Battle Ready: Memoir of a SEAL Warrior Medic (38 page)

“Thank you. Steve Cobb, Military Order of the Purple Heart,” he said with a large smile on his face. “This is my wife Tatanya, but she goes by Tanya.”

“How do you do,” she said with a Russian accent.

“You’re welcome, Steve. I’m Mark,” I said as I reached over to shake Tanya’s hand.

“So, Mark, you here for a medical appointment?” he asked as he spotted the Purple Heart on my ribbon rack.

“Well, yes, sort of. I brought one of my co-workers over for an appointment and thought about checking on a few things myself,” I said, trying to be vague.

“You a doc?” He smiled, now looking at my collar.

“I’m a bunch of things, but yes, I was once a corpsman turned physician assistant, and yes, I’m a SEAL.” I thought best to answer that one before he asked, since he was looking at the SEAL Trident.

“You’re a long way from home, considering you’re not an inpatient,” he said with a laugh.

“You seem to know a lot more than the average retiree,” I said with a large grin.

“That’s because I’m an old army colonel with a little bit of experience about special operations. Right now I could use a rest. Let’s sit.” We continued talking as we moved to the coffee shop and grabbed a table. Tanya ordered coffee as Steve and I settled in. Apparently they were both old fixtures in the place, because everyone knew them by name and most would wave as they walked by.

“You a member of the Purple Heart?” Steve asked, referring to the Military Order of the Purple Heart, an organization I’d been invited to join but never really had much interest in.

“No, I’m never around, so I thought I’d wait until I had more time on my hands,” I said quickly, making up a white lie so no feelings got hurt.

“Bull, it doesn’t take any time unless you want it to. Now where are you stationed?”

“Right now I’m TAD to the area,” I said, trying to be respectfully vague about where I worked.

Steve was an old pro and knew how to work me. We sat for half an hour discussing the Purple Heart, war, and what I needed to do before my first meeting the following month. There was no getting off the hook with the old colonel, so there was no use trying. He had magical powers of persuasion, and he used them for good.

A few weeks later I walked into an American Legion post to attend my first meeting and learned more about Steve. Much more. In addition to being the chapter adjunct, he was the recipient of multiple purple hearts and a Silver Star for action during Vietnam. He was also a former Hawaiian congressman and state senator. He welcomed me to the meeting and then introduced me to the esteemed members of the chapter.

The group of veterans in attendance had served in wars from World War II to the present day, and all of them talked openly about the same problems I struggled with. Several of the men pulled me aside and said most things got better but others never changed. They allowed themselves to be human and lean on one another in order to get past those dark days.

As the months went on, I spent more time with Steve and the others, and it hammered home the importance of finding someone to talk to. The meetings weren’t all gloom, doom, and war stories. We simply didn’t avoid the subjects if they came up in conversation. In the past I never spoke about them, afraid that emotion might overwhelm me. I was relieved of that burden when speaking with my fellow war veterans. The more I talked about experiences, the easier it was getting to accept them. Mike was learning this as well, as he met with fellow veterans at the VFW.

26

COMING HOME

You are today where your thoughts have brought you; you will be tomorrow where your thoughts take you.

—J
AMES
A
LLEN

I drove down from D.C. to meet Korrina, arriving from her overseas flight. She had spent her time downrange supporting the SEALs who were kicking doors and capturing and killing insurgents while I supervised intelligence support stateside. This was the first time that our roles had been reversed, and the deployment helped me appreciate what families go through when their loved one goes off to war.

I missed her dearly, and because she was in a war zone, it made me realize how much I truly loved her. Despite all the chaos I had brought into our lives, she focused on the good in me. She spoke softly when I needed her support, reminding me how much my family loved and needed me, but she also called me out when I was coming up short and encouraged me to try harder. Korrina accepted my faults, and despite my resistance to her affection during my first year back she remained committed to loving me deeper than I ever had been loved before. Sadly, it took the threat of losing her to the same enemy I had battled years earlier before I understood the enormous courage it took for her to be my wife. Now I just wanted her home!

*   *   *

After a wonderful but slightly awkward night getting reacquainted with one another, we woke with one agenda: planning a whole new future together. Our life had been one fragmented year after another, but instead of tearing us apart it strengthened our resolve. What we needed now was stability. We both had another two years on our current set of orders, but with her new position at her command I’d be the only one at risk of deploying.

*   *   *

Midway through the decade one of the Special Forces veterans from the Vietnam era came up with an idea to ensure the wounded and those who suffer from a severe illness or injury within the special operations community would never be left to their own devices. He pitched the idea to the leadership, many of whom he’d worked with or mentored along their way, and within a short time a coalition of support surfaced that advocated not only for the members but for their families and the families of the fallen.

Naval Special Warfare was a little hesitant at first, but once they realized the strength in having advocates and liaisons from within the community caring for their members, they wasted no time installing an official for the East Coast. Korrina was a wound care specialist and had treated more than a few wounds from training and war. This face time with leadership and understanding of the navy’s procedures made her the perfect fit for the job.

With Korrina locked into a shore billet, all we needed to do was gather the kids and move into a home suitable until the time they’d move on to college or possibly military service.

EMERGENCE

At Trident I continued to work with the rest of the crew to build Bullfrog’s program into one of four pillars of excellence within the Office of Naval Intelligence, and I greatly enjoyed the tempo and intellectual challenges that came with balancing responsibilities between intelligence, special operations, and medicine. Needless to say, Steve encouraged me to become more engaged with the local chapter of the Purple Heart. We visited Bethesda and Walter Reed and interfaced with wounded and severely injured troops, and it proved to be good medicine for me as well. On occasion Bullfrog would do the same when casualties from the special operations community came in from the regional medical center in Landstuhl, Germany. He, like all the other operators in the area, longed to spend more time with the wounded, but of course time was always limited, so visits were more of a monthly event. However, Bullfrog made a special point of visiting Jay Redman when he shipped home from Germany.

The last time I saw Jason “Jay” Redman was outside our living quarters in Panama. I was saying farewell to him and other members of the platoon before heading off to Howard Air Force Base to catch a military airlift back to the States. My orders to PA school had come in, and Commander Bosiljevac, my CO at the time, wanted to ensure I had enough time to get my personal affairs in order before making such a monumental move. Jay was serving in his first SEAL platoon, and the moment he walked into the team room the officers, Chief, and I knew we’d hit the jackpot with this FNG. Jay was a bright young SEAL with an intelligence background who was quickly moving through the enlisted ranks by utilizing both his intellect and sense of humor to their fullest potential. Jay was the type of team guy that could say something blatantly obvious but instead of sounding stupid or whiny he’d put you in tears laughing about it. Even when we were buried half frozen in a snowbank for days during a training exercise, he always found something humorous to say. He’s the type of guy anyone would want as a brother, and the team was proud he was a part of our family, especially me. I guess that’s why it hurt so much when we received word he had been seriously wounded in Iraq.

While I was studying medicine, Jay was picked up for a commissioning program and eventually graduated among the top of his class at Old Dominion University. He returned to the team as an officer just as the war was ramping up and led his men on mission after mission in very dangerous places. One fateful night, an enemy round nearly ripped his left arm off. As he feverishly applied the tourniquet to his arm and pulled the constricting band tight, another round entered his skull under his right ear. Although rocked by rounds and losing blood quickly, Jay continued to care for his wounds while directing his men to continue the fight. With the help of his medic, the combat surgeons, and hospital stops along the way, he made it to National Naval Medical Center Bethesda.

Bullfrog and I walked into the room unsure of what we’d see. We’d heard Jay was still breathing out of the tracheotomy tube protruding from his neck but was stable and able to communicate by pen and paper. We’d also heard the damage to his face was extensive. We washed our hands with the antiseptic and entered his room, only to see a smiling Jay giving us a thumbs-up as if he were able to defy death with a Harry and David gift basket. Bullfrog and I looked at one another and tried to keep ourselves from cracking up, unsure if it would be acceptable to laugh. Jay hadn’t changed a bit, except he’d married a wonderful wife and started a family. I spoke with Jay as he scribbled his responses while Bullfrog spoke with his lovely wife, Erica.

“Wow, Jay. All things considered, you look great.” I wasn’t being sarcastic, either. Being a medical provider I’d seen and worked on plenty of wounded, and despite taking a few rounds to his upper body and face, he was much better than I expected. Cosmetically it did look bad, but his positive persona resonated through the room, making everyone feel brighter.

“You should have seen him when he first landed. He looked awful,” said Erica, with a combination of humor and concern, but mostly out of love for her husband. I looked at Bullfrog, and we thought,
Where the hell do we find more of this
? They were the epitome of a grounded couple, focused on all the good that life had to offer.

As we thumbed through the photographs and listened to Erica describe the past few days, Jason flipped his notebook around and wrote that he was going to ask the plastic surgeon for a Brad Pitt nose.

“No, that’s not what you want,” Bullfrog said in a half-joking, half-salesman way as he pushed me aside to stand next to Jason. “You should ask for a big distinctive nose. A Wikul nose,” he said as he turned his head upward to profile his nose. We all broke into laughter, but Pete stayed on point, very serious. “Big noses are legendary. Think of all the great men with a distinguished schnoz.” He paused for effect as we tried to contain our laughter, “There was George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Julius Caesar, Charles DeGaulle and…”

Jason turned his pad around. It said
No!
clearly underlined, yet Bullfrog continued to pontificate about the virtues of a prominent proboscis.

It was a shared moment of levity between friends and warriors who accept death and destruction as part of the job description. The laughter was a dramatic contrast to the gut-wrenching sorrow we felt each time a casualty report came across our secure network. Nose jokes were definitely fitting for Jay, who wasn’t interested in pity parties. In fact, Jay fended off any visitors who dared enter with sorrow in their eyes and pity in their voices. He wrote a manifesto with a black marker on orange cardboard, informing the world that he received the wounds while defending the country he loved and that sorrow and sympathy were not in the recovery plan. Several days later, the poster was photographed and uploaded to the World Wide Web, and within a matter of days Jay went from being another patient at Bethesda to an Internet legend, encouraging optimism and speedy recovery for all wounded Americans.

*   *   *

Bullfrog returned to the office while I attended to a few hospital appointments of my own. I stopped by the coffee shop where Steve and I had first met, grabbed another coffee, and watched a group of visitors carry quilts, candies, and gifts through the doors as they headed up to the fifth floor to visit with the wounded troops. What a contrast to Steve’s years of service. He and the other Vietnam vets told stories of the disrespect and downright hate they received when they returned home, mainly from a group of ignorant angry young Americans unsure where to focus their frustrations.

We certainly weren’t suffering from that type of misdirected anger today. In fact, I can’t remember a time when I wore the uniform in public and was treated poorly. It was quite the opposite. A walk through the airport always led to offers of coffee or beer, and handshakes were plentiful. Our wounded from Panama quietly received generous assistance from a handful of our country’s millionaires, and our sailors and soldiers experienced warm welcomes home from the First Gulf War. Modern America loved her military, and we loved her back.

So what brought about the change, from anger to respect? It was the Vietnam veterans! The same men and women who served honorably and were spit upon for their service managed to hold their chin high and say, “
Not on my watch!
” They didn’t do it for ticker-tape parades or public praise; instead they demanded respect for those that came after them. They simply refused to let another American service member experience the same hell they’d walked through a generation before. They served their country when their country called, and along with their fellow Korea and World War II veterans continue to serve America’s service members today. Every time I’d hear “thank you for serving,” I made it a point to say two “Thank you for supporting” back, one for the citizens of America and the other for the veterans of the past.