Parade Field

I’m standing at parade rest on the 25th Infantry Division parade field. I’m one of about 5,000 participants in the Operation Enduring Freedom-5 Farewell Ceremony. Somewhere out there in that huge, colorful group of civilians is my family, looking for me in the sea of desert camouflage on the field. The brilliant sunlight bathes us in heat and light. I smell freshly mown grass and my own sweat. Wispy clouds brush the tops of coconut palms as they pass overhead in their own good time. My toes are numb. The Division Commander, Major General Olson, speaks at a wooden podium adorned with the green tarot leaf and lightning bolt—aka the “electric chili pepper”—that represents the “Tropic Lightning” Division. He’s mercifully brief.

Hawaii’s Governor Lingle replaces Olson at behind the microphone. She is not brief. After ten minutes, I begin to curse her for the way she inserts empty space between each word. We’ve spent the morning rehearsing the flawless pass-in-review she’s about to witness. If she’d ever served, she’d get it. She’d know that you don’t drink much before a ceremony because if you have to hit the latrine halfway through, you’re screwed. She probably didn’t notice the two soldiers who passed out in formation waiting for the dignitaries to arrive.

My lower back is a red-hot lump of cast iron. My body doesn’t hold up the way it once did for these damned ceremonies. I’m simultaneously grateful and feel guilty to be armed with only a pistol instead of the squad automatic weapon the soldier beside me bears in his trembling arms. Sweat trickles down my spine, through the waistband of my shorts, from thigh to calf, and into my boots. I know this heat is nothing compared to where we’re headed, but at the moment that’s hard to imagine.

The ring of 550 cord at the apex of my helmet’s support system has formed a circular depression on top of my head. That must be what the young soldier in front of me is feeling, and why he tries to quickly adjust his own kevlar. He’s quick, but not quick enough. From behind the formation, the First Sergeant blisters the kid with stage-whisper derision.

It will all be over soon. Just breathe deeply, and don’t lock the knees. I pray that when the time comes to march past the reviewing stand and off the field, I’ll be able to take that first step without the back pain collapsing me to the ground.

I feel twice my age. Half the people in this formation look like they graduated high school yesterday. Every year I’m in, they get younger.

Governor Lingle speaks of the sacrifice she knows we are about to make—of the dangers and the long family separation. She speaks of our children, who are giggling and playing in front of the bleachers, oblivious to the ceremony.

The sun feels like a physical weight. I see a sort of darkness fall over the scene as though a shade has been pulled over the sun. A choking, constricting sensation grips my throat. It nearly makes me cough, but I have been doing this for too many years to cough in formation while the Governor is speaking.

I see my older boy’s bright yellow t-shirt in front of the bleachers. He’s running with some other kids. I catch pieces of their laughter on the breeze, during the pauses between Lingle’s carefully enunciated words.The constriction in my throat tightens. This isn’ t my first deployment, but it’s my first as a father.

I can’t do this. I can’t just leave for a year.

I allow the sweat to run into my eyes and sting. I allow the flies to land on my nose and lips without flinching. I wiggle my toes inside my damp boots. I stand ramrod-straight as my back punishes me for years of airborne operations and timed ruck marches.

I think about the cool water in my canteen. I remember the pleasantly cool saline solution flowing into my veins that time in the Mojave when I got too dehydrated and a medic had to pop me with a saline IV.

“We keep ‘em in the aid station fridge,” he said. “Good, right?”

I can’t do it, I think. But I know that I will simply find myself on a plane one day, and that will be that. You get on the ride, try to keep your head and arms inside the vehicle at all times and not lose your elephant ear. And then you come home. That’s how it works.

It’s not fair that a year away from my kids should count against my lifespan.

Let them be safe while I’m gone. Let them be unchanged when I return. Let me not become something they won’t love.