The Enemy

“So you’re the sucker they dragged down here to defend me. Can’t say I blame you for looking so hopeless. I don’t even have any hope of being granted innocence. I have no alibi, no sympathy, and no resources. The jury is gonna ship me off to death row before you even open your mouth. If I were you, I would leave while I had the chance.”

         “Now let’s not adopt that kind of attitude Captain Kilroy. On the contrary, I volunteered to defend you as I do not believe you capable of such a heinous crime, at least…not on your own accord.”

         “It’s okay, Ms., Ms.…?”

         “Lawrence, my name is Julie Lawrence.”

         “Well, Ms. Lawrence, it’s okay, you don’t have to skate around the subject. I’m not a little kid after all.  I’ve seen how people act around me, and I see how you’re acting right now. I know everything isn’t okay upstairs. And honestly, I’m beginning to wonder if it ever was.”

         “Now do you really think that?!  You know that’s not true! Yes, you’ve been diagnosed with PTSD, but that doesn’t mean anything is wrong with you! It’s the stigma like that which prevents good people like you from getting help, before...”

         “Before they end up screwing up their lives like I did? Really, ma’am it’s fine, no truth can hurt me more than I’ve already hurt myself. But honestly, why are you really here? You don’t seem like the type who would even consider taking my case.”

         “All right, Mr. Kilroy do you really want to know the truth?  I would be lying if I told you I am just taking your case out of charity because there is a higher purpose to why I am helping you.  My own brother served in Afghanistan, but was killed before he could come home.”

         “I’m so sorry…”

         “No, don’t be. He died serving his country. That was what he wanted. Perhaps it was for the better. I see so many good men and women arriving home after putting their lives on the line for our country, and in return they come home to a bloated mental health care system, ignorant of the fact that while a soldier’s physical scars can heal, emotional scars are deeper and more complex. Each day I live, I fight in the place of my brother, so that while he did not have the opportunity to come home, his comrades who do will be well taken care of.  But in order for me to do this, I have to spread awareness of this problem. And the only way I can do that, is to win you this case. So captain, I am determined to win this case through whatever it takes. And nothing, not even your bad attitude is going to stop me. I’ll sell my soul to the devil, and circle the earth a hundred times and back if that’s what has to be done to win this thing. So you better pull yourself together and answer the next questions I am going to ask you as honestly as possible. Can you do that, or is that too difficult? ”

         “No, ma’am.”

         “Good. Captain Kilroy, when did you first join the army?”

         “I joined up my senior year of high school, but not out of patriotism, like your brother, or even a want for adventure, but merely for the need of money to go to college. You see, as you well know, the army will cover the tuition of any soldier who enlists and considering my circumstances, it was my only way out.”

         “Out of?”

         “You see, Ms. Lawrence, I grew up under an abusive father. My mom left us-me and my younger brother Paul, at an early age. Honestly, for the longest time I didn’t even know I had a mother.”

         “That’s horrible!”

         “That’s life, Ms. Lawrence. Despite all you’ve been through I can still see that you have faith in mankind, but sooner or later you will discover life is not all it’s cracked up to be. After my mother left us, my father took up drinking. That’s when things really went south. He beat us, swore at us, and even threatened our lives. Many times we teetered on the brink of homelessness. At sixteen, I was going to school, and working two jobs, just so we could get by. I tried to be a good role model for Paul, so young and innocent, but it was hard. We lived in a rough part of town, and as I watched him grow older, I saw him continually get beaten down, physically and emotionally. By the time he was eleven, he had the demeanor of an eighty year old man: bitter, tired, and wiser than any eleven year old should ever be. So I made a promise for my brother, just as you have for yours, that I would do whatever it took to get us out of that dump. By the time I was nearing my junior year, I knew that the only way I would be able to get us away from that place would be through college. And if the only way to go to college was to go to war, I would do it.”

         “And then, shortly after you finished basic training you were deployed to Iraq?”

         “Yes, from one nightmare to the next. That place was my undoing from the start. Everyday we came under fire and solace was something as far off as candy land. Everywhere you turned there was an opportunity to get killed. You see somebody in the street, are they a civilian, or a suicide bomber, coming to blow you up? Anywhere you walked you were at risk of getting taken out by a sniper or a minefield. And car bombs are everywhere. After a while, I learned it’s better to not even attempt making friends with the new recruits. They’re less experienced and are killed more easily. The less attached you are to somebody, the lesser the pain when they die. I had seen too many good men and women killed over there than I should ever wish to see in a lifetime. One of my best friends, Captain Draper died in my arms. War is something I would not wish on even my worst enemies.”

         “Yes, I agree. But how long were you over there?”

         “I served in Iraq for two years. Two long, excruciating years. It was a difficult time for me. I kept in touch with the folks back home, but as time went on, it grew more and more tedious to just get out of bed in the morning. Until finally, one glorious day, I was told I would be going home. The nightmare would be over! Or so I thought.” 

         “And what was it like returning home after so long?”

         “Well Ms. Lawrence after being able to survive in a warzone, you’d think I’d be ready for anything life threw at me but, it was nothing I had expected. You see, what I didn’t realize, was reflexes and old habits are not something you can just flip on and off like a switch. After spending two years of your life looking over your shoulder, ready to fight for survival  at any moment, these instincts don’t fade away and let you return to a peaceful lifestyle; you’re just introduced to a new enemy. While in Iraq my enemies were around me, at home, the enemy was inside my head. The enemy was me.”

         “Did you try to get any help?”

         “Every soldier who returns home after serving is screened for signs for PTSD, and other mental illnesses. But the problem is while you’re offered help, what most people in charge of the system don’t seem to realize is that living with something like this is a constant uphill battle. Plus the help that you get only works if you really want it. I told myself right from the beginning I wasn’t going to take it seriously, I mean, I’m not a crazy person. Why should I deal with somebody whose job it was to talk to crazy people?  But I was in denial.  Deep down I knew something was wrong with me. It plagued me constantly and soon reared its ugly head. I had a beautiful girlfriend, Vanessa, we were high school sweethearts and planning to marry once I got back to the states. She stays over one night, we watch a movie, I fall asleep, next thing I know when I wake up, I’m strangling her and she’s screaming. I had no idea what was happening, no recollection how I got there, or even why I was doing that. It was like a scene out of a horror movie. “

         “So what happened?”

         “I had no other choice; I had to break up with her. She said she knew I was sorry, and that I could get help, but I wasn’t going to hear any of it. The last thing a girl like her needs is a maniac like me.  From that point on it was just a race to rock bottom. I drank, I smoked, I did almost every drug under the sun. I couldn’t even look Paul straight in the eye any more. I had left him a hero and role model, and returned as a monster, just like our father had been. The legacy I had tried in vain to outrun my entire life had caught up with me. Soon I got arrested on minor felonies, robbery, DUIs, and the sort, most of which I could never remember.  They call it blacking out.  And let me tell you, there is no scarier feeling as you come out a blackout and wake up in the county jail, charged with a crime that you normally wouldn’t even dream of doing.”

         “Is that what happened in the case with Richard Robertson?”

         “Robertson. So he’s really dead then?”

         “I’m afraid so.”

         “And I really murdered him?”

         “That’s what the police believe. But do you?”

         “Murder, it’s a funny thing isn’t it? If you were to ask me if I was guilty of murder today, I honestly don’t know if I could truthfully look you in the eyes and say, ‘yes.’ Am I guilty of Robertson’s death? That I don’t know that for sure, maybe I am, maybe I’m innocent, but Ms. Lawrence, what I do know is  I did kill people overseas. Good people. During war, when you kill somebody in combat, it’s considered an act of loyalty to your country, but that doesn’t make any difference, it’s still murder. I can still see the face of every man that I killed while I was there, the look of pain and desperation in his eyes as he took his final breaths. It’s been haunting me ever since I’ve returned, and the ghosts of these men, the sobs of the widows and children they’ve left behind, echo in my mind. But…what can I say? I was trained to kill. That’s one of the first things you learn in combat. You see a problem, you eliminate it. Life changing choices have to be made in only a second. While trivial, you could say Robertson could be considered one of these problems. I owed him money, and he was threatening to evict me. The last thing I remember happening that night was I was heading out to talk to him, to see if there was anything I could do to catch up on my payments. The next thing I remember was being surrounded by a pool of blood and the sound of sirens. Maybe that old mentality that I talked about earlier kicked in. I may never know. Only God knows. And I pray that when my time comes he’ll forgive me for all of the things that I’ve done, innocent or not.”



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