I drove into work it not being unlike any other day as of late. Wake up, take care of the chickens, eat breakfast with my family, clean up, and get into my truck. The main difference being that as soon as I sat down at my desk in the office newly provided to me upon my return from a sense of foreboding overcame me. I had reached for and pushed the button to turn my computer on and I suddenly remembered what I had read less than twenty four hours earlier on this same machine resting on the desk in my own little private enclave. In the time it took to blink my eyes my chest tightened, my stomach knotted, and a familiar cold hyper awareness of my surroundings took over my body and consciousness. While the screen displayed its blinking hourglass I asked myself, “Do I really want to look at the news? Do I want to read about the faraway place that I had left a mere five months earlier? Wouldn’t it just be easier and potentially less painful to just ignore the news and go about my business as if nothing happened halfway around the world?”
Yesterday, like any other day, in the morning I had answered phone calls, made phone calls, answered email, wrote emails, and did the best I could to advance the three projects that I had been working on for my employer. I would be telling a tale if I were to say it was anything but tedious for me considering they were not unlike many of the other previous projects that I had worked with only names and the desired outcomes being different.
I had taken to eating my lunch at my desk not only to save money since I brought lunch with me from home but to avoid the crowds, noise, and bustle at the eateries located around my office. This time also afforded me the opportunity to browse the internet keeping up with news and happening around the world. In particular, I always kept an eye out for any news from the place that I had only recently spent nearly eleven months of my life serving my country thus staying up to date. Only, now when I read of the news from this far away land that I had originally read about nearly thirty five years earlier it was no longer an abstract place for me but a real one of sites, noises, smells, emotions, and memories.
I had seen many headlines from this country, and I had read these stories with detached emotion recalling some of the place names and even some of the places themselves. Though for obvious reasons to me, many many specifics were left out of these stories and so I could only imagine the full details. This day, however, came the news that three people were killed in an attack in Afghanistan’s the capitol city of Kabul. Two of my fellow countrymen and the other from a country allied with my country had lost their lives. Three killed in an attack perpetuated by a people who were willing to kill themselves in a manner calculated to instill terror.
In my office I was asking myself, “where did this attack take place and will I get enough information to satisfy the pressing curiosity rapidly blossoming inside of me?”. Now in a sort of coordinated rapid fire movement between my eyes, fingers, and mind I was clicking open, reading, and digesting all the accounts that had been posted from the far away land’s capitol. Yet again two of my countrymen, one military and one civilian, and one soldier from an allied country were attacked near my country’s embassy on the road to the airport. Not only that but the attack was near a base used by my country. I saw photos from a distance of smoke from the attack and immediately recognized the building to the left of the smoke.
Safely in my office in the United States my breathing slowed, my focus narrowed, and I was no longer in the office but rather I felt the rhythmic pulse a helicopter I was riding in. A memory came back and the narrow valley I was flying in was giving way to the vast bowl ringed by mountains inhabited by the far away country’s capitol city. Directly ahead of me flew the other helicopter in our party and the sprawl of the capitol stretched out ahead and to both sides. A capitol city that essentially is an ancient and modern intersection with roads leading from it going to the north, south, east, and west. In my peripheral vision the machine guns hung out of the helicopter I rode in and like quills they stuck out of the flying vessel in front of me. I could look to the north and see where we were going and the map of the city in my mind overlaid with the reality below. Back in my office in the United States my mind grasped the enormity of the city and yet I could pinpoint the exact location of the attack on the map I had mentally recalled in my mind as I had not to recently driven through that section of the capitol so many times.
Once again, I was aware of my breathing and this time on the ground in Kabul at the exact location of the mark on the map that I had mere seconds earlier recalled. I could see the intersection whose current incarnation consisted of a large roundabout with a hub in the middle and roads leading out of the hub like spokes on a wheel. An intersection that invading armies from the north, east, and west had crossed countless times in their reach to conquests beyond this land. An intersection that numerous merchants had crossed plying their wares and spices going back centuries if not millennia. An intersection that had been fought only recently for control of by warring tribes from within the country itself. An intersection that continued to be an intersection of death.
A sculpture rises out of the hub in the center of the roundabout honoring a recent native general and the armored sports utility vehicle I am riding in has broken down. In the corner of my eye I can see the building in the picture immediately to my left. We are piling out of the vehicle and moving to the vehicle in front while a tow strap is connected from the lead vehicle to the broken down vehicle that I had been in. In a matter of seconds, the ladies in burqas scurry past and I notice many eyes turning in our direction. Some of the eyes clothed in the countries traditional garb and some clothed in the countries national police uniform. Some of them armed and some of them not armed. I am instantly aware of the location of my weapon and the exact location of the members of my traveling party as I get into the lead vehicle which is now physically tethered to the broken down vehicle. We pull away and all eyes in and next to the intersection are fixated upon us. That and I see more of the local police starting to file out of their check post to the right of the intersection in front of my country’s embassy.
Just as suddenly as I became aware of the helicopters and remembered the vehicle breakdown, I heard the occupant of the office across the hall from me in a lively conversation on his telephone. Back to my computer screen I asked, “Do I know any of the people killed in the attack?” The facts read on my computer screen tell me that one of the dead was a civilian from my country and the two military killed were one from my country and the other from the allied country. I thought to myself, “They could easily have been working from the same location that I had been working so few months before”. I again ask myself, “Are there any names? “Then I have to remind myself, “No, it is still too soon after the attack for the names to be released.” At this point I could do nothing but say a silent prayer for the souls of those who had left us.
Back to this morning, my computer finishes booting and despite my work calling me the call of news from the faraway place is stronger. In a matter of several clicks I opened the news and see the headlines that the identities of the service members have been released. I hesitated for a moment, yet again, knowing that I would open the article. It was as if bracing myself emotionally unlike any other time I had read about events from that place. A double click later and I read the names and sticking out amongst the three was the name of a man who I had five months earlier bid a “good luck” to on my way out. A man who I had smoked a cigar with and who had slept in the same building I had. A man who I would see in passing at work and who was nearly the same height as me. A man who left behind a wife of eighteen years and three children. A wife who was now a widow and three children who would never see their dad again.
On this Memorial Day I say thank you to all who have given their lives and may all your soul’s rest in peace.