Fixing Hell (25 page)

My heart raced in a loud
thump, thump, thump
as I struggled to orient myself, to find my way. I only partly realized that I was awaking from a dream. Part of me was still blood-spattered in that convoy, and part of me thought I was waking up but in the midst of a real attack on the base. The voice in my head was screaming,
GET YOUR WEAPON, LARRY! HURRY! HURRY! THE FIGHT’S ON!
Then, as I frantically struggled in the dark to figure out where I was and what to do, I could hear my wife’s voice in the distance.

“Sugar, it’s gonna be okay, it’s gonna be okay,” she whispered, repeating the mantra that always calmed me down when it came from her beautiful lips. “You just had a bad dream, sugar. Settle down. It’s gonna be okay.”

Finally realizing I wasn’t being attacked, I got up and listened for voices outside my door before opening it. I didn’t want to bump into anyone and have to chat. Hearing nothing, I opened the door and walked down the hallway to the bathroom. I poured cold water in my hands and splashed the ice-cold water on my face.

Damn, Larry, is this what it’s going to be like now? I thought. Is this what I’m going to face every night?

Falling back in to my bunk, exhausted all over again from this turmoil and moral haunting, I was able to drift away back to sleep for the rest of the night. I got up around lunchtime and headed for the chow hall. But as I walked to the chow hall I stopped right in the middle of the sidewalk, transfixed by an empty Pepsi can laying in the middle of the sidewalk.
Oh shit, it’s an IED.
Slowly, never taking my eyes off the Pepsi can, I took a few steps backward while the young soldiers behind me just kept walking forward, past the can. I crossed the street and continued on for another block, then I stopped again in the middle of the sidewalk. This time it was a brown paper bag that paralyzed my movements and focused my attention. Again I whispered to myself, “An IED, Larry! Hurry! Cross the street! It’s gonna blow any minute!”

I hustled across the street, eyes peeled for another IED, ready to dart away at the slightest suspicion. In this way I eventually got to the chow hall as the soldiers around me just strolled casually along.

I soon learned that this cautious process was very common for soldiers on their return home. In Iraq, IEDs were placed in the simplest of life’s things, a Pepsi can, a brown paper bag, or even the carcass of a dead cat or dog. Still to this day, although I am not as hypervigilant as in those first days out of Abu Ghraib, an empty bag or a soda can on the sidewalk will get my attention, maybe even spook me if I only see it at the last minute. At night, even though I try to relax and remember that I’m not in a combat zone, I still peek out my window and stare at every car that turns around in my cul-de-sac.

Along the way to the chow hall, as I crossed the street for the umpteenth time, a voice from deep in my soul spoke up.
Larry, turn in your ammo for your 9mm pistol. Turn in your ammo before you shoot somebody, you dumbass.
I realized I was just too damn jittery to be carrying a loaded weapon. So I asked where to find the supply building. “Hey man, where can I turn in my rounds?” I asked one young soldier, as I rested one hand on my 9mm. “I shouldn’t be walking around with this.”

He smiled and nodded his head like he knew what I meant. “Colonel, I understand, sir,” he said. “It wasn’t a good idea for me to have my weapon loaded here either, sir.”

We both laughed while he gave me directions to the supply building. A few minutes later I turned in two 9mm clips with all of the bullets. However, I kept my KA-BAR bayonet. I just didn’t want to be unarmed, even here on this relatively secure base. Although my fear was misguided and irrational, something would not allow me to let go of my hypervigilance. I couldn’t help but anxiously think about an intel officer at Abu Ghraib telling me that there was a $25,000 bounty on my head from Al Zarqawi and that I and the other colonels on post were on Al Zarqawi’s most wanted list. I never bothered to check “the list” and verify it myself, because I didn’t see the point. If my specific name wasn’t actually on the list, would that mean I wasn’t threatened? No, I’d never assume that. And if my name was on the actual list of most wanted, I didn’t see how I would be helped by having that image seared into my mind. I was cautioned to be damn careful and watch my back at all times, no matter where I was—and I did. Each night before I went to bed, I placed my bayonet on the nightstand right next to my bed.

After I ate lunch, I decided to walk over to the food court and visit the Starbucks. Seeing the Starbucks was more of a welcome sight than most people could imagine. I’m a coffee lover who’s always walking around with a Starbucks cup in my hand back home, but this time that green-and-white sign meant much more to me than that I would soon get a cup of hot coffee. It was a symbol that said, “Yes, Larry, you really did survive Abu Ghraib and you’re back in civilization.” It confirmed to me that I was one step closer to going home. Sitting in the Starbucks sipping that warm cup of coffee, I had time to reflect on the difficult night.
Why did you have that nightmare last night?
I asked myself. It was like my psyche, my superego was sitting next to me at Starbucks talking to me, playing the role of therapist. A voice told me, “Larry, perhaps your nightmares are a metaphorical struggle between good and evil. It is actually a good sign. Son, if you did not have nightmares, given the horror of what you saw, you would have normalized these horrible events. Welcome your nightmares, Larry. This is how your soul is telling you that the horror of war is against a decent man’s morality.”

I took a long time to finish that cup of coffee, thinking through the nightmares and what they meant about how I was handling my experience at Abu Ghraib. I never had that nightmare again. Three years have passed since I returned home and I no longer fear going to sleep.

I stayed at Camp Doha for more than a week waiting to get a seat on a flight home. I was able to power down by getting some sleep in spite of the constant bang of the tin doors. I stopped jumping at the sound, but I often lay there wondering what genius designed the place with doors loud enough to be mistaken for mortars. At the base, I would go to see movies, one of my favorite pastimes, and I called my wife every day. Eventually, along with four hundred other soldiers, I boarded a chartered DC-10 en route to the States. We stopped in Germany, Italy, Nova Scotia, and finally landed at the Baltimore-Washington International Airport’s military air terminal. We all cheered as the plane touched down on U.S. soil, some cried, and we all congratulated one another. There was an Army chaplain on board who came on the microphone and said a prayer for the soldiers we lost along the way and asked the Lord to keep them safe. I spent the night at a local hotel in Columbia, Maryland, then boarded a United Airlines plane on to Honolulu two days later.

My wife, Janet, had finally closed on our brand-new home and moved out of the hotel, along with our three-year-old granddaughter, Judy. A rare feat for me was that I slept almost uninterrupted for every leg of my fifteen-hour journey home from the Baltimore airport. Even though I could now get to sleep without nightmares, the inner turmoil that once made its way into my dreams would return in different ways I had not yet envisioned. My arrival at Honolulu International Airport was met with great joy. Being back in the arms of my soul mate of thirty years would always heal and calm me. Along with Janet, my granddaughter, son, and close friends, there were members of my command at the airport to great me. It was a wonderful homecoming.

Settling in quickly at our new home, I slept peacefully in our waterbed. I soon called my mother in New Orleans to tell her I was home safe, but I was dismayed to learn that her health was continuing to fail. Within a matter of days Janet and I were on a plane headed for New Orleans to spend perhaps my last Thanksgiving with my eighty-one-year-old mother. We arrived in New Orleans about three days before Thanksgiving 2004. When my mother saw me, she hugged me as though she knew her time had come, that perhaps it would be the last Thanksgiving with her only son and youngest of six children. I busied myself with chores around the house, enjoying the richness of my Creole culture and spending as much time with my mother as possible. It was indeed a joyous time.

My mother was a night owl like both Janet and me. We enjoyed spending late nights in the French Quarter and bringing my mother home a hot cup of French café au lait and beignets, wonderful French doughnuts, from the legendary Café Du Monde. On this particular night, my mother and I were up late by ourselves, laughing, as she told stories about her youth on a farm in Opelousas and Simmesport, Louisiana. We were enjoying our time together when suddenly she became quiet for a moment. Her expression changed and she said, “Son, I know the Lord has sent the angels for me. I spend more time in the hospital than I spend out of the hospital. I only wanted to live long enough to see you one last time before I go, son.” She was looking at me as if this was the moment she had held out for, the time she wanted to just be with me and look into my eyes. Somehow I was able to hold back my tears, but she knew what I was feeling. Realizing my pain and sorrow, she shifted the conversation back to her youth in rural Louisiana, Cajun zydeco music, and how she would dance up a storm as a teenager. We laughed some more, long and hard, then we finished our café au lait and beignets. Reluctantly, but so grateful for the time with her, I went to bed at about 2 a.m.

The morning before Thanksgiving, I loaded my mother in the car and drove her to one of her thrice-weekly kidney dialysis appointments. They had been a consistent burden for her for many years. As I started the car, she placed her left hand on my right arm and said, “Son, I need to talk with you about something. I need your help with it because your sisters will listen to you about this.”

“Yes, Ma dear,” I said. “What is it, sugar?”

“Son, I don’t want to do this any longer. It’s my time to go be with your sister Betty, Daddy, and my mother.”

I knew what she meant, and I wasn’t going to disagree with her. “Ma dear, of course, darling, how can I help you with this?” I asked.

Holding on to my arm, she responded by saying, “I need your blessing to just let go. Is that okay, son?”

I struggled to hold back my tears, but I told her what I really felt in my heart. “Ma dear, you’ve lived a long, good life, and if you know that it is your time to move on and be with the good Lord, then that is okay by me. And it will be okay for all of my sisters. Sugar, when you’re ready to let go and go to be with my sister Betty, just let go. It’s okay.” My sister Betty died at age fifty-two, due to complications from lupus. My mother, like all parents, felt that no parent should have to outlive one of their children. Perhaps my mother welcomed death so that she could be with her daughter again.

She said, “Thank you, son,” and I confirmed that she still wanted to go to the kidney dialysis center today. She did, but along the way we stopped for a café au lait. The next day was a joyous Thanksgiving celebration. My entire family came by my home in New Orleans on Thanksgiving. That night Janet and I went out dancing to zydeco music, and we of course brought my mother back a café au lait and some French doughnuts. My mother laughed with me and told me stories about my Creole ancestors I had not heard before. Again, we stayed up talking together until about 2 a.m. Through this process I was slowly starting to heal. Being with my wife, my mother, and all of my family in the place of my birth was calming for me.

However, our joy was short-lived. The next morning my sister woke my mother up for dialysis. Something was not right. My mother’s speech was slurred and her thoughts were kind of disorganized. She had had a massive stroke in the night while asleep. We took her for what would be her last and final visit at Touro Infirmary in New Orleans. Janet and I stayed in New Orleans until Christmas Day and flew back to Honolulu on Christmas night 2004. My mother remained in the hospital and died two days after our plane landed in Honolulu.

Death always has a way of finding a soldier. Death does not stop, nor will life events slow because a soldier is deployed for fifteen months. I was not prepared for this level of loss less than a month after my return from Iraq.

The rest of December and the remaining holiday season of 2004 flew by with a looming sense of loss and sorrow, while at the same time I struggled to recover from my Abu Ghraib emotional scars. On one Saturday morning in late January, the haunting, the residual effects of the war, found its way to my soul again. It was like most Saturday mornings for Janet and me. We stayed up late on Friday after our granddaughter went to bed and we would rise late on Saturdays. On this one Saturday morning, something was amiss for me. I can’t tell you to this day what was at the core of my discomfort on that morning.

I sat in my favorite leather chair upstairs and wore my favorite comfortable pajamas while I watched a movie on HBO. For Larry James, that should be a damn good morning. But something wasn’t right deep inside me. I could hear Janet and my three-year-old granddaughter, Judy, downstairs having so much fun. Like most three-year-olds my granddaughter insisted on making her own cereal that morning, slowly pouring milk into the bowl with the cereal. I could hear Janet praising her for doing such a good job, not spilling a drop on the floor. Then Janet grabbed the morning newspaper on the front porch, some coffee for me, and walked up the stairs with our Judy. On the very last step of the stairs, Judy stumbled. Milk and cornflakes went flying on the carpet, the walls, and everywhere. Within the blink of an eye, a demon was unleashed in me that I had not ever seen before. “WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH YOU, JUDY? ARE YOU STUPID?” I yelled at the top of my voice. “GODDAMN IT, I’M SO TIRED OF THIS SHIT! SIT YOUR ASS DOWN AND CLEAN UP THIS CRAP!”

Neither Janet nor Judy had ever seen me rage like this before. This was totally unlike me. My world went into slow motion as my three-year-old granddaughter became afraid of me. I saw it in her eyes. She screamed, cried, and begged for forgiveness as loud as her lungs would allow. I yelled again, “SHUT UP, GODDAMN IT!” I grabbed her by the right arm as I yelled louder and louder. I was out of control.