“Is it any different reading it now than before you left?” The Wife asked me. She was headed out the door to pick up the oldest three from Hebrew. I had dropped them off earlier to give her a break, now she was going to pick them up while I watched Number Four at home. I think that qualified as giving her a break too.

I was reading The Last True Story That I’ll Ever Tell. Again. Or, more correctly, finishing it. There were a few vignettes at the end that I had not read, including the eponymous section, which garnered the most attention for deviating from the voice and meter of the rest of the book. Rightfully so, since it is entirely different from the other vignettes.

And it was a little different the second time around. Since I forgot exactly where I left off, I picked up at the end of the novel, wherever it began to seem unfamiliar. There was one story about a kid that was in his unit, younger, who was a student at a Florida university. Although the story is one of the shorter selections, running two pages and change, it describes the way that he, the author, always thinks of the other soldier covered in blood, lying on a stretcher, waiting to be evacuated. I had read that before I left, and it was a little different now.

Hillcat Three One, this is Mystery Seven Two on twenty-nine ninety, ETA five mikes…

Danny wasn’t hearing a word I was saying, just staring out the front windshield. “Doc said that he doesn’t even need the bird, but it was already in the air, so they are going to just fly him out,” I tried to tell him.

Hillcat Three One, Mystery Seven Two, ETA on the ground two mikes, approaching from south to north, mark the position…

Doozer had the bird in sight almost as soon as I told him to keep an eye out. “One, this is Four, birds coming up on the six now,” I called as the roar of the helicopter filled the air, passing right over our heads heading for the landing zone ahead. They could hear it I’m sure if their gunners had not called it out already also, but the automatic actions were what were keeping me moving, keeping me from sinking into the same zone as Danny next to me.

Mystery Seven Three, Mystery Seven Two on twenty nine ninety, on the ground now…

I put down the book and had a feeling of what Crawford was trying to spell out in his last vignette. There is a fascination from others of what it is to be there, what went down, which is perfectly natural. But when I see on 60 Minutes a report on medical evacuations and trauma care in Iraq, I don’t experience the pictures and sounds the same way. When I see the images of the birds coming in on an evacuation, I know that feeling of the beating of the rotor blades, the low roar mixed with a subtle hum of a gas turbine engine, the dust, the smell. It is not what the psychologists call “intrusive thoughts,” images and feelings that impose themselves on me and my conscious against my will, it is just that I can feel the automatic responses coming back, the slow measured breathing of the body getting ready for high oxygen demand. Which is all perfectly natural and normal.

Afternoon rush hour was something with the northbound lanes jam packed as I came back from dropping of the oldest three at Hebrew. I glanced down to change the radio station on the dial and looked back up. Instantly my eyes focused on the pizza box in the middle of the road, the one in the middle of the lane as I was bearing down on it. Instinctively I swung the vehicle to the left, going for the oncoming lane, thinking to avoid the debris. This was out of place, something someone obviously put in the road, something firmly in the category of Not Normal.

Something told me that the oncoming traffic was not going to part like the Red Sea, so I cut back to the right, choked up at the last second knowing that there might be something in my blind spot, that this was not the same place. With a final “oh shit” I curled into a ball, eyes clenched tight, hearing the crunch of the box under the tires, waiting for the boom that would never come…

…and it dawned on me that debris in the road in America is mostly harmless.

Safely in the kitchen, I was trying to dole out lasagna before everyone got home. The Wife was out now and I was left to tend to the youngest all by my lonesome. Number Four came toddling in as I was struggling with the stove. It was beeping, and I shut off the timer, but the oven was still on. How is damn thing supposed to work?

I finally figured out the electronics, though, and was cutting up the lasagna in the pan. She was helping me by opening up the dishwasher and pulling out the silverware. “Thanks, honey,” I said taking the spoon from her hand. I put it in the drawer. And the game was on.

While I spooned out dinner with one hand, I took silverware with the other and put it in the drawers. We finally had to stop, though, when she pulled out the pans and bowls. “Honey, stop,” I said to the drooling, grinning kid looking at me. “I don’t know which one is for meat and which one is for dairy. And even if I did, I don’t know where they go. So let’s put this up and wait for Mommy to come home.” She responded by putting back the pot, closing the door to the dishwasher, and hitting the right combination of buttons to start the washer again. “No!”

So, here is to the one that has the tougher part of the deployment and manages this chaos every day. I love my wife. I have no idea how she does it, but she does and does it well.