Chapter+22

Camp Pendleton’s landing strip had been ready since 9 A.M in the morning. 250 family members awaited 100 soldiers who were being flown home from fighting in Iraq. Sign of “Welcome Home” and “We Love the 85th” were brightly colored and big enough for anybody to read. The mood was great, everybody excited and tense, with many plans in mind to do with their loved ones coming back. The airplane came in to site, and everybody started to cheer when it touched ground. The roaring of the twin turbo jets slowly got softer, the plane slowed down, and the crowd’s cheers overtook the plane’s noise. Tony got up off his seat in the plane, happy that he was home and away from the place he liked to call “hell on earth”. He grabbed his bags of the shelves of the plane and made his way to the door, where he descended down the steps. As he touched the concrete, he looked up, and saw the brilliant smile of his fiance, Kristina. She had brought his friends, cousins, and brothers to go pick him up and greet him warmly. It felt as if a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders when she smiled, and it was the one thing he had missed the most while being out there. But now, he was happy, he was excited, he was home. That night the group got together at Players, a well known bar in the city. Tony was the center of attention, and everybody was glad to see him. He loved the attention, the warmth, the change of scenery. The sound of bullets was replaced with the sounds of chattering and glass tapping together as beer was passed around and the bartender served the guests. The smoke wasn’t from bombs, it was from the cigars his friends and family had bought him and now smoked with him. He felt so good, and it was something he had never felt while away in Iraq. Tony’s friends asked him about his experiences in the war. The question alone brought him to the bullets, pain, agony, burning flesh, and screams of children asking to live. He got very quiet, and quickly tried to look normal as his friend stared back at him. “Are you alright, Tony?”, he asked. Tony replied, “as good as I’ve been for a while”, with a weak smile. To forget about the question, his friend ordered shots of tequila and a lot of beer. They got drunk, and they all forgot the stupid war that meant nothing to them now. Tony was home, and everybody was happy, but he was not. He had come home, but with a single sentence uttered by a friend, he was brought back in to the state of mind he was once in, something he wanted to forget. Tony slept that night at 1 in the morning. As he fell asleep, he laid there thinking about the question, and always going back to the scenes of chaos and brutality. He shrugged it off, rolled over, and went to sleep Bullets flew, cars exploded, and bloodshed was anywhere you could see with your eyes. You couldn’t hear anything except the machine guns, the explosions of bombs, and worst of all, the men, women, and children that screamed in pain. They asked to live, to please let them survive this. Tony raced around trying to avoid danger, and trying to reach the sound of the voices asking for help. He reached a brick house, although, it really wasn’t a house anymore. It had collapsed with the explosions of American air strikes. Tony could now hear the boy. He threw brick after brick in to the street, digging for the boy, and he could hear the voice louder and louder. Finally, a hand, a small hand protruded from the rubble. Tony reached for it and clasped it, and the hand gripped on to him as hard as it could, while he dug further. The boy’s head emerged, and he was crying, screaming in pain, and begging to live. Tony cleared enough bricks to find the boy from the head down to his chest. He pulled the boy out, and found out the bad news, and saw an image that scarred him for the rest of his life. The boy emerged with nothing from his waist down. Instead, blood dripped like running water, and covered the bricks, Tony’s boots, and anything under it. The boy screamed, and Tony was scared so bad that he let go of the boy. The boy’s entrails were clearly visible and coming out from underneath him. As Tony turned away, the boy gave his last breath, and in doing so cursed Tony for letting him die. Then, in an instant, it was over. Tony was in bed, sweating, breathing heavily, and feeling very very cold. It was a bad dream, that’s all it was, a bad dream he told himself. He told himself “there was nothing I could have done”, and tried to calm himself while in his bed. Tony had woken up, and he had just visited hell again in his dream. He was home, he was supposed to be safe and happy. But, he felt he couldn’t leave hell permanently, and he wanted to badly. To do this, he decided he needed help. Tomorrow, he would go visit a psychiatrist at the VA hospital. Tony visited the hospital the very next day. He sat there, with his military I.D ready and waiting for a psychiatrist. He was not alone, the waiting room had a few other personnel sitting around in the chairs, waiting to receive their medical attention. Dr. Turner came out of a door, and called for Tony Comoli. Tony got up, shook hand with the Doctor, and followed him down the hall to his office. He asked Tony to lie down, relax, and talk to him. They got to know each other at first, and Tony found out the Dr. Turner was a Vietnam veteran, so he had felt just like Tony did today. Tony told him about his dream, his experiences while in Iraq, his feelings toward the war, and everything else he could tell the doctor that he believed could be a problem. The Doctor explained to him that he was home now, away from the hell he was living through every day, and that it was all going to be ok. The Doctor didn’t diagnose him at that moment. Instead, he told Tony to go enjoy the American life that he had been missing out on. Tony decided to have a good hamburger, so he visited Carls Sr.. Carls Sr. was known for its charbroiled burgers and great tasting ingredients in the sandwich itself. Tony walked in and made his way to the register. When he go there, he froze, smelled the aroma, and became nauseous. It reminded him of the burning flesh around the streets he patrolled. The burnt bodies, and even babies that his group had found in bomb cars. Tony turned around, got back in to his car, and began to cry. He felt that there was no way of leaving this hell. But then he had an idea, so he drove home, thinking about his life, thinking about his friends, and wondering if he had lived a good life. He went to the bedroom, and began his plan to leave this “hell on earth” that he named. Tony finished his letter, took a nine millimeter pistol, put it to his head, and pulled the trigger. He blew his brains out, felt no pain, and died instantly. The gun was like an executioner, just waiting to be called upon to “fix” the world. Instead, it took the world from Tony. Later, when nobody could get in contact with Tony, they went looking for him at home. They found him, in a pool of blood next to his bed. The letter was read by his friends, and two things were clear about it. He loved Kristine dearly, and he wished he could have spent his life with her. But, his life was miserable and he couldn’t live the way he was living, constantly being reminded of his past. The only way out was to leave, and so he did. One month later, a group of experts claimed that Tony had suffered from PTSD, and that he could have been helped to cure it, or slow it down. Instead, it led to an investigation in to VA hospitals, and this found that care for veterans was simply not good enough, and this was going to be fixed. Thousands more came home, and thousands more sought mental help. But Tony helped himself, in fact, he now was truly back at home.

Joporto