Paradise General Read Free Page A

prostate infection, and was the owner of the largest inguinal hernia in the Middle East (which the Army fixed months later). He was also an obsessive neat freak with a fanatical love of Cheetos and Doritos, neither of which helped his blood pressure.
    Abu Ghraib was a creepy place filled with ghosts of the tortured. The prison was best known for the detainee abuse that had taken place less than a year before, yet it was hard to ignore the souls of the tens of thousands of Iraqi citizens murdered at the prison by Saddam and his henchmen. The soldiers and marines manning the prison lived in the old cells behind sliding bars. Decorated with American flags and posters, it was impossible to hide the Saddam-era bloodstains on the walls or the hooks once used as tools of torture. Whenever our unit stopped at Abu, I begged off the offer of a guest cell, choosing instead to sleep under the chassis of a truck parked in the courtyard. It wasn’t the most comfortable place to spend the night, especially when a rocket landed and bounced me into the undercarriage, but it was still better than sleeping inside the house of horror.
    T HE EXOTIC VOICES from the fields were getting louder. Too many voices. I took a quick look at the fuel trucks, knowing they’d be hit first, and wondered if I’d get a shot off before being burned to a crisp. Whispered orders made their way among us. Lock and load. Safeties off. Here we go. I thought of my family, my dad, my stupidity.
Had I really accomplished anything?
Without warning, a growling thunder erupted from down the road, steadily overtaking the noises from the hedge. The ground began to shake and I thought my world was coming to an end. I was wrong. While it wasn’t a true John Wayne momentwith gunshots and fireworks, it was John Wayne enough for me. Our cavalry came rumbling to the rescue: a half a dozen heavily armed gun trucks with a massive tow truck bringing up the rear. We cautiously got up and moved toward our rescuers, grins of relief splitting our faces. I was scheduled to go home in three days and now it looked like I’d live to make the trip.
    T HE CONVERSATION WITH my dad that night took place in bits and pieces over the course of three long hours, more time than I had with him on the ride to Philly. The words were never spoken aloud, yet I felt sure that he knew that I had just learned his bitter lesson of war: fear. Sure, I was scared of dying—it’s hard not to think that way when you are lying in the dark … waiting.
    But worse was the fear of leaving my loved ones behind and the pain they would feel with my death. Then came the fear of screwing up and causing the deaths of my fellow soldiers. Unforgivable.
    As I walked with shaking legs to my Humvee with my wiry young sergeant, I apologized repeatedly for screwing up as we’d hid for our lives in the ditch.
    â€œHell, I didn’t know what I was doing back there. I could have gotten us all killed. Man, I am so sorry.”
    It wasn’t until our Humvee was headed toward the safety of our base that it hit me, three long decades after a car ride down the Jersey Turnpike. The young sergeant had answered with a smile and quick thumbs-up.

2
WHICH END
DO THE BULLETS COME OUT?
    T HE FIRST CASUALTY of the deployment took place eight thousand miles away from the war zone. I was tiptoeing and stumbling around in the dark at three in the morning, making sure I had packed all the civilian luxuries necessary to survive life in the desert when I rammed my little toe into the edge of the couch. A few curse words went flying, along with two huge armfuls of nonmilitary essentials such as an iPod, laptop, razors, toilet paper, and a mini-library of paperbacks. I silently gathered up the scattered pile, hoping the computer and the toe weren’t broken, then limped outside and sat in cool predawn air, taking in the sweetness of the freshly mown lawn whose blades I had trimmed the night before. No yard to