by Tyler Stevenson
Operation Devil Stomp is coming to a close as we trudge down the mountain’s spur toward the landing zone, to wait for the choppers to pick us up. I take a pause and kneel next to a rock and almost instantly, our rocky pocket of the world erupts into rifle cracks and the metallic tearing sound of rounds striking stone. I curl into a tight ball, small, my knees close to my chest and head to the dirt.
I peer out of the corner of my eye, but all I see is the blue sky of the Chawkay Valley as cracks, pops, and whizzes snap all around me. The cracks are coming from the direction of the LZ behind me, from my platoon. The pops and whizzes are coming from the spur of the mountain in front of us. AK rounds smack into the rock—my shield—like a sharp clink of a hammer on a workbench. Dust and stone shards blanket my cheek, gritty and warm, sticking where sweat has already claimed my skin.
An RPG screams over me, so low I could reach up and grab it if it wasn’t traveling a thousand feet per second. I wish I could step out of this place, into any other. My mind fills with images of home and safety. Mom running her hands through my hair. Our dog, Tessa, stretched out in the grass of our yard. Relaxing days fishing for rockfish with dad. Mom crying as she signed the parental consent form for me to enlist. That feels so far in the past now, but it has only been about a year.
I think of the walls and concertina wire of our little outpost—and safety—just a five-minute chopper ride away. The rocket hits the edge of the LZ perimeter behind me, throwing up an explosion of sparks and fire big enough to engulf one of the small scrubs dotting this mountain. That blast drags me back into the present. I inhale like an unseen hand has pumped air into my chest with a flume. Miraculously, someone tall and lanky runs out of the fireball. It has to be Stevens.
Then it hits me. If I am looking at the perimeter of the LZ behind me, then I am outside our perimeter—stuck in the dead space between both sides. I have no idea how many Haj there are or how close they might be. I can’t risk sticking my head out to see if they are moving on me, and from behind, too much American lead is being slung back in my direction, towards Haj’s guns. How did I get here? To this spot, to this battle, to being a fucking grunt in a war on the other side of the world, far from home. It feels unbelievable, but these bullets are very real.
I wonder if I should make a run for the perimeter. If I do, my buddies will have less than a blink to decide if the guy running toward them is friendly or Haj. Especially since we are supposed to be behind the perimeter. I try to yell but my voice is drowned out by the simultaneous chatter of dozens of automatic weapons crammed onto this tiny mountain spur.
The sound of long whooshes pulls my eyes to the open blue sky, as an Apache cruises overhead and lets out its salvo of rockets and cannon fire.
***
The keel of my kayak parts the river just enough to leave a wake that closes behind me, as I propel my little watercraft parallel to the marshy shore. Every pull of my paddle sends me a few more feet. Pull, recover. Pull, recover. Breathe in, breathe out. The shoreline alternates between thickets of spatterdock and broadleaf cattails all calmly swaying in the wind. On the far shore, there is an old, tall forest that long predates the nearby paved roads. The tips of mighty trees flutter, rather than sway, in the wind, and the leafy shade alternates between light and dark green as they do. The entirety of this scene is framed by a cloud-dotted blue June sky. I take another deep breath. It feels good to be back.
Sprinkling the edge of the marshes along the open water of the river are man-made nest platforms, erected to provide ready structure for migrating ospreys. This time of year, they’re occupied with couples, each pair settling into the bundles of sticks they’ve layered in circular patterns on the top of the platforms. I can’t see if the chicks are here yet. The river’s slow meander makes it difficult to avoid drifting close to the platforms, dutifully guarded by the mother Osprey. The father is out hunting for fish. About twenty-five yards from the platform, the mother starts her high pitched, repetitive cry, calling to her soaring partner to look at the intruder in their environment. As I get closer, I see her feathers ruffled by the wind, like someone’s bedhead. But as soon I pass, she stops, satisfied the potential threat is over. She will behave similarly on my return trip.
The only other sounds interrupting this quiet river are the sounds of wind passing through the marsh and the regular swoosh of my paddle in the water. Pull, recover. Pull, recover. Breathe in, breathe out. Here and there I hear cries from red-winged blackbirds, a type of bird often found in Eastern American wetlands. I am comforted in the peaceful place, so far removed from the chaos and tension that was Afghanistan.
I round the bend and enter the mouth of Spice Creek, where it empties into the Patuxent. My landing comes into view. I beach my kayak on the gravel launch and climb up to the landing where the wetlands vegetation is replaced by old growth forest typical to the foliage sitting on the corner of an old family farm, undisturbed for centuries you see in these sorts of places. Beech and white oaks, with Virginia creeper decorating some of the trunks, loom before me. Although I grew up coming to this place, I find myself scanning the line of trees for rocks thick enough to stop a rifle bullet. This feeling follows me everywhere now.
A breeze moves through the old growth canopies, evenly spaced and dark green; the gaps in their large branches like missing puzzle pieces pierced by bright sunlight. For a moment my hands loosen, my shoulders drop. This is home, where I can let my guard down. I sit at the top of the landing, stretch my legs, and watch my kayak bob up and down along the shore below me. I don’t feel like I need to be anywhere else. I let my senses become consumed by the undisturbed creation arrayed before me: damp mineral scents of the forest waft across the breeze; occasional birdsong fills my ears; and the beauty of swaying and sun-drenched flora with its greens, browns, blues splays along the horizon.
***
The drills are instinctual now. We’ve rehearsed them countless times: fives and twenty-fives; clear the defilades. But chief among them is if it doesn’t feel right, it probably isn’t. Especially in Kunar Province, Afghanistan. We are on Main Supply Route California, and every shovel, every person in the dark, is suspicious.
“Rossi, got your sights on him?” I ask through vehicle comms.
“Roger, Sarn’t. Just give me the fucking word.”
“What are they doing out at this hour? With a shovel?”
“Sergeant, they’re digging a fucking IED!” Alvarez yells from the back of the Mine Resistant-Ambush Protected armored vehicle (MRAP).
“I don’t know. Couldn’t they be working? They’re in a farm field.”
Alvarez yells again: “Why the fuck would they be farming at 0300?”
“Beat the heat of the day? Get their work done while it’s cool, rest when it’s hot.”
Through my night vision goggles (NVG), I watch the two guys lying flat and still in the field just off the road. Even with the NVGs, I can make out where dirt fields turn into rows of corn that suddenly morph into dark sky reaching mountains, jagged and sharp as if someone had taken a hammer and reduced a large stone to rubble. Above me in the gunner’s hatch, Rossi has the crosshairs of the .50 caliber machine gun thermal sight dead-set on these guys. Center mass, just like we were taught—and Rossi is a good gunner.
Just a few days ago, 1st Platoon had been hit in this same village. Yet it wasn’t an IED—just an RPG and small arms fire. Through the green tunnel vision of my NVGs, I couldn’t see any other equipment besides their shovel. Digging by a road in the middle of the night seemed dodgy as fuck. They knew patrols came through in the night and they must know it would look suspicious. And why are they lying down? If they aren’t doing anything suspect, why not just stand and put up their hands? Make themselves known and seen.
I have a lot of questions, but no time or ability to suss them out. If we kill these guys, and they are just farming, then every villager starts thinking about ways they can help kill us. But do we take the risk? A guy in Alpha Company was just killed by an IED the other day. Wrong move here and we could be in for a long night. I feel like this war, with its grayness and ambiguities, has been thrust onto a green infantry squad in a rural corner of this ravaged country.
I look at Carter, “Carty, creep forward slowly. Let’s see if they move.”
Carty puts the MRAP into drive and lets off the brake. All seven and a half tons of us lurch forward at a crawl. Then one of the people stands.
Rossi yells, “Sergeant, they’re moving!”
***
I pant and sweat as I hike with my light pack through a world of trees. My shoulders remember the forty-pound rucksacks even as the pack on my back today hardly presses my shirt. Then again, I was a lot younger—and much fitter.
It is a balmy July day in Virginia as I make my way up through the green tunnel of the Tuscarora Trail. My t-shirt sticks to my chest and a cloud of No-See-Ums buzz around me, landing like Blackhawk choppers assaulting a mountain. Still, a balmy, humid day in the woods beats the sprawling office parks of Northern Virginia. Or climbing up mountains with seventy pounds of gear, for that matter.
White ash, sweet birch, Virginia Juniper, and shagbark hickory, growing at its Eastern limit. I quiz myself, trying to name each tree I pass. I thank them for the shade they provide. I missed these tree-clad mountains during those days and nights spent on the barren, rocky mountains of the Hindu Kush, exposed and vulnerable.
I take time to examine and feel the bark, admiring its striations and patterns. I pick up fallen leaves thumbing their waxy texture and inspecting the structure of veins on their undersides. When satisfied with my investigation, I stroll onto the next. Science and nature can be beautiful in this way. While something may be mysterious and waiting to be uncovered, answers are not ambiguous. There are no motives to be debated.
I come across a unique one: gray-brown bark with narrow and shallow vertical ridges; large, thin heart-shaped leaves finely serrated; rounded crown as I look up. I think American Basswood but am not sure. Sometimes I know the species instantly; sometimes it evades me. When I don’t know, I make note of my observations, like sticking a photograph into my pocket.
Answers and decisions are not required here. It’s not life or death, and I do not need to make judgment calls on whether someone gets to live or die. I amble past the Hickory; its bark bakes in the summer heat. The understory of this place hums peace, not war. Nothing depends on me here. The creatures, the plants, the web of life continues on. In war, I breathed in and couldn’t afford to let it out. Here, in nature, I can exhale. I can enjoy life in the moment for what it is. I can appreciate and savor it.
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Tyler Stevenson served as an infantryman from 2006 to 2010 with the U.S. Army’s 1st Infantry Division “Big Red One.” He spent a year in Afghanistan, serving in the Kunar Province. The son of a diplomat, Tyler was born in Singapore and raised in Annapolis, Maryland, and spent parts of his childhood in Indonesia and Ecuador. He now lives and works in Alexandria, Virginia where he spends much of his free time gardening, fishing and of course, kayaking.
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