Memories Part III (Old Part I)

Part III.

          I’m still not certain what caused me to wake up so suddenly. I think it may have been another nightmare, but I can never remember the details. I always wake up the same, in a pool of my own sweat that surely can’t be all mine, but it is because I’m sleeping alone these days.

          I’ve been back home for three months, and I still can’t sleep at night. I sleep during the day, or whenever my mind will allow my body to rest. I haven’t had a nights sleep in over nine months. The last time I slept through the night was the night before my lover had to say goodbye to me from our front door. She couldn’t go to the farewell departure gathering at the flight path like the rest of the families. I knew she wondered if she would ever see me again and if she did would I be the same as when I left.

          The men in my dreams are faceless, the clothes they wear the only thing I am capable of remembering if I remember anything of detail at all. I sat at my mothers dinning table looking out the window off into the field across from our house, my memories fading back to one of the worse nights of my life…

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          …I held my breath as the C-130 closed over the drop-zone; I think we all did. I’ve done this too many time, I thought to myself as the thunderous noise from the open hatch drowned out the sound of our loud music playing over the 1MC.
The inside of the belly of the aircraft was lit only with a hazed red light. Talking among my soldiers had mostly stopped; we had begun to prepare ourselves for the unknown journey ahead of us. I let my breath go as the signal light turned from red to green and the jumpmaster standing to my left hit the top of my Kevlar signaling me to go. My left foot hung for a moment over the edge of the plane before my right foot followed. The snap of my static line pulled my body upward and released my chute from its bag causing my body to swing a bit in the air as I hung from the harness. I closed my eyes tight, the sweat on my forehead rolled down my face stinging them. I knew the sweat carried with it oil from the black and green make-up covering my face.

          As I fell from the dark black night sky thoughts of my mother popped into my mind. She never wanted me to join the army, and she certainly didn’t like the idea of me going airborne, but still I did it anyway. Been soldiering for twelve years now. Until recently it was still relatively safe to be a woman in the army, but now things are different, the world is different. I am a member of an all military police airborne unit attached to the 82nd airborne. Where they go, I go, with only one objective, complete the mission.

          My brother and sister entered my mind next. My brother is older than me and has always felt a need to father me due to a lack if a true father figure in our lives. My sister is seven years younger than me; I wonder how it might affect her to never see me again. Would my family understand if I didn’t make it home this time, or would they think that somehow I was responsible for my death? Would my mother call Erin, my lover of ten years? Would she be invited to my funeral, or would my family forget to tell her?

          The hardness of the ground erased these thoughts from my mind, thoughts that would never again occur while in this horrible place. My love for my family is a motivation, but it is also a distraction, a distraction that I could not afford to carry along with me. I had too many other responsibilities to concern my mind with.
Once we had all secured our chutes and readied our weapons, I gathered my soldiers on my position. It was so dark that hand to shoulder contact was needed in order to maintain my platoons placement while I issued our orders.

          “Everyone good to go,” I asked looking into each of their scared eyes, the only part of their blackened faces I could see. “Good, here are our orders,” I said in a hushed but reassuring voice; “we are to rendezvous with the rest of the company where we will assist in establishing a secure perimeter around the landing strip the Engineers are building. Eyes and ear open and expect resistance, this ain’t no training exercise and we ain’t at Bragg no more.” I took a moment to pause for questions, but none came. “Keep it low, voices only if necessary, understood?” They shook their heads, “Good, let’s move.” We stood up and began moving towards the rendezvous point about two clicks from our current location. We only had a short time to make it to our destination, we moved quickly and silently, as if our boots never touched the sand and dirt beneath them.

          There was much more commotion than there should have been coming from our rear, I can only assume that other soldiers had sustained injuries as they landed on the hard uneven ground. I had twisted my left knee slightly as I impacted the ground, not my most graceful landing, but I shook it off, it wasn’t the worse that had happened to me during a jump.

          The perimeter had already begun to be established once we arrived, “Sergeant First Class Thomas,” came the voice of our platoon leader as we entered the makeshift compound.

          “Yes Sir,” I answered turning to my left where my first Lieutenant was standing.

          “Everyone in one piece?” he asked looking off toward the mountains that surrounded the airstrip in progress behind me.

          “Good to go Sir.” I answered confidently.

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          As we worked at filling sandbags as best we could, and situating them along the, South flank of the air field, the rain began to fall softly, then more steadily like a thick blanket, as we continued despite the distraction. The sky was still dark and the rain caused the red dirt under our boots to become more slippery with each quiet step we took. It was impossible to entrench ourselves, even with the help of the rain; the ground was just too hard, almost as if the dirt were dry ice or just pure rock. It simply would not budge.

          Our mission was to secure an area of flat land in order to facilitate a landing strip for aircraft landing and supply drops. I was crouching on one knee giving directions to my platoon when the first shots of what would become a bloody ambush rang out. The rounds were snapping right over our heads at first, whizzing past us so fast it took a second for instinct to kick in and for my soldiers to take cover as close to the ground as possible. The aim of the enemy didn’t stay off target long.

          I shouted to a soldier to my right to get down a split second before a round hit him directly in the throat, spraying his warm blood onto the side of my face. The closeness of the impact caused me to question whether I too had been hit, but I knew I hadn’t, I’d been shot before, and you never forget what that feels like.
The soldier fell backwards to the ground, unable to speak or cry out. His face quickly turned a deathly shade of grey as he and I both grabbed for his neck attempting to stop the bleeding.

          “Medic up!” I yelled out hoping my voice would carry over the sound of gunfire and explosions.

          “Hold on kid! Doc’s coming, he’ll be right here, just hold on a minute longer!”

          By the time a medic arrived, about a minute after being called, it was too late. The young man most likely died of shock, his blood lose minimal. I didn’t know the boys name; he wasn’t in my platoon and had been with our unit only a few weeks. I remember thinking, damn that was close, as I rejoined my platoon returning fire towards the high ground ahead of us, ignoring my sticky blood stained hands...

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          …“Your coffee is getting cold, sweet heart,” my mother said to me as she sat down in a chair to my left. “You sure you don’t want anything to eat?” With her words my flash back was over.

          “Yeah, mom, I’ll grab something later.” I answered, slowly coming out of the terrible memory.

          “Your brother called this morning. Told me to tell you hi and see if you needed anything?”

          “That’s nice.”

          “Did you drift off again,” she asked already knowing the answer. I nodded my head as I picked up the nearly ice cold cup of coffee. “Are you still writing things down?” I nodded again. “Do you want to talk about it?”

          “No.”

          “Okay.” She said rubbing my back as she slowly walked out of the kitchen.

          I had been having flashbacks since before I arrived home. I could be sitting with someone holding a perfectly good conversation and I would just drift off. I’d start sweating through my clothing and my hands would start shaking, but there was nothing I could do to stop them. Some lasted longer than others, but I never could make them stop. It wasn’t the first time I had been haunted by the memories of the past.