Inside of the Helicopter

He had a scar.  It was noticeable.  A long streak above his right ear like a graze that was pink and mottled.  Above his eyebrow of his right eye was a straight line that paralleled the brow, white against his skin and never tanning.  It was those things she first noticed.


In 2006 it was the deadliest year in Iraq.

He had stopped for a kid.  Commanding a convoy of trucks he was in the lead vehicle.  The dust was pervasive and the heat uncompromising...relentless...the bottoms rutted out of the street and the vehicle bounced along...he saw out of the corner of his eye movement and reached over to the Corporal.  He looked over at him and said stop...first once, then louder.  The vehicle jarred to a halt and he looked behind him to ensure the tankers weren't crashing into him.  And he got out and the heat crashed into him and the dust filled his eyes and his nose and he pulled the baclava up higher across his face and strode to the middle of the street.

It was a little girl...with a red headband chasing a soccer ball.  The ball skidding across the street and she was turned towards the hood of the vehicle...a foot away.  She stood there blinking until her mother, or some other figure picked her up and pulled her out of the street.

And that's when the first bullet hit him.  It hit an exposed part of his leg, just above the ankle and it felt like a bite and it twirled him and he knew...in that moment he knew it was bad and it was going to get worse.

He yelled at the driver to get back...grabbed his tactical radio and told the mission crew to abort and to reverse course...too many vehicles packed into this street would create a massive explosion if the right amount of violence occurred.  He saw the panic on the driver's face...his Corporal.  He nodded...like assurance.  Like "you've got this"...and then the world exploded.

He remembered tasting dirt...it was dry and there was a ringing in his ear.   His leg was on fire and his face felt like a dry-shave...and he couldn't move.  He saw tread marks in the dirt of the street...moving away...and he remembered he wanted them to go backwards...away from where he was.  But now he saw tires...and they were near his head.  And then he fell asleep.


He couldn't see.  He felt movement and was being jostled.  He heard shouting and the din of noises...his helmet was off and it was sunny...it wasn't dusty anymore.  He felt like his head was on fire and his leg felt disjointed but broken...and he was looking for his Corporal...but he couldn't see.

Some one was shouting at him...he was so tired.  He couldn't find his driver, shifting on his weight and looking around.

Sit still somebody said.   Sir...sit still.  He felt hands upon him, pushing him down.  He was in a stretcher...he was being carried across the white runway of an airport...the noise of helicopter blades whirring above and he couldn't see.

He stopped, was lowered on the ground...the whirl of the blades where a black blur.  He saw a silhouette above hime and he felt cold compresses against his eyes, smearing the sky and suddenly brightening the light above him.

Sir...you have got to stop moving...somebody was yelling at him.  His head was on fire and his leg was beginning to wail and there were heads above him...yelling.

He felt himself lifted up again and was placed into the UH-60 medevac...inside he noticed the top of the helicopter and hear the commands of the pilots and the crew...

They were trying to hold his arms, they were wiping away at his face and they were trying to insert an IV into his arm and he just kept trying...reaching underneath his body armor plate and trying to unbutton his breast pocket.

Sir, they kept yelling...stop..stop moving...

And he kept moving his hand across his chest...until somebody...a crew member....cut off his velcro and the armor came off and he found the button and could finally open the pocket.

His hand was bloody...his blood, from his skull and his face and his ankle...he remember thinking that it looked like paint...but as he unbuttoned the flap he felt the plastic.  He felt the familiar.

He pulled out the picture of her.  He held it up, one eye barely seeing it and he kissed it...smearing it with his saliva and his blood and he clutched it.

It was enough for him.




She was wondering why the picture of her had smudges...crinkled.  He had handed it to her in the hospital.  Before he had gone back to sleep.

She held it now in her hand...waiting in the lobby.  Of the hospital.  She hadn't seen him in years...and she wasn't ready for this.