Note: I had originally written a variation of this essay as a blogpost for a now-defunct blog of mine. Major Tammy Duckworth's story never loses its shine for me. Re-reading it, re-posting it under a different title each time...is how I stay connected. Major Tammy's photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons License.
How does a person develop dogmatic beliefs? I have a notion.
Most of us, when overcome by feelings of
disconnectedness from our surroundings, experience a sense of inner
agitation. When human affairs are pressed beyond
the ordinary, such as when at war, these moments of disconnectedness
steer us to identify things that are “right” or “wrong.” Soon these
moments turn into beliefs. Then we become emphatic about these
beliefs. Then we suddenly find it easy to relate our normal day-to-day
occurrences to these beliefs.
But this disconnect, the inner agitation, doesn't go away. It seems
to persist despite our emphatic beliefs of right and wrong. This
feeling, instead of getting resolved, dissolved, disappear and reassure
us in the staunch positions we take on the issues of political
importance, seems to go right past our ordinary day-to-day beliefs and
is still left dangling, in search of home.
Where is the home for this feeling, for this disconnect?
Those who saw “Conversations with Soldiers Wounded in Iraq” on
C-SPAN (originally aired March 10, 2005, with subsequent repeat
broadcasts) would likely have experienced a glimpse of the very such
home. When this happens, when that metaphysical home is found for this
disconnected feeling, one can't help but feel how pallid the
exhortations of globalization, and of the "world citizen" are, compared
to the experience of this home.
You don't have to see that C-SPAN show to relate to what I write
here. I am writing here of what I saw: a celebration of life at its
most intense and its most fullest reach. There you watch how the
soldiers have very nearly died in the mess and blood of war, but who
brought a renewal of life into our experience without the ugly
melodrama and narcissism that a more self-conscious narrator of the
drama, for example a modern day blogger, would bring.
To see what I mean, let's start with a simple question: “Where were we on Nov 12, 2004?”
Because on that day Major Tammy Duckworth, of Illinois Army National
Guard, was on a free fall, her Blackhawk helicopter shot over the skies
of Iraq. From her own narrative of the events of that day, “It was
actually end of the day, we've been flying missions across Baghdad,
mostly transportation of equipment. Had a great lunch, bought some
christmas ornaments from the post exchange (it was middle of
November). We were ten minutes from getting back to the base when an
RPG shot by the insurgents hit the chin bubble (a Plexiglas window
under the pilot seat of the Blackhawk.)”
She sat next to her husband with the C-SPAN interviewer. Her
infectious smile, dark beautiful eyes and a gentle face would have you
believe she may have just escaped with minor bruises, what's the big
deal and wouldn’t "those army folks" be prepared for these sorts of
things anyway?
Initial charge exploded between her knees and nicked one of the
Blackhawk's blades. Instantly they lost the electronics, and the
Blackhawk started to descent. Tammy immediately attempted to land the
aircraft, little realizing that she lost the foot pedals and her legs.
The control panels were gone. When she woke up in the emergency room
the right hand was broken. The last thing she remembered was that she
saw that the grass on the fields, coming through the chin bubble as
they landed, was about 6 ft tall and she remembered thinking, "Wow,
that's really beautiful green grass" before she passed out. Tammy lost
her right leg. Lost her left leg below the knee to amputation. Her
right arm bones were crushed and broken the moment the Blackhawk hit
the ground. Doctors at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where this
C-SPAN interview was taped, rebuilt the arm using metal pins and screws
and grafted the tissue taken from her stomach.
And then there is Cpl. Michael Oreskovic - US Army, 23 years’ of age
at the time of this interview. Lost his left arm from shoulder on:
"Flopping around somewhere like a chewed up hamburger." He went
through eleven surgeries and now uses a bio-electric arm.
This is a group of people who describe things that happen to them
such as ripped arms, detonations in front of their faces, warm blood
pouring down their faces, soaking their clothes, with a gentle smile on
their faces. Not a hint of self-pity, not a hint of a loss, just a
strange serenity in their faces, a jaded tiredness but a permanent
light in their eyes: "Tough situations brings you closer.” He waits
until the question is asked: "Was anybody else injured at all?" "Yeah,
my squad leader died instantly"
The casual approach, the self-effacing manner in which these
soldiers speak is maddening: "Tying the shoes and pulling the zipper
are the hardest things to do."
Q: "What do you do when you get frustrated?"
A: "Go work out"
"I wanted to go back to my unit, but everyone says no." He
describes the possibility of not being in the army in the words of,
"They probably won't toss you out the window if you are a special
force."
This phrase, "toss you out the window," speaks volumes of the
loyalty they feel towards their unit. I cannot help but feel that this
phrase is exactly that longing to find a home for that disconnected
feeling, to find a home where a human being involuntarily experiences a whole body
of emotions such as love, sacrifice and looking out for each
other. It appears to me that this is what prompts a soldier to go
back to serve.
There is not a hint of wasted thought, wasted emotion, in these
soldiers' thinking. Perhaps it comes from being so close to life and
death. Here there is no room for thoughts that scrape the bottom of the
"about-ness," no room for the worlds of you and I where we build
protective edifices of opinions and ideas of what is right and what is
wrong, protecting from the action-at-a-distance.
After all, isn’t this distance, this disconnect, this tragedy-less
tin-box of clutter in our minds, is what we are all searching to find a
home for?
