even put on music. Now that is weird. An unfamiliar pop song begins to play. Fifteen minutes and I’m parking in the lot near the Visitors’ Center at UMASS Amherst, across the street from the administration building. Nervously, I lock up the minivan and walk across Massachusetts Avenue. It’s a very unfamiliar environment. The valley overall gives me this sense of space… spread out, with tree covered hills rolling high above the Connecticut River.
There were times over the last five years when I regretted joining the Army instead of going to college. I had the grades—I graduated in the top 10 students in my class. My father was a professor at Mount Holyoke College, walking distance from the house, and that fact meant I could go for free. I suppose I still could, but the Army will pay for me to go to school, and I think I’ll be much more comfortable at UMASS than a smaller college, no matter that my father taught there. Especially I don’t want to be in a tiny all-women college, or one where my father was so well-known.
Some people rebel by drinking, or getting arrested, or picking a different sport than their parents.
I rebelled by joining the Army.
The Veterans Services Office at UMASS is a chaotic space, crowded with posters and flyers and papers and interns. It’s a storm; a whirlwind of papers and pens, and at the eye of the storm stands Craig Stills, the director of Veterans’ Services.
The thing about Craig is, he operates inside his own perfect no-bullshit bubble. All you have to do is look at his prosthetic legs (both of them) and arm (one) to realize he's the real deal.
I met him a few days ago for the first time—that’s when I read the Silver Star citation hanging on his wall. In 2005, somewhere along MSR Tampa just a few miles