Once my camp was over, I headed north to see Josh and to bring more stuff to our apartment. I got a text from Josh while he was at work saying that his cadre wanted to see him and that it probably wasn’t good. A cadre is a military term for someone who outranks you but is not your commanding officer. I literally had no idea what he meant when he said it probably wasn’t good. I waited for hours for Josh to come home. He finally got back, and as he walked in the door he glared and said, “Well, they dropped me from the course.”
“So what does that mean? You sit on hold until the next selection group?” I asked.
“No, I have to wait a year before I can even try the Q Course again,” he replied.
“A year!” I gasped at the insult. “We are supposed to just sit around here for a year?” For one failed test? Man, this is nothing like college, is it?
“Babe,” Josh said in a very serious tone, “they aren’t going to just let us stay here. I got orders. I’m being sent to a unit that’s getting ready to deploy in Fort Lewis, Washington.” Orders? What were orders? What does this mean?
My thoughts were not my friend as Josh tried his best to explain to me what our new reality was. Orders, meaning an assignment to a unit. Something that wasn’t supposed to happen until Josh completed all of his training at Fort Bragg a year from now. It’s not that I was crazy about Fort Bragg, but staying in a long-term military course meant Josh was not deployable. It meant I knew where he was every day. It meant that, for a short stint, I could plan my life in North Carolina. It meant he wasn’t in grave danger. Forget the Spanish-speaking countries. Orders meant Afghanistan… soon.
Just like that, we were moving from the Southeast to the Pacific Northwest, and we had only fifteen days to get there.
My disbelief at Josh being dropped from the Q Course because of a failed run stayed very close to the surface during every step of our military journey. Rolling with the punches was Josh’s forte, not mine. I loved life in the Pacific Northwest, but there was a part of me that would not quiet about the injustice of our plan being ruined on a technicality. Over the course of the four-day trip from Fort Bragg to Joint Base Lewis-McChord and the duration of Josh’s deployment, I regularly revisited the what-ifs. What if he had never failed that run? What if he were still at Fort Bragg? If gratitude ever spoke up, I quickly reminded it that no one asked me if this turn of events was okay. If full commitment to gratitude meant the loss of my case, then it was too expensive.
Now, in that room at Walter Reed, all I could feel was gratitude. I realized that everything had been fine and I didn’t even know it. The what-ifs about the past didn’t matter. In fact, the future did not matter. Right now, I was so proud of him. I was so thankful we were finally in the same room. I rubbed his cheek and couldn’t believe I was actually looking at him face-to-face. I kept thinking about how precious he was to me, and I was so grateful his life was spared. I felt my eyes welling up as I looked at my beautifully broken soul mate. I loved him for a million more reasons. Then, the storm hit.
Josh started fidgeting in discomfort, claiming that he was burning up and his legs were hurting really bad. Josh’s machines began going off like crazy, signaling blood pressure spikes and a rapid heart rate. He suddenly looked green, and sweat was beading on his forehead. He looked like he wanted to crawl out of his own skin. I asked what he needed, but I quickly learned that was a pointless question. Everything hurt and nothing felt right. No matter what I did, his needs could not be met. As soon as he got comfortable, an IV would need to be replaced. As soon as his legs stopped hurting, a fever would break out. As soon as the fever broke, he would be dying for water. The nurses would come in to check on him constantly, but at this point, their only job was to try to get him somewhat comfortable without overdosing him with pain medication.
I was seeing the same drug-induced stupor that I saw when Cathi tried to Skype me from Germany. No matter what I said, Josh could not be consoled. He was convinced that he hadn’t been given any medicine and that his skin was still burning from the explosion. I looked at the clock; I had only been there for an hour. The minute my butt hit the chair; Josh would need something. I was witnessing total misery—
Josh with wires and tubes connected to fifteen monitors, crying and apologizing for needing things but still so desperately needing them. Josh didn’t want me to get too far away from him. If I wasn’t actively doing something for him, I had to be within his line of vision, not touching him but able to touch him. As he closed his eyes, I went to get something out of my backpack and heard his hoarse voice screaming my name from his bed. Convinced I had left him forever, he berated me with questions like “Where were you? Why did you leave?” I tried so hard to explain that I was literally at the end of the bed, but it was useless. I apologized and promised I wouldn’t leave. Again, his monitors began signaling his rising stress level, and he asked for more ice packs. As I leaned over to get more ice packs, Josh puked bright green stomach bile all over me. Thankfully I
