The Round That Didn’t Go Off

It is hard to describe the end of a combat deployment.

You really want to go home. And a part of you really wants to stay.

You miss your friends and family, but also know you will miss the bonds of war.

You want the things you couldn’t have when deployed: burgers, baseball and beer.

But you know you can’t replace the things you had at war: purpose, adrenaline, and camaraderie.

Still, no one misses a flight home. You know you can always come back.

Mainly, at the end of a deployment you don’t want to die.

I mean you never want to die. But you really don’t want to die at the end. You have been through so much. You have made plans for when you get home. Maybe something special.

For me, I had a chocolate lab puppy waiting. I had always wanted one and promised myself that if I didn’t die in Iraq, that would be my reward. He had already been born. Just waiting for me to pick him up.

I had named him Jagger.

I really couldn’t die now. My dog was waiting for me.

On literally the last day of my deployment we conducted a large operation targeting several high-value individuals we had spent months trying to capture.

It was complex. We were conducting simultaneous raids on multiple sites. After the first locations were hit, we would move to secondary targets, which meant the element of surprise would be gone. Daybreak would likely be upon us.

Everyone was on edge. The area we were entering wasn’t friendly and we expected resistance.

But it went great.

We got everyone we were after and no one on our side was injured.

It was time to exfil. Convoy back to our base.

Then get ready for our “freedom bird” to start the long journey home.

There was a sense of relief.

Done. Let’s drive back and get the hell out of here.

Guys were smiling.

I was in the passenger seat. My buddy John was driving. Two guys were in the back.

The mission was in our rearview mirror…

Then I heard it.

Thump. Thump.

I knew immediately.

Mortars.

The call came over the radio.

“Incoming.”

The first rounds landed a fair distance behind us.

Drive faster.

A pause…then another. Thump. Thump.

The next explosion was in front of us.

Well shit. They were walking the rounds in. Adjusting to each impact point. Not good.

So we changed directions.

They kept calibrating their aim.

The next volley hit a Humvee ahead of us. The vehicle caught fire and was disabled.

The guys got out, but we were stuck. The whole convoy piled up in soft sand with a Humvee on fire.

And now they were dialed in on their range and our static location. Very bad.

A voice on the radio from someone at headquarters who I’m certain had never left the wire was instructing us to engineer a tow strap and haul the damaged Humvee back.

We were sitting in one of the most dangerous places you can be.

I kept saying the same thing.

We have to go.

Just pull the comms out of the damaged Humvee. Drop a thermite grenade on the engine block. And let’s go.

At that point, it’s useless metal.

The clock in my head was ticking on how fast they had been reloading and firing.

We really need to fucking go.

Thump. Thump.

Their clock beat faster than the asshole on the radio who cared more about a truck than our lives.

A 120mm mortar round landed three feet outside the passenger side door of our Humvee. Right outside my window.

The impact hitting the sand sent a shock wave through the vehicle.

The kill radius of a round that size is at least 30 meters.

We were one meter away.

If it detonates that close, all the armor in the world doesn’t matter.

A catastrophic explosion. We all die.

We all clenched for the explosion. It was over. Time’s up.

Then nothing happened.

I had instinctively curled into a ball. I opened my eyes.

I looked to my right.

The round was sitting there in the sand. Half buried. Half sticking out of the ground.

It was huge.

It hadn’t detonated.

There’s no explanation for that.

It just didn’t.

At that point we all made the same decision.

Time to go. We started driving and everyone followed behind.

We didn’t really say anything on the way back. It was a lot to process.

And I wasn’t looking for meaning. I just wanted to see my dog.

You would think something like that would permanently change the way you live.

Maybe for some people it does.

For me, it did and it didn’t.

I have never forgotten how random life can be. Sometimes I think about that round sitting half buried in the sand. Bullets flying between my legs. Enemy tracer rounds rattling around inside our Humvee.

Sometimes, I think about all the times I came close to dying and didn’t.

But I am not sure I think about them in the right way.

Because knowing life can end at any moment and actually living like it are two very different things.

I’m doing a lot better these days, but I can still spend too much of my life letting stupid shit ruin a day. Not a moment but a whole day.

I can survive a 120mm mortar round landing three feet away and not going off. And then waste a perfectly good Tuesday pissed off because the insurance company hung up on me after 45 minutes on hold and three transfers.

I mean no matter how much therapy or psychedelics you do, that will still piss you off.

But sometimes I wonder why so many near-death experiences didn’t leave me with the absolute clarity I thought they would.

Much more than the times I survived, I think about those we lost.

My friends who died in combat. And those who survived the war but died later because of it. They are on my mind every single day.

I don’t know if there is a right way to carry that. Losing them should make me more grateful for the days I still have. I should focus on what they would have done with just one more day. Most of me just misses them. And there have been times when a part of me I don’t like to admit wished it had been me.

I feel that less now. But not never.

But more than just war. Life and death have been on my mind lately. And what it means to truly live.

A friend just died from dengue fever in Asia. Random and tragic. Out of nowhere.

The adult son of another friend suddenly gone. An accident.

Another friend, still young, is facing stage four terminal cancer.

No incoming rounds. No convoy. No warning over the radio.

A person is here. Then they aren’t. Or they are told the end is coming and there is nothing you can do about it.

I don’t want to be morbid. Or depressed. I want the opposite.

I want to appreciate the good in my life. I want to be present with the people I love.

I want to treat every day like the gift I know it is.

This Sunday, as if on cue, our pastor’s sermon was on this very point. You have a finite amount of days.

Don’t let that depress you. Let it inform you.

Every day find a way to “rejoice and be glad in it.”

I don’t want to need another mortar, another funeral or another diagnosis to remember that a day is a gift.

Yes, I am likely to still curse at the insurance company for hanging up on me.

And then remember, yeah, but I’m here for it. And that is something.

After that round didn’t go off, I wasn’t looking for meaning.

I just wanted to see my dog.

I made it home to him and we had 14 wonderful years together.

But as I think about it now, maybe Jagger understood something I am still trying to learn.

Maybe he was showing me something that I failed to see clearly until after he was gone.

Every morning, from his first day until his last, that dog was the happiest he had ever been. In his entire life.

Just because he woke up.

Just because we were there.

I think that’s it. Right there.

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