Lest We Forget (13 page)

Ranger snipers, Steve and Chris reaching out and touching some targets.

Chapter 9 -
When Skeletons Live

Within hours of stepping off the plane from Afghanistan I'm on my back porch with a beer in my hand.  It's early October now and it doesn't feel like a minute has passed since Matt and I were planning our 4th of July BBQ.  The two of us sit up most of the night catching up.  The sheer gravity of all that has taken place over the last three and a half months is finally able to come out.  There is no place for weakness while you are deployed; there is no time for reflection.  You have to keep your head in the game.  But now that I was at home and had a few drinks, the floodgates opened.

Matt sat with me on the ground in our backyard as I unloaded, brick by brick, everything that I had been carrying from our first mission to our last day in country.  I was on the verge of tears when he provided to me a great deal of solace with one simple statement, "You know man, that's just the way it is.  Things will never be the same."

I'm not sure why that was so comforting but it was.  It made me feel like I wasn't alone in my pain.  Matt was always a good friend but never much of a philosopher so his words caught me by surprise a little.   

Before going to bed Matt asks me if I want to go to a Notre Dame game the following weekend. 

"We can fly into Chicago and catch a ride to South Bend with a friend of mine.  My parents have season tickets.  You have a four day weekend next week right?" 

"Yeah.  That sounds perfect bud, let's make that happen."  I stay up and finish the case of beer.  When Matt wakes up he realizes that I hadn't gone to sleep at all.  My mind was a tornado, spinning with debris.

"You wanna get breakfast?"  He asks

"Sure
," I slur.  It would be the first meal in months that I wouldn't have to carry a weapon to.  As we get into Matt's Jeep his iPod kicks on,
"I'd love to go back to when we played as kids, but things change and that's just the way it is.  That's just the way it is, things will never be the same, that's just the way it is awww yeah"

             
"Are you fucking kidding me, Matt?"

"What?"

"Last night when I was dealing with all that shit you quoted me Tupac? What the fuck man?!"  Matt just shrugs his shoulders and backs out of the driveway.  That is the thing about that guy, if anyone else pulled the shit that he did you would hate them for it, but he somehow always managed to come off like such a comedian that you couldn’t help but laugh it off.

Driving to
IHOP, I can't help but notice how smooth the roads are in this country.  There are no massive holes to avoid from IEDs, the lanes are clearly marked and people pay attention to the traffic signals.  This makes me feel out of place and uncomfortable.  It’s difficult to explain but that sense of heightened vigilance becomes a blanket.  When the cold harsh winter months turn to summer the habit of that blanket becomes uncomfortable yet for some reason you continue to cloak yourself in it.  You don’t want to look over your shoulder constantly, it’s just become such a necessary habit that it stays with you.

The next few days at work were pretty standard for having just returned from a rotation.  We laid out equipment and counted everything.  Certain items had to be cleaned and returned.  The days were short by Ranger standards.  We would have a late work call each day, which meant that we didn't have to be in until 6am and we were released by 1pm.  It was common to have a couple of 4 day weekends before having block leave.  Block leave is a required two week vacation that the entire Battalion takes simultaneously.  For the sake of unit readiness we didn’t get to choose when our vacation would be.  

I couldn't wait for this weekend.  I had never been to a college football game and this was Notre Dame so I knew that we were in for one hell of a good time.

Matt grew up in South Bend
, Indiana.  He is the oldest of five Irish brothers.  When we arrive at his parent’s house they welcome me like a sixth son.  Matt has an amazing family.  I met Matt's father at his Ranger school graduation the previous spring. 

His mother emerges from the kitchen as we enter the
house, “Hello, you must be Jenkins." 

The thought of my friend
’s mother calling me by my last name doesn't seem at all odd to me at this point. 

She gives me a big hug then steps back and looks at me, "I thought you would be bigger." 

I'm not sure how to take that exactly.  They have prepared a huge BBQ for Matt’s homecoming.  Matt's friends from college rolled in one by one to welcome him home.  I felt like I already knew so many of them from all the stories that Matt had told me.  Apparently Matt must have told them stories about me because more than one of them upon meeting me said, "You're Jenkins?!  Holy shit! .... I thought you'd be bigger."

We make a serious dent in the beer stash that Matt’s parents had in their garage before heading out to the bar.  As we walk into the pub, Matt asks if I've ever seen Rudy, without waiting for me to respond he explains that several of the scenes in the movie were shot in this bar.  I could give shit, I just want a drink.  Matt's parents come out to the bar with us.
I'm not sure if it was because they missed him and wanted to spend time with him or if it was because they knew he would do something stupid and despite his position as an Army Ranger they still felt the need to look after him.  (Which I completely understand since that guy is always doing something stupid.)

The tray that I carried over to the table was heavy, it should have been,
it had eight Irish car bombs on it!  It was a good start on the evening as we clink glasses and shout an old toast.  We had a great time reminiscing.  I got to hear all kinds of new stories about Matt.  Apparently he was banned from this very bar years before for attempting to kidnap a midget.  As the story goes, he scooped the little guy up in his overcoat and ran out the door with him.  It actually made a lot of things make sense about the person that I had been living with this entire time.

Up to this point in the evening Matt was behaving himself, which is why it was so odd when he walked back to our table and said, "Well I'm getting kicked out of here in 5
, 4, 3, 2 ..."  Before he said one the bouncer grabbed him by the shoulder and said, "Alright smart guy, you're out of here!" 

What the fuck, I thought?!  No one at the table has any clue as to what was going on or why Matt was being asked to leave.

I quickly follow them to the front door asking what my friend had done to get tossed out.  The bouncer was clearly a Marine.  I could tell by the tattoos and terrible haircut.  I ask him again.  This time he responds by yelling, "You want me to throw you out too?"

"No asshole, I want to know why you are throwing my friend out? I'd also like to know why you think you can talk to me that way?"  That got
his attention!  By this time we were right outside the front door and I found myself surrounded by four guys.  Two of them were overweight and clearly got the job because they were large, the third guy was a buck fifty soaking wet.  The only one I was even mildly concerned with was the tattooed Marine.  Our indignant exchange goes on for a couple of minutes before Matt's parents come out to see what was going on. 

"Where is Matt?" asked his mother.

Wait a minute, where is Matt?  I thought.  Did he really just get me mixed up in all of this and wonder off?!

Matt's mother urges me to walk away but I'm in full
-blown tough guy mode.  I respond to her by saying, "It's alright Mrs. ****, there's only four of them.  Easy day!"

In all reality I was about to get my ass kicked but my bluff must have worked because they backed up a little and headed back inside.  Just them Matt comes walking up with a sac full of Taco Bell and a
gordita in his hand. 

"Are you fucking kidding me, Matt!?  I'm about to fight four guys for God knows what and you went to get a fucking
gordita!" 

He just shrugs his shoulders as he turns and walks to his parents blue mini van.  On the way back to his house we ask Matt what that was all about. Apparently the bartender was a college nemesis of Matt's so under the portion on his tab that said
‘tip’ he scribbled in "blow me asshole."  A collective sigh and headshake is shared between his parents and I.  None of us are remotely surprised by his actions.

Matt and I pass out on the couches in his parent
’s basement.  The next morning I am startled awake by something touching my nose.  I grab at it with my left hand and swing with my right!  My eyes open mid swing to see that it was Matt's mother playing a joke.  I manage to stop the swing just in time.  I was still very, very jumpy from my last deployment.  The thought of those A10s dropping payload on the Taliban fighters during Operation Redwings floods my mind and I am instantly transported back still clenching her wrist. 

As Matt sits up I hear him say, "I told you not to fuck with him while he's sleeping."  It takes a few moments for my heart rate to return to under 100 beats per minute. 

"Breakfast is ready." She says as she walks up the stairs slightly startled from nearly getting punched in the face. 

It was early, but not too early to start our tailgating.  A quick breakfast of sausage and beer and we were on our way to see some college football at Notre Dame!  It was surprisingly close, maybe a five
-minute drive from their home.  One of Matt's younger brothers was already there setting up a giant inflatable penguin atop his red Dodge Ram.  He had filled the back with sand for a festive beach theme.  There were hundreds if not thousands of cars and trucks set up for the tailgate festivities.  I had never seen anything like it.  College sports wasn't all that important where I grew up so this was all totally foreign to me.  People had the most extravagant set ups just to get drunk before a sporting event.  There was no way we would find Patrick in this chaos. Then we saw it, the ten-foot tall inflatable Christmas penguin.  Okay now it made sense. In all, there were about a dozen of us there, mostly Matt's college buddies.  It didn't take long before the large bottle of whiskey started getting passed around.  I recall taking a massive pull out of it while standing in the back of Patrick's truck.  Mid pull I saw four police officers on horseback stroll up.  "HOLY SHIT!!! It's the four horsemen of the Apocalypse!!" I yell in a half-slurred tone.  They just signal for me to sit down.  I oblige willingly. 

We had been in the parking lot for 5 hot dogs, 8 beers and several pulls of whiskey, which if I had been wearing a watch may have been around 2 hours.  By this point, many of the people from our group had already entered the stadium.  The game was set to start and the horse
-mounted cops were trying to get people into the game.  As we enter the stadium the sheer magnitude of this place engulfs me.  The stadium from the outside is impressive but the history is palpable once you enter the gates.  Matt informs me that we will be sitting in the donor section.  I wasn't entirely sure what that meant at the time.  We walk up a dark corridor to where our seats are. 

The experience of seeing the field and tens of thousands of screaming fans was an assault of my senses.  It stops me in my tracks.  I have never seen anything like this in my life.  Matt just slurs, "Pretty fucking cool
ain't it?"  The usher takes us to our seats.  We just keep going and going, step after step, row after row.  We are getting closer and closer to the field.  We get to the gate directly behind the players on the 35-yard line.  We have the first two rows!  I look back and see a sea of green and gold, it feels like there are a thousand rows of excited Irish fans behind us.  Apparently the donor section was reserved for people that had donated a significant amount of money to the University.  There were a couple of famous people sitting in the rows behind ours.  One of which was a very popular morning talk show TV personality. 

I can't believe where I am right now.  Just last week I was sleeping on a cot in a third world country.  Again I feel out of place.  The sheer number of people makes me feel uncomfortable.  A 1st quarter Notre Dame touchdown helps put me at ease.  Right before the extra point is kicked I am told that the tradition is to hoist someone up on the groups shoulders and have them do an equal number of push ups as points on the board.  I get nominated and willingly accept.  This irritates the people behind us that paid a lot for their seats.  It irritates them even more when we scored again within a few minutes and I was back up on my friends
’ shoulders, this time without a shirt on.  "Sit down!" the hordes hollered at us.  Patrick, who was a student there at the time responded with, "FUCK YOU STAND UP!"  Well, that didn't go over so well.  I'm not going to say that it was Regis that called security over but I wouldn't put it passed him.  We are given our first warning, a warning that we brush off immediately.   Every time a good play is made we stand and cheer, an action that does well to piss off the over-privileged, entitled "fans" sitting behind us.

We are playing BYU so needless to say
, I'm getting a lot of push ups in.  By the third or fourth time that security had to come back to our seats they tell Patrick that he has to come with them.  Once again I interject and ask why and once again I get pulled into fray.  The security guy, who I am sure was a volunteer, starts to give Patrick and I a speech about integrity and responsibility.  I am standing, arms crossed head tilted to the side.  Essentially I’m displaying a big fuck you with my body language.  After he says some line about how we should learn to grow up I think about everything that I had been through in the last three months and I let out a small laugh.  The guy turns his attention from Patrick and looks me up and down.  He inquires, "Is there something about this that is funny to you, son?"