The Day I Left

The day I left the Guardian Angels, when I hung up the uniform for the last time, was a surprise to many.

In a lot of ways, I’ve been very lucky in my work as a Pararescueman. PJ for short. I’ve seen action around the world, often in the warzones that captured the minds of many in the short attention span the normal person possesses these days. From the end of the GWOT, to the Taiwan “situation” that the leaders of our country never seemed to realize was, in fact, more than just a “situation”. Natural disasters, war, civil unrest foreign and domestic, even some that I can’t talk about, you name the mission, I probably went on it. At least it seems like it.

What’s a PJ and why do I do these cool things you ask? As the name implies, I rescue people.

Correction.

Rescued people.

With a job like that, flying around the world to rescue people and stop the bumps in the night, why would anyone want to leave? Especially with all the work to do, pulling people out of bad situations and punching the bad guy in the mouth, right?

I am writing this a few months after the events of the coming pages takes place, someone told me that would be a good way to begin the process of moving forward. Get it out and on paper. Or flash drive. Or data cloud. Not sure what will happen when I hit save.

If you’re reading this, then kudos on finding this in whatever wasteland is left. Please know, that wasn’t any of our intention.

To give you a better perspective, let me start on that day I left the Guardian Angels.

Up to that point, I had been too busy to really pay attention to anything other than the mission; save who I am sent out to save. Remember PJ, those people are having the worst day of their lives. You aren’t being sent out to spread the good news of sunscreen, you’re going to knock out the grim reaper before he has a chance to take this person.

You are going out, sometimes suicidally, to fight and beat death. Every mission. Every day.

I landed back in the states, no one knew I was back because I was a “walking wounded” at the time, able to decline the phone call home letting family and fiancé know I’m ok. I was real close to a big damn bomb and had my head rattled a little too hard.

Physically, everything was good, not even a cut from hitting the ground after the building blew up under my feet. The bell was rung though. Rung bad. The docs over at the firebase, in the shithole village in nowhere Africa, were inclined to believe I had some traumatic brain injuries. Told me to go home. Don’t pass go, no collecting $200. Go get it checked out by the professionals. One day I’ll have to write down that one, crazy situation that ended bad.

Either way, I’m back home and I go to my gear cage. No, I’m not going to the docs. I don’t need to. In the late 20’s, some select groups in each of the special operations disciplines in the military were picked out to undergo some minor testing of a new injectable preinjury treatment. The goal was, quickly repair neurological damages with an improved immune system redesigned to direct its efforts in case of bodily emergencies. Best way to do that, they believed, was before the injury even occurred.

Goal? Basically, make sure brain still brain.

What ended up happening is about 60% of the test group had that happen, passive stand by for emergencies and the immune system kick into overdrive and then some when the bell rings. 30% found that other issues were getting fixed as well, like joints that were hurting like hell were being healed including tendon and ligaments, something that would normally take surgery and a lot of time. So much for needing a new ACL, just wait and eat a lot of red meat and your body will do it for you.

10% died. I didn’t know that until later though.

So, I’m good to go, because I’m in the 30%. Theoretically I can be operational until that magic bullet finally arrives. Thanks Air Force, you did that one right.

I unpacked my stuff I brought back while in my cage and changed into the basketball shorts and t-shift I had on before I left. I jumped in my truck without doing any of the normal after action reports I’m supposed to do, cause I don’t want to and I’m a Master Sargent without my command, and I left base.

I wanted to see Kelly, the fiancé I briefly mentioned before. But first, flowers. Fellas, if you’re surprising your woman without flowers, you’re doing it wrong.

I go to a local shop in a mall. It’s one of those indoor/outdoor malls, fresh air and perfume mixing while you walk through stores of overpriced crap I don’t need, but obviously someone does otherwise the crap wouldn’t be getting sold. All big named stores too, all but the flower shop. That shop was owned by a mom and pop, and I liked to keep those small placing going the best I can.

By spending money.

Except, I get there and couldn’t bring myself to even get past the threshold of the mall to get to the shop. I don’t know if I was “triggered”, air quotes intended, or just disgusted with what greeted me in that mall.

Everyone I saw in this crowded mall were talking to themselves. I had been out in the bush of Africa for so long I didn’t realize that the new technology trend basically makes having a device in your pocket obsolete. Phones in pockets were replaced with hats, glasses, headphones, or straight up neuro-implants, allowing the user to be fully immersed in their desired activities while physically doing whatever they needed or wanted.

Those glasses, screens that directed you to your destination in the most efficient manor, no need to actually use your eye. That includes what item to pick up on the shelf at the store.

Hat and headphones? Those use either sound waves or tiny electric nodes to direct you, effecting the neurotransmission in your own brain. To boot, they have the ability to overlay what you’re seeing with whatever the program thinks you may want, like a fighter pilot’s helmet behind your eyes. Open or closed, you can have a read out of whatever information about you or that is on the internet that you think you need in that second in your visual cortex. Once again, no need for actually looking where you walk.

Sounds cool? You would have loved it, I’m sure. Me though? Nope, I didn’t like what I saw.

I saw more than one guy walking around actively playing with themselves, I’m sure as they watched porn without realizing they were in public. People were walking in patters like roadways, no weaving in and out around people, like a human normally does. Some people were yelling, some were actively laughing, some were crying, but they wouldn’t stop walking in their designated lanes or acknowledge any other living being around them.

Some were smoking too, filling the area with the smell of tobacco and marijuana. There were some other acrid smells too, and I saw a woman walking while actively sticking a needle in her arm. I remember thinking “hope that’s insulin” but knowing it wasn’t. You know that look, she’s definitely not worried about blood sugar if you know what I mean.

It sounds like a slum, right? Well, I had just come from one, so I can confirm that it was pretty close. There was trash all over the ground, discards from their owner’s decision that a trash can was too out of the way and the walking roadways the only clear area. Mind you, I saw all of this without entering the walkways. Essentially, got just inside of the doors and couldn’t bring myself to go further.

It didn’t feel like I came back from the slums and degradation of humanity anymore, felt like I never left. Felt like this was the worst of humanity all over again, but different. Too robotic.

The worst part though, the thing that really made me feel like I couldn’t get home soon enough, were the blank stares on everyone I saw. Eyes dull from lack of focus and concentration more on the joys of public isolation than seeing another person.

Standing at the entrance of the mall, watching this occur and wondering how to navigate this robotic Orwellian mess, I was tapped on the shoulder and turned to see a police officer.

“Move along,” he says, looking at and trough me at the same time with dead eyes.

“Uh, sure,” I utter as my first words back on American soil. I move to walk into the mall, still need flowers remember, when the officer grabs my arm.

“No, I don’t have you online. State your name and purpose.”

“Excuse me?”

“Connect to this network here so I can monitor you. Name and purpose.”

I go to get my device out of my pocket, maybe a little too quickly because the officer takes a step back and places his hand on his gun, but he never focused on me. His eyes were dead the whole time like he was focused on the reticle on a video game and not my actual face. My device, once called a phone, is in my hand and next to my head, like both of my hands, hoping I don’t get shot here instead of out of country. At least the hospitals here are actually good, I hope.

“Oh, you haven’t been upgraded huh?” he says. Hand on pistol. Eyes dead and unfocused.

“Nope. Mind if I get some flowers now? For the fiancé.” I say, trying to remain relaxed. Though my brain soup isn’t spoiled, there are the nervous edges that will never leave after spending too long in combat.

I didn’t want to be here, but this is the only place around that has the combination of sunflowers and lilies that Kelly likes. I hate crowds, malls, all of this, but I do understand their necessity. Like when you need to get flowers to say,” hey babe, I’m back and sorry for not calling, I was busy getting shot at and actively blown up.”

“I have to escort you,” says the officer taking his hand off the service pistol but still concern etched in his face.

“Why?”

“Because you aren’t connected to the system.”

“So? Why does that matter?”

“Because I need to be able to monitor you while you are inside in case you decide to do something wrong.”

See at this moment it clicked, he said something wrong. Not illegal, that wasn't the concern, but if it was wrong then he needed to act. Everyone in there were being monitored by the local police to ensure they fell in line. They didn’t care if you were doing anything other than paying for goods or services and not hurting people. Public indecency, active use of narcotics, littering, nearly any law that doesn’t involve paying for a good or service and directly upsetting anyone is fair game. What I heard from that officer was “so long as you pay, go wild.”

So much for serve and protect.

“Never mind,” I said, in a whisper. I walked away and got back into my truck.

I went back to base, same guard at the gate, but he also had an unfocused look in his eyes. Those cleared only to look at my ID card and back to my face. Without saying anything he waved me through.

I quit that day.

I went to my commanding officer, requested to go on leave immediately, I had a few months left in this contract and a few months of time off saved up. Told him I want to use my leave and I wouldn’t be reenlisting.

As soon as I said I wasn’t going to reenlist, his eyes went unfocused, cataloging this exchange for later reference.

He said OK, and that was that.

Like I said before, I am writing this sometime after the events of the coming pages occurred, but I think it’s important to note why I did what I did, and why that allowed for these events to take place.

I couldn’t fight for a populace that was no longer human or allowed to be treated as human. What about my fellow service members? The fighting force of America was shirking, and the wars, don’t let anyone else tell you otherwise, they are wars, were too many. But if anyone I served with saw that I did that day, they wouldn’t want to be on the front line either.

I lost my faith in what I was fighting for, there is no way a small village in the middle of Africa would have any effect on this mall. You can’t make the “keep evil at bay” argument when you have a different kind of evil permeating into the moral fabric of the country you were fighting for. I have pulled too many young men and women out of the worst days of their lives, grim reaper on the doorstep, young people ready to die for this country, and this is what the country has come to?

I take that back. I could see myself staying in, if it weren’t for Kelly and my friends outside of the service. If i didn't have a group outside of my comrades in arms, I would have stayed in. I had kept up with a lot of them, my old friends, and they were just as fed up with all of it as I was. “Now to join them in navigating this jacked up world,” I thought to myself as I drove off base for the last time.