How to Write a True War Story

Hey Mom
Just wanted to drop a quick line and let you know I got that package. Thanks! For once the fruit snacks didn’t melt together, I think that little fan you sent was like a good luck charm or something. So Chris and Ange decided to get married after all huh? Man I really wish I could make that, if only so I could rub it in how Freshman year he asked her out and she said no and we started dating instead. Haha remember that? Ah well, I guess the best man won, they’re really good for each other. Would you do me favor and get them a wedding present from me. I’ll send you the money but the PX is a lot better for beef jerky and BDU’s than wedding gifts. Anyway, tell Steph I love her and she better get straight A’s on her finals and tell dad I miss him and I love him and thanks again for the box but mom seriously, I have enough socks now. Seriously. I love you. Oh and give Rudolph a big ol’ kiss for me. Hah.
Brandon

I fired off a quick reply and dropped the Blackberry into my bag adding his requests to my mental list and leaving off the one where he wanted me to kiss his big, mangy dog. This was a good day; it was a good day email. The emails after he got goodie boxes usually were. Most of them were actually, which made the other ones harder. The good emails talked about the USO show and how he wishes Demi Moore had said “I want to blow shit up” in Striptease instead because that would make it the hottest movie ever, hands down; and the little kids who gave them big hugs after they played football with them or gave them treats; and how much better he was getting at Madden because in between convoys all they did was play Playstation. I wasn’t happy after reading them because I wouldn’t be happy until he was home with me for good. It was just a kind of relief, because I knew how to answer these letters. I don’t know how to answer the other ones.

There should be a box for unwanted memories. A little box in your mind where you can lock up the things you never want to look at again, one that really works. Because I thought I had them locked up, and then Brandon decided he wanted to join the army and suddenly something let loose in my mind and I saw it all, all over again. The first time they came in a rush but nowadays they come when I’m not even thinking about anything like that. They come when I’m tying my shoes or using the bathroom or washing dishes and it’s always just one, and suddenly I can’t breathe.

There’s the memory of my senior year of high school doing laundry and the doorbell ringing and my mom moan-screaming in that godawful, inhuman way. The soldiers saying sorry and even though they were trying not to, looking just like they said it a hundred times before. My dad was the funniest guy you could ever hope to meet, he stopped making jokes after that. And sometimes there’s the letter memory, but I don’t let that one come up.

I don’t know what to do about the other emails, the bad day emails. The ones that talk about nightmares and days that last months and how sometimes it’s so hot you just want to stop breathing because it hurts your nose and your lungs and how the worst sound in the world is like two feather pillows being smacked together. That’s the sound the IEDs make when they land 3 feet away from you and the only reason they didn’t explode, the only reason you’re not dead is because the sand was so soft and fine and powdery from all the tanks rolling over it, that the IED didn’t hit hard enough to go off. I reply to those emails, and I try to be heartfelt and understanding and whatever the hell else it is you’re supposed to be when your 19 year old baby is upset and far away and you can’t hold him or tell him it’s going to be ok because that would be a lie and he’s too old for those lies now and you don’t even really understand any of it.

There’s that memory of my first year in college when I was getting some deodorant and eyeliner from the Walgreens and there was a soldier in his uniform who looked about the same age Curt would have been if he hadn’t gotten killed. Some guys I recognized as anti-war protestors from campus walked over and I knew what was going to happen like I was a psychic or something and I knew I had to stop it.

“Baby Killer, you should have died in Nam,” and then he spit and I stepped in front of it. I took it full in the face and turned to look at the soldier and I wanted my eyes to say “this is my sacrifice for you because of the terrible sacrifice you made over there.” But I don’t think they did because he took one look at me and yelled “how the fuck do you go off spitting on a woman!” and he was defending me and punching the protestor in the face. The guy’s friends jumped him started beating him up and he was a fighter but he couldn’t fight off all of them at once and people were screaming and the store clerks were running over to break it up and I tore out of that store as fast as I could. I wanted to make things better, and all I did was make them worse. I still had that unpaid for deodorant in my hand when I got back to my dorm, I threw it away and then I threw up. Sometimes, there’s the memory about the letter and I fight it. That’s the only one I can still fight because I think if I didn’t I would go crazy.

Sometimes when I picture Brandon, he’s not in a desert with massive spiders, leaning on a dirt colored tank. Sometimes he’s in a jungle and it’s wet and dark and humid. The worst emails, the ones I make my husband answer because I can barely look at them, are the ones that only say three tiny, agonizing words.

“Sometimes I’m scared.”

I know some of what he’s scared of. I know he’s scared about dying and what it would be like to never come home. I know he’s more scared of what it will be like when he does come home. I know he’s scared of how he’s not ashamed anymore when there’s gunfire and people yelling and smoke and something gets blown up right next to you because this time the IED hit and you shit your pants. You’re not ashamed because you know everyone does it but what kind of person isn’t ashamed when they shit their pants? I know he’s scared because he laughs at things he would have never laughed at before, because if you don’t laugh you might go crazy. Curt used to talk about that stuff, and in the very last letter he ever sent me he wrote “Sometimes I’m scared.”

And then I can’t fight the memory anymore. I’m taking a letter, addressed to me with my brother’s old platoon on it and it’s from one of his friend’s, the one they called Rat. I’m going outside to read it so I won’t be within hearing distance of my mom when I start crying because then she’ll ask to see it and if I ever hear her make that noise again I think I might tear my ears off. I read the whole thing and I’m crying and I’m missing Curt but most of all, I am furious! He knew my brother 6 months! Six fucking months! And he wants to tell me what a great guy my brother was and how close they were and how he had the right fucking attitude, how he made the war fun.

He. Never. Saw. Them.

He never saw the letters my brother sent me. He never saw the letters that said “I laugh at things I shouldn’t laugh at” and “what kind of person isn’t ashamed anymore when they shit their pants”, and “sometimes I’m scared.” I ripped it. I took the whole thing in my hands, envelope and all and ripped it into a million little pieces and left them sitting in there in the dirt like the pile of trash they were.

Then there was the day I realized what it was that I had done. It was the one time Brandon had really tried to explain what he was so scared of. There was another guy his age in his platoon, younger, and then he got killed. That wasn’t what scared him. What scared him was the guy who went dead inside, holding that dying kid in his arms. He looked up, and in the most horrible voice you could imagine said “I promised I would get him home.”

“He went home today mom, they sent him back because, I dunno, he was useless. But mom, I could be that guy. That’s the worst thing out here, they all need me and I could screw up and if I do someone could, someone could…

I really don’t know, sometimes this whole thing is just so fucked up. But hey mom I gotta run, tell everyone I love them, you know the drill. Love you.”

I knew what it had cost him, that guy they called Rat. I knew what he had thought when he poured his heart out in that letter, I could imagine what it took and what he was feeling but didn’t say. And I ripped it up and threw it away and now I wish to God I hadn’t. I sat down to write him a letter, a letter I’d never even be able to send but all I can think to say is “Thank You” and that’s pathetic, it’s not enough.