Day 158: The Personal Side of the Business of War

Five years of togetherness and I learn more about the husband’s profession via stilted conversations over spotty phone connections than I have living with him. Sometimes you hear more in what is not said. Here’s a recent example, I don’t know if anyone else will find this interesting, but it continually surprises me how normal his world is to him and how unfathomable it is to me.

“Why are you calling so late, it must be almost 4am there?” I ask.

“Mission,” he responds.

“Another one? You’re leaving in a little over week, why are you still doing missions?”

“I’m doing ops right now, I’ll be going out in a bit.”

“So you’re safe, you’re still on base?”

“Right now. This is a good one, we need to do this.”

“Are you capturing someone? What are you going to do with him if you catch him? Do you torture him?” I ask naively.

“What? We don’t torture people, who do you think we are?”

“The Army,” I say simply.

He laughs, then to someone else he says, “My feed is frozen, are the guys still there?”

“You have a feed? What kind of feed are you looking at?”

“I can’t tell you.”

Then, again to someone else and slightly concerned, “Hey, what happened?”

“What’s going on?” I ask, trying to be matter of fact.

“The power went out.”

“On your feed or at the base?”

“The base.”

“Are you okay, what does that mean?” Now I am a little panicked.

“That’s not good. I’ve got to go. I love you.”

“Okay, but call me when you get back or email. Let me know you’re safe.”

“It will be a while, but I’ll try.”

Then the line goes dead and I’m left to wonder about the mission, why the power is out, and when I will hear from him.

This is a far cry from the life we led in New York. The most covert thing he did back then was to try to look sober while hailing a cab. This is a strange life and I don’t think I really understand it very well. He seemed genuinely shocked that I might think they torture people and I am equally shocked that at least one part of the mission has them watching some sort of video of the guy like shoplifting security at Target.

Eight hours later the phone wakes me up. It’s Jeff.

“Hi baby. Just wanted to let you know I’m safe because I promised to call.”

“Were you successful, did you get what wanted?”

“Yes. We caught a very bad man. A very, very bad man.”

“Well what happens to him now?”

“We turn him over to the Iraqi’s.”

“What do they do?”

Silence. I know this game well enough to know that he disapproves of the answer to that question. From my own reading of various articles, I presume that the Iraqi’s will drag their feet for a few weeks or months and then let him go for lack of evidence.

Instead of answering he says, “okay, go back to sleep. I just wanted to let you know I got back okay.”

And that’s it. This is a typical conversation in which not a lot is said, but I understand some things I didn’t before. I wonder if the soldiers who suffer PTSD suffer more because they don’t talk about it, or because they do talk about it and keep reliving it. Jeff has never had those types of problems and I think it is especially telling that while he is able to discern that one person might be “very bad” he also approaches a mission to capture said man as another work task. This is all part of the job to him. So while my mind swims with media induced visions of torture, death and mystery, he’s just going to work. Still, I guess it’s not really my fault. I mean, my next mission involves a marshmallow and hot cocoa, so we may not be on the same page.