Knock on the Door- An Army Brat Story

It was 2005.

My mother, older brother Aaron, and my step father had just moved from central Kentucky to Fort Drum, New York in the middle of December. I remember how much the temperature changed each time we got out of my moms Ford Explorer each stop on the 16 hour long drive up. When we pulled out of our driveway in Somerset the temperature gauge (which we considered very high tech in a vehicle at the time) had read 43 degrees, when we arrived at Fort Drum, it was displaying a brisk -17.

After spending 3 weeks living in the damp, musty base motel we finally received housing just 4 days before my step father deployed for the first time. I did not know it then, but he was in what is now referred to as "The Triangle of Death", and his unit was involved in some of the heaviest combat to date in the region. Fallujah was not a kind place.

Adjusting to becoming an "Army Family" was jarring. Coming from an already broken home after my mom and dads divorce just 4 years prior, moving away from all my friends and family in Kentucky, just to be plopped in the middle of what I saw as a barren snow desert was making me bitter. My mom constantly pointed out how I didn't laugh anymore, and how much she missed it.

Although I am sure being an 11 year old girl did not help much either, there is a certain level on angst that just exists at that stage.

This deployment was his first. After getting out of the Army and trying his hand at civilian life, it took him 3 years to realize it just didn't work for him. His rough upbringing had made him perfect for Army life.

My step father left quickly, he had already been at the base for about 2 months before we arrived and he had made friends. They walked away from shivering, crying wives and children singing "Leaving on a Jet Plane". Interestingly enough we have been told his unit still sings that song as a group walking to the planes every time they leave, even almost 20 years later.

They were in country and on active mission status for just 2 days before the first casualty occurred. An IED flipped a humvee and a 19 year old specialist drowned in a drainage ditch.

A couple of weeks later another IED ended the lives of a 23 and 32 year old. Both were fathers of children under the age of 4.

I vividly recall my step father setting us all down to explain how things would go should something happen to him.. He leaned forward in the recliner he usually lounged in, his knees set to shoulder width and resting his elbows on his thighs. His usually care free face was set in a manner I would see in increasing frequencies over the years, brow furrowed and his voice dropped as he spoke.

"If anything happens to me, they are going to send 2 men to the door. They may be in regular suits but they will probably be in dress greens. They'll tell you what happened. Just because they are hear does not mean that I am gone, I could just be injured so don't immediately jump to the worse."

He talked more, but I shut down after that.

My brother Aaron was 14, scrawny and still going through the squeaky stage of his voice changing. I watched as each word spoken in the family meeting added more weight to his shoulders, not processing what was being said.

I was able to force myself to concentrate as my step dad turned his head to my brother "Boy, you are going to be the man of the house while I am gone. Your job is to open that door for your momma if they have to come. Don't let her or Sissy be the one to do it if you can help it."

We waited wondering if we would ever be the ones to get that porch visit from a young stranger coming clad in a shroud of Army issued green, like a military grade grim-reaper, to tell us our lives were never going to be the same again. Each time we heard something happened, the dread and reality that it could be us grew.

Each casualty and "event" meant that communication to the outside world was completely cut off at the Forward Operating Base. There had been 2 incidents on the base where a fellow soldier had called home and told a spouse that someone had been lost, and the spouse rushed over to comfort the grieving widow, only to end up being the one to share the life altering news.The US Military had a protocol for notifying next of kin in the event the worse should happen, and that took time.

12 hours later he was singing that damn song, sauntering away like it was the most normal thing in the world while tears froze to our faces.

After 2 casualty events, endless news coverage of the worsening condition in Fallujah, and phone calls every 3-4 days. Suddenly the calls stopped.

5 days of nothing.

6 days of nothing. 7 days.

10 days.

2 weeks.

Rumor spread around the base that his unit had been hit. Hard.

The Family Readiness Group, lead by the rear detachment Chaplin and Sargent called a meeting.

They needed to tell us that there had been 5 confirmed casualties. 3 families had been notified, they were locating one next of kin who had left the base without notice, and 1 family that was local to the base. They said they wouldn't usually address the situation like this but they needed to collect contact numbers from everyone to try and track down one individual.

We made the 3 minute drive from the Community Center to our box-filled home in silence.

When we got home my mom went up into her room and shut the door. Not knowing what to do, my brother and I simply turned on the TV and started our homework at the kitchen table.

Not long after we got home, there we heard 3 quick raps on the door.

It echoed up the stairs. After a what felt like an eternity, I heard my mom begin to scream. The kind of scream that sounds like the world has ended.

Aaron slowly pushed his chair back and took a deep breath. I could see his hands shaking.

"Go upstairs with mom."

It was the only time I ever did what my brother told me without question. I ran up the stairs into my moms room to see her curled up in a ball by the window. With the way the house was laid out, you could look out that window and see the front door.

I saw the backs of two men in plain black suits holding bibles standing in our doorway.

I ran back downstairs, hoping maybe my step father was just injured and they were there to tell us he was on his way to the hospital in Germany where they handled the more traumatic surgical repairs.

They knocked on the door again. From the landing I saw Aaron frozen in front of the door in a trance.

There was a stillness in the house that made each step feel like it was taking the energy required to run a marathon. The poorly lit house got even darker. The commercial grade tiles laid by the housing development company felt even colder on my bare feet as reached the bottom of the stairs.

He took another ragged breath, with composure beyond his 14 years he opened the door.

"Can I help you sir?"

The man leaned his head in the door, hearing my moms wales of grief and fear.

"Is your mother home?" he said in a light hearted, inquisitive tone that did not match the gravity of the situation.

Aarons voice began to shake "I'm the man of the house right now, can I help you?"

The man had the indecency to smile, "Well, we are going door to door to share the good news of our Lord and Sav..."

A wave of relief washed over my body as I bounded back up the stairs to tell my mom it was just some one inviting us to church.

I hadn't made it all the way up the stairs before I heard the man begin to scream "Wait! Wait"... I ran right passed my mom to the window just in time to see my brother chasing to the two men down the street with a baseball bat.

All at once the stillness lifted and my moms cell phone rang.

APO Card Caller flashed across the screen. It was my step dad.

She was still crying so hard she couldn't notice. I, on the other hand, had begun to laugh hysterically.

I answered the phone and put it on speaker.

Through tearful laughs I explained what happened, and my step dad laughed too. I could hear him turn to those around him and exclaim "My boy is about to beat the hell out of some Jehovah Witnesses" and a roar of deep laughter came back through the phone receiver.

He had me hold the phone up to my moms ear and her cries shifted from that of total despair to pure joy.

I went back downstairs and put my shoes on and went running down the street after my brother, I saw the two men speed past in a red sedan with a broken front head light and a cracked windshield. Aaron was about 100 yards behind them, still running.

About 15 minutes the military police were at our door.

They laughed at the situation harder than I had.

I was too young to understand why mom didn't seem happier. Now I realize she fully understood what those 5 other families were about to start going through. The blinds in her bedroom window remained tightly closed the rest of the deployment.

My step dad made it home in late July of 2006, 18 months after he left. Unharmed, at least physically.

Every single soldier in my step dads company came up, patted him on the back and told my brother "Good Job Slugger".

To this day, Aaron doesn't laugh when anyone tells that story.