Chapter 21

Thursday very early morning

Ben’s house

Harborton Washington

This was the part of his dream where it usually started over. He would relive that day over and over until he woke exhausted in the morning.

Sometimes though he relived parts of his recovery, or the debrief at the hospital in Germany where he learned that they had found nearly 300 dead Taliban on that godforsaken hillside and that Gunny Stillwell had witnessed the last minutes of the fight from a high perch farther up the mountain half a mile a way. It had been the Scout Sniper detachments precision shooting that had enabled the remains of his company to rally and drive the last Taliban off the ridge.

In fact, it was the Gunny who had initially recommended him for the Navy Cross seconded by his CO and the crazed CH-53 pilot who had saved his wounded. Ben would buy either of them all the beer they could drink but he couldn’t thank them. That goddamn medal made him feel like a fraud after all the real heroes who had died on that barren rocky slope. To top it all off he discovered from the S-2 weenies that it had been his fault from the start. Turns out that the first three Taliban whose ticket he punched when they were setting up the mortars were the only sons of the regional tribal leader just on the other side of the border.

The oldest had just gotten married to the daughter of one of the other big chiefs and they all happened to be visiting for the wedding when the son’s decided it would be a lark to ride over and blow the shit out of some helpless UN aid workers. Neither chief was happy with what that idiot idea had led to and so had decided to wipe out both the UN workers and the village. They didn’t even know that the Marines were there when Bravo Company hit them at the intersection of the road to Kandahar with mortars.

Ben sometimes even relived the time he had tried to refuse the medal. He had been back stateside undergoing therapy at Walter Reed Hospital. A day later he had gotten a cordially worded summons from the Sergeant Major. Ben was an officer and no NCO could, in theory, require a commissioned officer’s presence but anyone who had been in the Marine Corps more than a week knew that no one pissed off a Sergeant Major, especially not, THE Sergeant Major.

So Ben had dressed up in his class A’s and drove the 30 minutes into Washington DC at 8th and I street. As Ben had walked into the dark paneled office he noticed a new addition to the many photos and mementos. Prominently displayed behind the Sergeant Major’s large oak desk in a beautifully detailed walnut and glass case was the same M40 that Ben had used on that ridge. There was a plaque below it as well but the words had been too small for Ben to read.

“Glad to see the old girl made it back to you Sergeant Major” Ben said to Sergeant Major Winters as he came around the desk to shake Ben’s hand.

“Good to see you son! Yeah Gunny Stillwell said the stack of bodies you left on top of her protected the finish pretty well.” grinned the small wiry grizzled old Marine.

To some the comment might have seemed out of place, but not to those that had seen the Elephant. Sergeant Major Winters was first and foremost a combat Marine and if you doubted that, one look into his steel gray eyes would set you straight. He had never lost the sensibilities of a fighting Marine even after years behind a desk.

“Thanks for coming Ben, set a spell and keep an old man company” he said in a soft, surprisingly cultured Virginia accent. Then he grinned. “I have a bottle of the good stuff I’ve been saving.”

They had sat and talked for over an hour while sipping good bourbon, even though Ben had known that there had to be far more important things that Sergeant Major Winters needed to take care of. They caught up and shared war stories and Ben finally felt he was with someone who understood. They never even discussed the medal until Ben had gotten up to leave.

“Son, listen I know just how you feel. I felt the same every time they pinned a medal on me. I know 3 Medal of Honor winners and they felt the same way too. You nearly got one of those you know. If it had been a senior officer that had witnessed what happened, you would have. I hope when you think about it, that you will come to realize that you accept the medal not for yourself but for all those who can’t be there. That medal stands in place for their honor, not just yours.”

Ben had paused for a second struck by what the Sergeant Major had said. “Yes sir, I hadn’t really thought of it that way. I promise to take that into account.”

So a week later Ben had donned his dress blues (for the last time as it turns out) and let the Secretary of the Navy put the medal around his neck in front of some rather unimpressed reporters and thought it would be the end of it.

Wednesday late evening

Sarah’s house

Harborton Washington

Soon Sarah dropped off to sleep but her dreams were far from peaceful. Instead she found herself on a steep dry rocky ridgeline overlooking a deep canyon straight to her front. To her left about a mile away the canyon opened up into a flat dusty plain where a small river ran through a village. There was also a large encampment of what looked like several dozen medical vehicles and trucks with UN markings. She was surrounded by men like the one in Ben’s picture. But these men were in constant motion and sense of great urgency penetrated everything,

Then it started. Deep shattering booms and sharp ripping sounds as dirt and sand and shards of rock flew everywhere around her. Sarah had no idea what was happening around her as she tried to close her dream eyes to the chaos and destruction but the smells of smoke and soon of blood, urine and excrement were everywhere. When she opened her eyes again some of those smiling boys from the picture now looked like ragged bloody dolls. She heard screams and the calls “Corpsman Up!” whenever the sounds of gunfire faded. Sarah had no idea how long her dream lasted but finally she could hear a helicopter landing somewhere behind her and lastly the singular sound of zippers as someone drew closed the black bags containing what remained of boys no older than she was.

And then it hit her in solid palpable waves. Intense pulses of grief and despair and then guilt and finally a soul-deadening sense of utter failure overlaid all else, Sarah cried like she never had before as she curled in a fetal ball, her hands clenched tight over her stomach. At last a soft hand touched her shoulder and began pulling her from the dream that she now knew she was just an observer in. This was Ben’s dream. Her darling Ben. How could he have survived this experience and this reliving of it over and over and still remained the gentle, kind, caring man that she loved with all she was?