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Another day in Taji

Another day in Taji. As we wait to roll into Baqubah with the 4th Brigade, 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, we’ve done some garrison-type interviews with medics, soldiers and psychologists, as well as some writing more stories and editing more photos from Apache.

It’s the down time that gets you.

Down time gives me time to think. Down time gives me resources to read e-mails from soldiers’ mothers. Down time gives me the opportunity to read e-mails from my own mother — and she’s not terribly happy with me right now.

“What were you doing out on patrol?” she asked, because I had told her that Military Times photographer Rick Kozak and I would be doing medical stories. And we were, but I skipped the part about how we might be doing it from the back of a Bradley fighting vehicle.

According to the soldiers’ mothers, their sons are doing the same thing.

Rick and I have been so saddened by what happened June 21 that we haven’t given ourselves any chance to think about our own role in it — not as a photographer and a reporter, but as human beings.

We went out on patrol the day before with the 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry. Then we went out on another patrol at 6 a.m. We had intended to go out on a second patrol later that morning, but were planning to leave that day, so we stayed behind to do more interviews.

Only two Bradleys went out on the second mission. One of them was destroyed by an IED, which killed four soldiers and an interpreter. Had we gone on that patrol, we would have been in one of those two Bradleys. Not good odds.

I keep hearing soldiers say, “It gives you a new perspective and makes you thankful for what you have.” It does, even as what we’ve lost feels like a constant kick in the gut. How can you be thankful to be alive when someone else isn’t?

One issue we’ve been looking at while we’re here is post-traumatic stress disorder. Docs will tell you it’s not their own injuries that leave soldiers traumatized; it’s the injury to others. That comes in a couple of ways: Soldiers who have to harm someone as part of their job, but also soldiers who watch their friends get hurt or die.

“Why wasn’t it me?” is a common guilt reaction. Another: “If only I’d reached him faster/sat on the inside/been paying attention to that tower.”

For Charlie Company of the 1-26 that day, there were too many possibilities — possibilities that will leave those soldiers wondering what could have been done differently, what kind of lives their friends would have lead if they had made it, or how they can live their own lives to honor those lost.

In a way, Rick and I are lucky. We are forced to process through some of this stuff at least a little. It’s not often that I cry when I write a story, but thinking about Charlie Company medic Pfc. Timothy Ray’s world was too much for me. Getting an e-mail from Spc. Gerry DeNardi’s mother saying how relieved she is that her son is still the man she loves — the charmer who looks out for others — also made me think about that day.

But as a service member, it’s hard to break out with your feelings to your buddies — especially when they’re all wearing game faces and trying to deal with their own issues. Add to that the stigma of a macho fighting force, and some guys will never open their mouths. They don’t want to tell their moms or dads or wives because they know what they’ve experienced is terrible, and they don’t want to expose others to it. Families have to ask and let them know they’re open to hearing it. And then, they may have to be open to hearing it several times as their soldier tries to process it.

Charlie Company, fortunately, seems to be handling things well. Their chaplain immediately pulled them into the dining room with hugs for everyone and a debriefing about what happened that day. Talking about events can help make them less traumatizing, according to psychologists, but it’s hard for me to see a time when June 21 won’t be hard — in ways impossible — to think about.

They’ve had the opportunity to talk to the brigade psychologist, and it sounds if Charlie’s going to be rotated out of Forward Operating Base Apache back into Taji where they should find time to think.

As I was coming out of the post exchange a couple of days ago, I ran into one of the Charlie Company soldiers.

He asked if we would be coming to the memorial service for the soldiers who died June 21.

“It’d mean a lot to the guys,” he said.

I wonder if he knows how much that means to us.