Mass Casualties Read online

  MASS

  CASUALTIES

  A YOUNG MEDIC'S TRUE STORY

  OF DEATH,

  DECEPTION,

  AND DISHONOR

  IN IRAQ

  SPC MICHAEL ANTHONY

  Copyright © 2009 by Michael Ruehrwein

  All rights reserved.

  This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any

  form without permission from the publisher; exceptions are

  made for brief excerpts used in published reviews.

  “Reintegration” reprinted with permission from Samuel W. Tarr.

  Published by

  Adams Media, a division of F+W Media, Inc.

  57 Littlefield Street, Avon, MA 02322. U.S.A.

  www.adamsmedia.com

  ISBN 10: 1-4405-0183-1

  ISBN 13: 978-1-4405-0183-8 (paperback)

  ISBN 13: 978-1-44050-438-9 (EPUB)

  Printed in the United States of America.

  J I H G F E D C B A

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  is available from the publisher.

  This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information with regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional advice. If legal advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought.

  — From a Declaration of Principles jointly adopted by a Committee of the American Bar Association and a Committee of Publishers and Associations

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  “Mass Casualties finds the truth behind the most recent propaganda — the small stories, the base commonality of human nature revealed in war. A purely personal and timely story, moving from black comedy to a sun-baked depression, anchored with unsparing honesty.”

  Samuel Sheridan

  Author of A Fighter's Heart: One Man's Journey Through the World of Fighting

  “Anthony's painful account of his time at war is at times difficult to read. This coming-of-age war memoir details the very gut-wrenching journey he takes into manhood in the backdrop of grueling combat. His voice is unique and deserves to be heard.”

  David Bellavia

  Co-Founder of Vets For Freedom; Medal of Honor and Distinguished Service Cross Nominee; Author of House to House: An Epic Memoir of War

  “Michael Anthony's candid narrative of his service in Iraq is far removed from the glamorized picture of military life that has become a staple of our mass media. Instead, we are confronted with a world of men and women psychologically strained to the breaking point. You will share his sense of disillusionment after reading this eye-opening memoir.”

  David Livingstone Smith, PhD

  Author of The Most Dangerous Animal: Human Nature and the Origins of War

  “Mass Casualties is a raw, vivid look at the realities behind the daily news about American soldiers overseas. You will think differently about news from Iraq and Afghanistan after reading this book.”

  James Fallows

  Author of Blind into Baghdad: America's War in Iraq

  “Glossy recruitment brochures tell one story. This book tells another. Beyond the slick fantasies promoted by the Pentagon and the euphemisms reported by the news media, Mass Casualties offers readers an account of war that cuts against the mythical grain.”

  Norman Solomon

  Author of War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death

  “The human cost of war is excessive, as this harsh but thoroughly absorbing book by Michael Anthony reveals. It's a riveting account of life within the pitch of battle, giving us — his grateful readers — the feel of this war, its dreadful tensions, its horror, its absurdity. Mass Casualties is an important book, and it deserves wide attention.”

  Jay Parini

  Author of Promised Land: Thirteen Books That Changed America

  “There are plenty of books about war, usually featuring the trigger-pullers who directly engage the enemy. Mass Casualties looks at war from a different angle, from those who try to save the wounded and dying. Make no mistake: Their war is just as difficult. Michael Anthony has captured the intensity of the OR, the crushing fatigue of shift duty, and the inevitable clash of personalities that are part of any military unit. It's a great read for anyone who wants to see the horror of war from a new perspective.”

  Tom Neven

  Marine Corps Veteran; Author of On the Frontline

  “The full story of the Iraq War remains to be written, but the firsthand accounts of young people who were there can help us begin to try and make sense of what is often taken as a senseless conflict. Amidst the politics and economics of warfare there are individuals struggling to survive, both physically and emotionally. The least we can do is listen to their stories with genuine empathy and an open mind, as we seek pathways from war toward peace.”

  Randall Amster, JD, PhD

  Executive Director of the Peace & Justice Studies Association

  “A moving account of a young soldier's story. This deeply personal memoir gives voice to the countless soldiers we have yet to hear from and never will.”

  Yvonne Latty

  Author of In Conflict: Iraq War Veterans Speak Out On Duty, Loss, and the Fight to Stay Alive

  “Mass Casualties is a raw and humorous account of Army medics dodging harm from mortars and the military bureaucracy. Michael Anthony gives us a gripping memoir of a young soldier trapped in a world of incompetence and hypocrisy that results from a total failure of leadership. This insider's view of what really happens in an operating room full of combat casualties and the effect it has on the caregivers is eye-opening. Our wounded warriors and those who care for them deserve far better.”

  Colonel Steven O'Hern

  Author of The Intelligence Wars: Lessons from Baghdad

  “Michael Anthony writes in the tradition of Joseph Heller and Richard Hooker, demystifying the theater of war and revealing our soldiers to be all-too-human figures — comic and petty, but sometimes heroic and tragic.”

  Marc Folkoff

  Author of Poems from Guantanamo: The Detainees Speak

  “This isn't a portrait of the typical army experience in Iraq; this is one young man's perspective on what happens when poor leadership fails the challenge of command. Michael Anthony calls it like he saw it, refusing platitudes of the virtuous American soldier. If only Vonnegut or Heller had material like this.”

  Alex Vernon

  Author of Arms and the Self: War, the Military, and Autobiographical Writing

  “Michael Anthony's candid journal of his tour in Iraq offers a vivid sense of day-to-day life in a war-zone medical unit. He enriches our understanding of the variety of ways — sanctioned and unsanctioned, honorable and sordid — our occupying army deals with boredom, fear, frustration, and loneliness.”

  Christian G. Appy

  Author of Patriots: The Vietnam War Remembered from All Sides

  “SPC Anthony's authentic journal opens our eyes to the corrosive effect of the military mindset on human sensibilities. This is the unadulterated grit of history, in the here-and-now.”

  Ray Raphael

  Historian; Author of Founders: The People Who Brought You a Nation

  “Mass Casualties is a true-to-life exposé of the absurdity of the war in Ir
aq. Anthony lays bare the hyper-reality of American knowinglessness about Iraq, and captures the day-to-day insanity of the war. Mass Casualties is a must-read for patriot Americans concerned with the U.S. global empire and the undisclosed truths of the Iraq occupation.”

  Peter Phillips

  Professor of Sociology and Director of Project Censored, Sonoma State University

  “SPC Michael Anthony channels Baghdad ER, Catch-22, M*A*S*H, and Lord of the Flies as he narrates his dark, entertaining, and tragic journey through war. A thoughtful, candid, and mesmerizing glimpse into the enigmatic world of a U.S. Army combat support hospital.”

  David J. Danelo

  Former Marines Captain; Purple Heart Recipient and Iraq War Veteran; Author of Blood Stripes: The Grunt's View of the War in Iraq

  “Michael Anthony's book Mass Casualties is unique and important. Readers of this incredible book will never look at war or its aftermath in quite the same way again.”

  Stanley Krippner, PhD

  Coauthor of Haunted by Combat: Understanding PTSD in War Veterans

  “From traumatic injuries to anthrax shots, Michael Anthony has captured in intricate detail life in a combat-zone operating room. As someone who's done two tours myself, even I learned an incredible amount.”

  Brandon R. Friedman

  Iraq Veteran; Author of The War I Always Wanted: The Illusion of Glory and the Reality of War

  “A scathing, satirical, and often shocking trip through “the other war” in Iraq — the war within the U.S. Army, and within a soldier's soul. Michael Anthony's memoir is the perfect antidote for anyone who would glorify war or its impact on warriors. He has penned his generation's M*A*S*H, with echoes of Catch-22 and Hunter Thompson's Fear and Loathing sagas.

  Charles Jones

  Journalist in the Iraq War; Author of Red, White or Yellow?: The Media and the Military at War in Iraq

  “Soldiers are witnesses to chaos and carnage, and there is a false belief that they should recover from what they have seen and done, and have had done to them. A dark secret about war is that it seldom builds character. Michael Anthony has written an honest book that is both sobering and relevant.”

  Donald Anderson

  Editor of “War, Literature & the Arts,” an international journal of the humanities; Author of When War Becomes Personal: Soldiers' Accounts from the Civil War to Iraq

  “Compelling. Frank. Funny. Disturbing. Michael Anthony loses his innocence in a slow-motion train wreck you can't help but watch. Mass Casualties opens up a brand new conversation on the War in Iraq.”

  Damon DiMarco

  Author of Heart of War: Soldiers' Voices from the Front Lines of Iraq

  “If you are afraid of the TRUTH don't read this book. SPC Michael Anthony's personal experience of WAR has no censor. Reading his book is a journey into the battlefields of death, sex, and the loss of his innocence.”

  Lawrence Winters

  Vietnam Veteran; Author of The Making and Un-making of a Marine

  “Mass Casualties is a terrific story of war, emergency medicine, and the men and women who suffer to treat wounded soldiers and civilians. On top of this, he tells the story beautifully, managing to convey both the chaos and the boredom of life in a combat zone.”

  John Merson

  Vietnam Veteran; Author of War Lessons

  “A raw and uncompromising account of one Army medic's experience in Iraq.”

  Tim Pritchard

  Journalist; Author of Ambush Alley: The Most Extraordinary Battle of the Iraq War

  “A heart-wrenching tale of the war in Iraq imbued with a sense of outrage, but judicious in its descriptions of those who tried to change things.”

  Robert K. Brigham

  Professor of History and International Relations; Author of Iraq, Vietnam, and the Limits of American Power

  To the men and women of my unit in Iraq:

  It no longer matters how we got here,

  only where we go from here.

  The stories contained herein represent one man's journey in Iraq; they do not represent any organization or person other than the author. Names, identities, and small facets of stories have been changed to supply anonymity for the characters involved. Although everything written is based on Michael Anthony's experiences while in Iraq — based on his own recollection and journal entries — they do not represent word-for-word documentation; instead they are retold as if the reader were in the room with the author as he explains the stories.

  Everything that follows has been verified by Anthony and several fellow soldiers who served with him while in Iraq.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I would like to thank all of the great people at Adams Media for their hard work and dedication to my book. A big thanks to my editor Andrea Norville, Karen Cooper, Beth Gissinger, Paula Munier, Wendy Simard, Frank Rivera, and Bob Shuman. Thanks to CR, MR, and ET — for letting me get away with not cleaning the house while I wrote.

  REINTEGRATION

  Straighten up, it's alright

  You can look me in the eyes

  True, I am an American soldier

  Serving this country, called home

  This does not mean

  I've humiliated prisoners

  Burnt villages

  Or killed any babies,

  I am just like you.

  There was a time

  When I felt the same

  That this uniform meant something

  I reached for it

  And all it offered

  Only to be led into war

  By mercenaries — hopeless and blind

  Now that my tour is over

  Let me slip back into the world

  That I left behind.

  We are now, simply neighbors

  Occupying the same tenement

  With the rats in the basement

  And the leaking roof.

  So please, save your parade

  I've got no use for it now

  I was just, doing my job

  Samuel W. Tarr

  PROLOGUE

  “You are going to war! It is no longer a question of if you are going to go, but a question of when. Look around! In a few years, or even a few months, several of you will be dead. Some of you will be severely wounded or so badly mutilated that your own mother can't stand the sight of you. And for the real unlucky ones, you will come home so emotionally disfigured that you wish you had died over there.”

  It's week seven of basic training and my drill sergeant is preparing us for war, and the possibility that we might soon be dead. Eighteen years old and I am preparing myself to die.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  REINTEGRATION

  PROLOGUE

  MONTH 1

  MONTH 2

  MONTH 3

  MONTH 4

  MONTH 5

  MONTH 6

  MONTH 7

  MONTH 8

  MONTH 9

  MONTH 10

  MONTH 11

  MONTH 12

  EPILOGUE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  MONTH 1

  “THIS IS THE TIME WHEN LOGIC AND REASON NEED TO OVERRIDE EMOTION.”

  WEEK 1, DAY 1, MOSUL, IRAQ

  0900 HOURS, AIRFIELD

  Loaded with gear — a three-pound helmet, thirty-pound armored vest, eight-pound weapon, and thirty-pound rucksack — we're running. There are four hundred of us from thirty-seven different states across the United States. All of us have been brought together to run the 178th Combat Support Hospital. In the plane we were briefed about how the bad guys love to bomb the airfield even though we're in Kurd territory, supposedly our allies.

  A man is coming through; I tear my gaze from the sky. I automatically salute him, a colonel.

  “What are you doing?”

  The colonel glares right at me.

  “Are you crazy?” Denti elbows me hard. “They want to take out the higher-ups, not the low ones on the totem pole.”

  It's been almost two years s
ince I've graduated basic training and was told I'd be going to war. Since then, I've finished a year of college and four months of pre-deployment training at Fort McCoy in Wisconsin. Now, here I am in Iraq with a small, thick, Greek man from Colorado named Denti. He acts like such a kid even though he's twenty-three, which makes him only three years older than me. Denti's always been a storyteller and I quickly learned to never believe anything he says, including the fact that he was a pimp, drug dealer, gang member, and a weightlifting power-lifter — he says he only joined the Army because he wanted to get away from the hectic lifestyle.

  “If there was a sniper nearby and he saw you salute an officer, he'd know exactly who to kill. Didn't you ever watch Forrest fucking Gump?!” Denti yells, as he lights a cigarette.

  The sky is yellow, orange, and brown scratched together — not like the blue sky in Boston. An Iraqi man is staring at us; I see him: He wears a black and white turban, which I know means he's been to Mecca. I'm not sure if I've seen skin tone like his before; it's golden auburn. I notice that it's the same color as the buildings, and the buildings are the same color as the sand blowing in my face. They're the same color as the sky. I think that if I were fifty feet away and there was a pile of sand, a building, and a naked Iraqi man, I wouldn't be able to differentiate between them. They all look like they belong together: the tiny buildings, the man with a face that's tired, the sand, the sky, and the sun.

  In the distance is a dome, clearly American made; it doesn't belong at all. We're not supposed to be here either? It's the northern part of the country, a hot spot in Iraq. The enemy is looking for the officers, the leaders. Don't salute in a war zone.

  Lesson learned.

  WEEK 1, DAY 2, IRAQ

  0730 HOURS, OR

  I've got a belly full of bacon and eggs and I'm about to have my arms elbow deep in someone's stomach. I feel anxiety build up, but I know I can't show it. Someone's life is going to be in my hands. Not just a patient, but someone's son, daughter, brother, sister, mother, or father — in my hands. The worst part of surgery isn't the surgery itself, it's before the surgery when you're waiting and thinking. Thinking about what if I mess up, what if the patient dies and it's my fault. This is the time when logic and reason need to override emotion. Emotion can lead to death while reason and logic lead to life. If during surgery I let fear take over, I will become distracted and the patient will die, but if I will myself to stop thinking and let my muscle memory take over, the muscle memory that was programmed into me during my OR (operating room) schooling, then I know everything will be okay. Willing myself to stop feeling is nearly impossible, though. My body is full of emotions swirling around inside, with each one fighting to be the strongest. The fear hits, then the anxiety, then the nervousness. I stand there, taking it all in. I am paralyzed but I know what I must do. I close my eyes and breathe slowly and deeply. With the exhale, I tell myself that I don't care if the patient dies. I tell myself that emotions are pointless and that nothing matters. I open my eyes back up and the fear, anxiety, and nervousness are gone. I am blank. I feel nothing, and this is how it has to be.