Slow Return of the Past
Alyssa was with me till my departure, only briefly leaving to check up on some of her other patients, but she knew the plans she set in place were to rapidly unfold. Luckily, there wasn't much for a guy who'd been in a hospital for several weeks to pack up, but she stayed with me every moment she could.
She had to explain it several more times after that first moment, but I still wondered why she did what she did for me. She seemed pretty certain my injuries would heal over time, but perhaps it would've taken too long for me to be useful to the army again. However, when I saw the tears in her eyes when our conversations turned a little more serious, I thought it might've been something more.
I can't say if Nurse Alyssa loved me, or if she was just very thankful to find an old friend again like a needle lost in a haystack. Although I loved her, if not romantically, then at least for what she did for me back in the Montreal Medical HQ and in the last time I saw her on an icy airstrip in Juneau.
In any event, I couldn't sleep when I got back to my room after the payphone. I knew in only a few short hours I'd be getting on a plane back home. I think it should go without saying that the news of leaving war shocked me long after I learned it.
It all happened far too fast for me to even stress. Coping with the news of leaving and getting ready for the departure left almost zero time for preparation, but I luckily didn't have to since Alyssa already took care of most of the details long before she even told me.
When the hour came, Alyssa pushed me personally while Andrews and Collins helped Savaren across the tarmac. Savaren was one of those getting sent home anyway, since he was still missing a leg and his torso may never adjust to the immovable shrapnel still stuck in there. Savaren still didn't look good, and was still largely unconscious from the doping drugs. It felt good to be with Savaren, and I told him I'd help him recover back in the real world even if he heard the words or not. Still not feeling like I deserved this in any way, I felt better knowing I was going home with my best bud, and regardless of our condition, we both made it out.
Shuffling across the airstrip, I felt genuinely free for the first time in my life.
Andrew's arms were in slings at this point, and Collins' legs were fairly healed up. Collins was supposed to be filling out the last of his unit transfer forms but neglected them to see me and Savaren off. Andrews was still healing, but the drugs given to him were almost done mending his fractured arms back together. He said it was only a matter of days before the casts would be removed.
Savaren was still a loopy mess being pushed across the runway. Savaren could talk now but still looked like he was in a lot of pain underneath the drugs that clouded his judgment and even made him ask bizarre questions. I wasn't sure if he even knew what was happening or where he was going, but he sat there mumbling away about this and that. When we arrived at the plane, I looked inside and saw it had little beds lined up along the walls and down the center for all the patients.
20min till departure, we stood before the giant hydraulic door as the other wounded troops went past us. Savaren went on ahead being helped by the orderly, leaving the rest of us alone. Amidst the Alaskan winds and roar of aircraft engines across the runways, Collins, Alyssa, and Andrews stood around my chair. I honestly had no idea that Andrews was religious, but it seems I learned a lot about him after the battle at LM-5, so Andrews led a little prayer. His new faith seemed like another surprise addition to the personality shift and the freshness became evident in his clunky words to the power he seemingly wasn't used to talking to.
I never spoke to God before, didn't really even believe in God, but I remembered the chaplain those years ago. I didn't know if there was a God, or gods, or karma, but I definitely didn't deserve this flight home. I tried not to think about the bad times of the past near-decade, which was most of it. Instead, I simply thanked whoever was listening for at least giving me great friends to go through all that shit with. I hoped/prayed/whatever you wanna call it for Andrews and Collins' well-being in the upcoming weeks, and they prayed a safe flight for their old friend, squad leader, and platoon sergeant. They both gave me a brotherly hug as a final goodbye before hobbling back towards the tram to the Med Center. Never saw them again after that, but had heard from them later. Still, goodbyes aren't something I enjoy even thinking about.
Alyssa waited with me for a moment after my surviving pals walked away before she leaned in and kissed my cheek as a final goodbye. Again, I wrapped my arms around that absolute saint of a woman. I don't think that kiss had any romance, but just simple love for a person who she got to connect with briefly during the war that occupied everyone's life for what felt like a lifetime. As I embraced the woman, I couldn't stop repeating those words in my mind about how I didn't deserve the chance to go home. Regardless of how my brain felt, my body was giddy for what was to come, and as I held that woman, I had a new thought. Even though I didn't deserve to come home from Montreal or LM-5, that didn't stop this woman from saving me…
I never forgot what Alyssa did for me, even after all this time. It also turned out that I did deserve to go home, just not for the reasons I thought. Fate, God, or whatever has plans we can't even comprehend, but none of that mattered in those moments as I turned my back on Alyssa and took my place aboard the plane. Seeing Alyssa give a final wave before turning towards Collins and Andrews, I just hoped they all made it home when this war was over... However much longer it may have been.
I sat on the bolted patient bed aboard the aircraft as the hydraulic doors shut right next to my buddy who was already out cold. Alone in the dark, it wasn't long before the plane started to rock more and more until I felt us moving. Everyone else was asleep, and I stared at my lap. I was so happy, but I couldn't stop thinking about the memories of LM-5 and Montréal. Me and Savaren, we were all that was left, all that got to finally escape. Savaren definitely deserved to go home, but I couldn't shake the continuous thoughts. My lows in Montreal were only stopped by him, Andrews, Collins, and even Hill. Nearly everyone else from Captain Mosby to Reed to Rowlands got what they deserved by seeing their end at LM-5. Indulging in the horror-filled streets of Montreal, I was one of them who deserved a surprise and quick death at the hands of an enemy we weren't prepared for. As the plane tilted into the sky, I thought of every low accompanied by visions of reality or where I was: On a plane home. I thought of all those dead, both friend, enemy, and innocent. Stiles, Miller, Rowland, Hill, Captain Morales, Captain Mosby, SFC Reed, and so many others were all dead, and I could see all their faces in the blackness above me. Gunshots erupted beneath the whir of the plane engines, and bodies fell at the crack of a rifle only to be stopped by the wire noose to serve as warnings to the annexed.
Savaren was the man who stopped me from going even further over the edge I'd long since stepped over. He was beside me on his way home to a rest he earned. Andrews and Collins were healing up and heading to a wintery front line. Then there was me again. A man who turned his back on good to indulge in the ash and blood, sitting right next to the man in even worse condition. Not sure what to make of any of that, but I dwelled on the past until they were no longer just images in the darkness but were clear as day. After too long of dull recollection, I didn't know what was real anymore, but I reached a place where I knew I was dreaming in some form or another.
I woke up hours later, not sure of when the memories turned from real thoughts to actual dreams. When I looked at my watch, it showed: 0214, and I had no idea if that was Alaska time, some other time, or even AM or PM. It was dead silent on board, and all the injured passengers were asleep as the plane steadily rocked back and forth. It was a nice rocking though, and the stillness aboard had cleared my mind despite waking still tired. The exhaustion consumed me before I was even able to dwell on the past and the engines' whirring was steady enough to lull me back to sleep in minutes.
I woke up again sometime later, and when I looked at my watch it showed that it was 0438. I again didn't know if that was 2 hours or 14 hours, but this time, many people were awake and chatting among themselves. I looked around to see the people who were awake. I didn't know anyone other than the man on my left who was Savaren, but just to my right and behind a little privacy curtain was the loud voice of an apparent jackass. I opened the little divider, stretched my arms, and yawned as I asked the guy very kindly to shut it. When the man turned around to tell me off, I couldn't believe my eyes.
The face was familiar, but I couldn't quite understand why as we gazed at each other for a while. It wasn't a face I'd seen before, but it was a face that I had seen before undergoing so much conflict. (Probably like my own face). After several seconds of locking eyes with the man, I saw the old face in my mind, and it hit me.
Brandon McNamara sat right next to me on that plane full of cripples returning from the Alaskan Front. That's right, my old friend from middle and high school was on the same plane as me. So much had changed about his complexion and I recalled how I hadn't talked to him in nearly ten years. Thinking about his personality back when I knew him, I never once would've had to ask him to be quiet... There was no way it was him. That's at least what I thought until I saw a smile grow across his face, a smile I'd only seen a couple of times back when I knew him, but a smile that I could recognize through all the conflict and years of stress on his face. He must've been thinking the exact same thing because I felt a smile grow across my own and the silence ended when we both burst out in laughter. Every barrier broke at the mutual recollection and we held out our hands for a long, friendly, and confused handshake, laughing all the while.
A thousand planets had to have aligned for such a thing to occur, so I couldn't believe it. However, it was reality.
I shouted in absurdity, "Oh my God, man! How are you? Where are you hurt? It's great to see you! What you been up to? What landed you on this plane?"
He shouted the exact same thing and through the hysteria, he lifted up the sheets. His right leg was gone.
Brandon showed me the stump as I was about to explain what happened to me. Seeing his leg missing the same way Savaren's was, I stopped in my tracks and asked plainly, "How did this happen?"
His answer caught me off guard when he said, "LM-5 is what happened, ever hear of that shitshow? Happened kinda recently, but got me a ticket home at the cost of my leg! Hahaha!"
I couldn't recall Brandon McNamara ever being part of my annex unit? With little images of the battle flashing in my mind, I said cooly, "Man, you are not going to believe this, but I was stationed there. That's how I got my plane ticket home. Fuckers shot up my pelvis and whacked me unconscious a few minutes into the fight.."
Then I remembered a little detail I'd forgotten: That mechanized outpost: Task Force Steel was the nearest installation to us, and I remembered the voice of the radioman screaming into his radio for their assistance. Then I remembered Alyssa saying how a bunch of guys from Task Force Steel arrived to mop up sometime after I was knocked out... For some reason I thought back to when Alyssa handed me the ICU list, and I wondered why I didn't see his name on it. I figured it had something to do with the fact I was more focused on searching for the names of people from my unit. Anyway...
He took in my words and looked over to me with a face twisted by memories of his own experiences, "I was under Task Force Steel…" He stopped for a second and looked in my direction but not really at me and added, "If you got K/Od you probably didn't hear what happened with us…."
He cleared his throat and continued, "I was Heavy Mechanized in the 248th Mechanized Weapons Regiment at FOB Gamma Charlie... Radio callsign Task Force Steel as y'all at LM-5 knew… The day of my or our incident, we were loading onto the Vertibirds for a flight to the Anchorage Front. As soon as we got airborne, someone came over the radios calling for help from us. The location was LM-5, so we got diverted. We were the only group that was ready and airborne at our FOB, but the fighting sounded rough. So, the five Vertibirds in our squadron circled around to LM-5…"
I just stared, nodded, and let the man continue.
He rubbed his stump gently while staring at the gurney, "... The Vertibirds flew over the mill and dropped their payloads onto the facility, and the frontal guns picked off hostiles on the roofs. Then our Vertibird came in. We hovered over the woods firing at the facility we heard was completely overrun before we could arrive. But, then the ropes deployed, and we rappelled out into the midst of an intense firefight. The other mech boys in the mill managed to drive them back to the woodlands by the time we got out… Apparently, SOMEBODY in COMMS forgot to tell the rest of them about us in the woods! One of our guys from the mill launched a fucking barrage of H.E. quad missiles right at me and my squad. The fucking things ripped my leg off and killed half my squad. Despite the power armor…" He sighed, "It can stop bullets and frag blasts, but not a concentrated missile strike..."
I told him again that I was knocked unconscious after being hit in the pelvis, leg, and chest, but it became clear that none of us really wanted to talk about what happened at LM-5.
It also became clear that we both had our own stories and plenty to keep us up at night. Although I couldn't help but feel off in a way I couldn't describe at the time. I think the reason for that feeling was because of the clarity and numbness I was still feeling under the drugs. However, I'm not on the drugs now, haven't been since I wrote about that fucking white fucking room after getting knocked out by that china motherfucker.
Anyway?
In the brief time we talked, I learned where he'd been during the war, and he told me some interesting stories I was used to reading about in those Tales from Fort Bearclaw comics, or stories I'd heard from the AF convoy boys over time. I told him a few of mine, but just like the passing AF fellas, I couldn't fucking relate. His gallant tales about fighting the Chinese in the Yukon, or Vertibird patrols over the snowy Alaskan wilderness, assisting the front in their Wilderness campaign, going to Juneau on leave weeks "What the fuck is leave? I remember.. Not Sherman! Ha!" He was given a suit of shiny white T-45D power armor and a minigun, where I was given issue combat gear, gas mask, and an R91 used by 10,000 other soldiers. Fighting and returning to the lads as big armored heroes! That was his experience!
Yep, he too deserved a spot on the plane. I felt surrounded by fucking heroes triumphantly returning from struggle and glory in the field. Then there was me again. Covered in filth, ash, soot, blood, and feeling a gas mask sealed to my face beneath a thick helmet. Scars on my face, and a mind screaming for more pain, more death, more hate, all in the name of peace with the urban Red Zone... Nope, he couldn't relate. I loved seeing and meeting him again, but I wondered whose spot I had taken on the plane.
Reflecting on the man who'd liberated ten Alaskan villages, saved 100 civilians from a whole brigade of reds, and pulled his pals from the snowy trenches back to safety. That man got clipped in the side running across the woods with a brother on his back and bullets whizzing by. He throws his injured pal behind a sandbag barricade, just before a bomb lands next to him, shredding his arms into smithereens. He spends time recovering in the hospital, knowing he did good, and asks his nurse if he's going home for his injuries. The nurse tells him maybe next month, or he may get healed up and thrown into the meat grinder again.
When the hero asks why he can't go home to see his beloved mother, father, wife, and baby girl, he's told "Sorry. Your ticket home was given to David Levin."
The man is left in wonder, saying aloud, "Wow, David must be some hero to have gotten the ticket instead of me!"
Only for the nurse to say, "Nope, he's just a guy who spent most of his tour in Annexland killing for psychotic sexual thrill/Sherman, got to go to a 2-year long summer camp while you were bracing for shells in trenches, but happened to hit it off with my colleague, Alyssa."
"He sounds Horrible though!" thinks the hero of the Alaskan Front out loud!
"He Is Horrible!" replies the nurse-
Stop.
When I found myself trapped, even under the spell of numbness, I looked to Savaren still passed out, and remembered the words, "Savaren is my bestest bud."
Whatever the fuck that meant... Craziness can only be accurately described as "Crazy."
Brandon ended up telling me how he joined up in 2068, several months after I did, and we talked and talked for hours while more injured troops woke up to the growing chatter. I told him about each of my squadmates after getting a hold on my mental turmoil like Savaren who laid on the other side of me. I told him everything in summary from the initial assault on Montreal to my first day at LM-5, leaving out most of the bad parts of Montreal (Again, which was practically all of it), but I was sure to mention when his dad visited The Square. He didn't have much to say about that other than a "No kidding?" Having regular access to phones and home communications since he was never under fucking Sherman, his dad never mentioned a trip to Montreal. I wasn't surprised by that, but I remember briefly wondering if I imagined that encounter with Bill McNamara since that event was well into my crazy days. Either way, Brandon and I talked and shared, and caught up until that beacon came on.