Miles Traveled

Miles Traveled

Black out. White in. I squint through the haze to the sun as it blinds my bleeding eyes. The high pitch ring pierces my brain. A distant man’s screams meet my ears and connect to my voice. The ringing fades. The pain starts as reality hits. My flesh feels as if it’s on fire and my legs crawl with deep numbing needles. Miles’ harsh grey eyes come into sight above me; wait, that can’t be, Miles is dead.

My body jolts and my heart pounds as I wake. The cold drips of sweat chill me to my core as the fan oscillates on me. The down comforter is drenched but I strip it from my body as I accept the rest of the shock to my flesh. I breathe in and look over at my wife sleeping, oh the beauty of peace, a beauty I will someday know again.

I remember the last time I had a flashback, you were in that one too. It was this last Fourth of July. My wife, Anna, and my kids begged me to go to the fireworks show. I told myself I could do it; I could make myself go this year. This year would be different. I could be a good dad. We made it down the road when I heard it; I was back in Iraq, gunfire popped repeatedly. I jumped when I looked over and saw Anna driving. “Pull over, take cover!” I screamed as I unfastened my seat belt and dove into the back seat on top of the kids.

The rapid fire started again when I looked up to you, reaching out for me. Your eyes pierced mine but I couldn’t leave the kids.

“Tell Grace I love her Andy, promise me, take care of my girl.”

Tears of rage poured out “No, you are not going to die, you hear me!”

Calmness seeped from your eyes and spread across your face. “Promise,” you whispered.

“I promise,” I managed to choke out.

Screaming was all around. Next thing I knew I was on my back suffering my own pain; yours and the children’s bodies lay lifeless around me.


“Daddy, daddy! What’s wrong?” My son cried out.

I looked up again and was in the backseat of the car, on top of my children, they were alive. I looked over my shoulder to Anna and saw the tears streaking her face. “I shouldn’t have pushed you, I am so sorry honey.” She shook her head.

“It’s not you fault, I am sorry, I wish I could do this, I wish I could just be a normal dad.” I bit the inside of my cheeks till they bled. I hated myself and I hated the Army for taking moments like that away from my family.

I swear Miles, it is always something: flashbacks, fireworks, and thoughts. I look out of the window every time an out of place noise arises. I check the locks on the door ten times and still must check them again. I have hid weapons in every room of the house, just in case I need them. I guess that’s the good thing about being dead. You never had to know what coming home was like.

It seems as if just yesterday I was seventeen years old and feeling the meaty claws of the barber scraping the clippers up the nape of my neck. The anchor on his forearm blended into his dark skin. The scar on his face stretched from his ear to his chin. The life in his wrinkles seemed much more than his years.

“It seems like you boys just keep gettin’ younger and younger, must be those baby faces ya’ll got.”

He smiled and batted his eyelashes at me through the mirror.

“I’m early entry, I’m gonna be a Ranger.” I said, straightening my shoulders and puffing my chest.

“Yeah, good luck with that kid.”

His silence stormed me with a chill as he continued digging into my scalp with the sculpting tools of high n’ tights.

When the fresh leather of my boots hit their first training soil I thought my shit didn’t stink. I ran my mouth to the Drill Sargent and was put on shit duty, that’s where I met you. You remember that shit? Ha, how could you not. You told me I had shit for brains. We couldn’t stop laughing and gagging.

Over time I adjusted to military life. I bonded to you and some of the other young men; we called each other “brothers.” I had always thought it was just a thing military guys say. It took becoming a brother to understand the intimate bond you develop, and the deep tie to a culture no one else but you and your brothers can understand, to truly get it.


“Andy,” Anna’s whisper reaches out to me as her hand finds my chest, right above my heart.

“I’m here,” I whisper placing my hand on hers. I stare at her face remembering her high cheekbones streaked in tears eight years ago. I touch her soft pale face. I lightly brush her hair behind her ear. A faint smile crosses her lips as she settles back into her slumber.


A week from turning twenty-seven I was medically discharged from the Army. When I came home I knew no one, not even my childhood best friend. He said I had changed. I had. My family didn’t see me as the young boy who left, nor did I see my family from that boy’s eyes.

I learned to be alone. I would limp through the trails at the park breathing a world once familiar back into my lungs. A young woman would park everyday at lunchtime and sit in her truck. I would watch her from the tree line. She sang, she wrote, she wept. When she smiled it was amazing Miles, but I just couldn’t look away when she cried. I could see that she too was broken deep into her soul like me. I had to marry her.

Anna likes to tell people I am her hero; she tells them that I saved her in that park. She also tells people that I am a veteran. “Andy’s a war hero.” Its hard to hear those words, I am not the one who died for my country. I know, I know; you would tell me not every man stands up for something, and not every man’s price is the same, but damnit—I am not the hero! Getting blown up means nothing after all I have seen, after all I have lost.

I love my wife and children, but this bond is very different. I can’t tell Anna about the man I shot without worrying about stealing from her what was stolen from me.

Killing changes a man.

I reach to the nightstand grabbing for my tattered watch. I push the familiar button to display the time, the green LED light flashes 2350, it would be 0750 in Iraq. I rub my thumb across the head of the watch and feel the embedded sand still stuck in its grooves; I am on a rooftop in the middle of Baghdad, my sights are zeroed in. I looked down to my watch, 0750. I concentrate on taking in slow steady breaths. Hodgee pops his head out from the side of the building around four hundred meters away. I squeeze the trigger on impulse; I watch him as his soul leaves his face before he stops breathing. So many men live as that man had in his last seconds, soulless and breathing. I can never become one of those men.

I am handed an Ace of Spades. A silent gesture given with a nod from my commanding officer—confirmed kill. You were so proud of me, who would have thought just hours later Hodgee would be holding his own card for you.

After the explosion I was able to come home. I remember the smell of American soil like it was grandma’s apple pie. They unloaded me from the plane as my senses were submerged in the fresh linen sheets of home. I was taken from Ballad, in Iraq, to Walter Reed in Maryland. The shock of the injuries alone was hard enough, but to see civilian Americans and recognize a life in their eyes that no longer existed in the men I served with, or mine, was devastating. They were so foreign: their language so complacent, their food so hot it would burn my tongue. The smell of their immaculate flesh smothered in fragrance and freedom scraped at my heart as the dirt and filth stained on my soul seeped from my pores.

I can still smell my mothers lilac bush and connect it to the young, blond haired girl fresh out of nursing school who led my traumatic brain injury group. She would wear pink and purple scrubs that fit her body and her eyes would be lined with heavy-handed turquoise.

“What color is this Andrew?” She held up a card with a color splotch on it.

“B-b-b-b-blue.” Shit, I can say blue just fine in my head.

“Good job!” She smiled at me as if I were a child, “and this one?”

“I-i-i-i-it’s b-b-b-blue too!”

“Oh so close, its turquoise.” She smiled again as she reached for a new stack of cards.

What is the difference? Turquoise or blue; it’s the same damn thing. I looked over to the other men in my group. They rolled their eyes and shook their heads. The younger man sitting next to me leaned over and whispered. “I hear ya man, don’t worry, you’ll have your voice back soon. Remember, it’s all in here.” He pointed to his head.


My memory fades with my daughter’s cough from the other room. The cough from her asthma isn’t as bad as it used to be. After losing my job I couldn’t provide for my family the way a man should, that’s when Julie began coughing. I had to do something. I had to sign up for the toughest war of all, military compensation and pension.

I fought tooth and nail for my benefits.

Julie was enough to push me into admitting I needed help. I was nervous when I first went to the VA.

“How are you today Mr. James?” A dark skinned man with a heavy Middle Eastern accent wearing a white coat asks.

“If I am to be honest,” I begin.

“You are.” Dr Kakish says.

“What?”

“You are to be honest,” he doesn’t look up to me, doesn’t meet my eyes. His tone didn’t change.

You can do this shit for brains. It was your voice in my head, or maybe my voice, so often they blend. I closed my eyes and took in a slow drag of air. “ I am a mess. I can’t sleep, I can’t remember anything, I hear shit, the dreams, the flashbacks, the anxiety never stops. I can’t be in a crowd and I have to sit in the far back corner of a room. I get head-aches all the time. Every time I eat I feel sick and often I throw up when I do. I get dizzy and have to catch myself from falling. My legs give out.” I took a breath. I rambled on and on getting it all out. When I was done I finally opened my eyes. I did it.

I sat in a waiting area and looked for my name to appear on the pharmacy list.

“First time eh?” Asked a short stumpy old man with massive eyebrows.

“Yeah” I said as I looked from his dead eyes. He chuckled.

“Best grab you one of them magazines over there.” He nodded his head towards a stack on a broken down table. I got up and looked through the magazines and found one. When I turned to go back to my seat it was taken. The old man chuckled again. I shook my head and went and sat further away.

“Those assholes always play that shit, its like its all they’ve got to do.” A dark haired man close to my age said.

“I guess it is all they’ve got to do, hell that will be us in a few years won’t it?”

“I hope not,” he shook my hand, “Grey.”

“Andy, nice to meet you. You here on your benefits?”

Grey shook his head, “I wish, they keep denying me.”

“I just went through all that, I could help you if you want.” I looked at Grey, waiting for an answer, and saw the first smile of the day.

“That’d be awesome man.” He pulled out his cell phone.We exchanged numbers and I felt something inside me say that this is what I could do. If I could help one of my brothers, maybe I could help more; maybe I could help Grace.

I was given the gift of time. I was retired, unable to work and only thirty-one. It felt nice to have a purpose again. Civilians sometimes ask me what I plan do with the rest of my time, and then they cut me off as I attempt to answer. “You’re so lucky,” they say through lying smiles and gritted teeth before they rush off. I want to tell them my answer; I want to tell them they are wrong. I desperately want them to see more than anything that war is not lucky, and too much time can drive a man insane. Tomorrow they will go to work, and never know what it is like to scan rooftops for snipers. Their children will go to school and recite the Pledge of Allegiance to our nations flag. I bet they didn’t teach them that the flag means much more; red for the blood shed, white for peace, blue for infantry. All that really matters is that I understand the sacrifice I took on as my burden to the world. I try not to wonder if civilians truly get the sacrifices of war, or what is left in the world because of it. But how can I forget the miles traveled? How can I forget the helmets hung from rifles in dead men’s boots?

I hear Muslims call me “infidel” and I hear Americans call me a “killer.” I try to smile as I remember I must judge myself before I judge others. A Ranger. An Infidel. A Hero. I am none of those today. I am Andrew James; just a man. When the world wakes they will only know me as that. I will hide my disabilities; I will speak not of war. I will look only on good times, and speak of the future, for I am a wise man.

Seven years now and I know some things will never fade. Small things make it easier though, and victories make everything worth it.

Anna’s carmel eyes smiled at me last night when I hugged Grace. She wept in my arms as I held her, Anna came in and hugged us both.

“You’re taken care of now, I promised I would take care of you and now you will never have to worry.” I whispered into your wife’s ear.

“I don’t know how to thank you.” She whispered back.

“It’s not about thanks, its just money. Nothing can replace Miles.”She nodded with more tears and buried her head into my shoulder.

It seemed like an eternity as Anna and I held Grace. I thought it would heal me to get Grace your benefits, and in a small way it did.

I don’t know what I would do without Anna. I could not do the things I do without her, she calms me down and grounds me to this world I live in now. As much as Anna thinks I am her hero, she is my hero. Every Brother and Sister I help tell me they don’t know where they would be without me, but it is I who doesn’t know where I would be without them.

When I leave this house I seek them, my unknown brothers. They know me as I know them, for we wear the same mask. Civilians do not see our disguise, but we know it like home. The battle scars of the mind seep out from our eyes. We see a small limp and slow pace only a broken body mended by duct tape can walk: our posture, clothing, and high n’ tights all give us away to a knowing eye. A lonely man, newly out into society sees me, a brother, and feels his heart beat for he will know his family once more. I will find my peace the day I die. You will greet me in Heaven, my battle buddy—my best friend. Then your face will no longer haunt me, and your voice will no longer connect to mine.