Happy Homecomings

Chapter 6

"So," said Ray. "You know Specialist Pham isn't from our post but was deployed from the U.S. to augment Private Evans's Security and Transport Company. They weren't steady partners, but they did pull a lot of patrols together and apparently, they hit it off. Big time. It seems they got to whiling away the time on long convoy trips by sharing fantasies and tales of sexual escapades. She's apparently just a year or two older, but several years more experienced. One day, in order to keep up with her stories, he finally told her about our encounter, but left out details that could identify us. All the dirty road talk apparently led to them sneaking off after they got back to camp and having their own sexual escapades."

Amber's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "And just how do you know so much about their sex lives? Did he tell you all that today in his decompression interview?"

Ray hesitated, just a moment, but enough to raise Amber's suspicions. Then he said, "Well, we did touch on the topic today, but I already knew everything I told you from back in theater." His wife's eyes widened, and Ray carried on quickly. "It was just one of the topics that came up during our 'late appointments'."

Amber had heard about the late appointments, just not that they had included such personal sexual revelations. Amber knew that in the aftermath of the ambush, Evans and the others had been directed to be counseled about the event to mitigate against the effects of PTSD. The fact that their counselor, Captain Sempels, was in the same event and even more likely to be suffering Post Traumatic Stress Disorder because of it, was conveniently overlooked due to the scarcity of trained counselors. The fact that they usually got together after the rest of the clinic had closed, was also overlooked as operational necessity. And the fact that they shared some non-alcoholic beers during those sessions wasn't so much overlooked as accepted as a technique for relaxing the counselees.

What Captain Sempels's superiors hadn't been told, was that Ray had gone much further than they knew in creating that relaxed atmosphere.

If they had been back in Germany or in the States and Evans had saved his ass, Ray certainly would have bought the kid a few rounds as part of his thank you's. But, of course, downrange, operating under General Order No. 1 - Prohibited Activities for Soldiers, there were no rounds to be had, let alone supplied by an officer to a young soldier. Unless of course, you were a medical provider who had regular contact with medics from other coalition nations that did not have a G.O.-1 restriction.

Ray had told Amber those counseling sessions in the immediate aftermath had been as open as possible to help the counselees relax and talk the whole thing through. In the case of Ray's sessions with Evans and the other team members, 'Doc' Sempels had mixed his desire to say thanks with the effort to help people relax by having at least one of the shared malt beverages be the real deal. Guinness or Birra Moretti supplied by a British or Italian medic with the Multi-National Force - Iraq. That particular detail was never entered in the counseling reports.

"So..." mused Amber. "You'd sit around getting drunk with this young soldier and he would tell you about his sex life with another young soldier. Including how he had made a voyeur encounter with us a part of their sex talk. Is that about it?"

"Of course not, you know we never got drunk. Intoxication would be too hard to hide. We simply mixed in one real beer with two fake ones."

She just scowled.

"As for the rest..." He shrugged. "I was there to listen. It's up to the client to decide what he or she needs to talk about."

Amber's eyes narrowed further. "What she needs to talk about?"

"Yes, I also counseled Pham. But no, we never had a real beer together. I really wish we could have; she deserved the same treatment as Evans and the other guys, but you know how it is with male-female interactions these days."

Amber did know. The privacy and confidentiality of a counseling meeting between herself and a student was vital to the success of the meeting. But the paranoia over potential abuse by the adult or false accusations by the student almost always required a third-party presence, especially when the counselor and counselee were opposite genders.

"And what did you two talk about, Captain Sempels?"

Amber calling him by his rank and surname, or Ray referring to her as Mrs. Sempels, was their signal to each other that they recognized they were walking close to professional lines. They were often able to help each other by talking through difficult counseling sessions but were always very careful with the soldier's or student's privacy.

"With Hue Lan Pham it was mostly about the attack, and some about her future in the Army. But never about her and Clem Evans," emphasized Ray. He paused and thought. "I've told you what happened, but have I made it clear what an absolute bad ass Specialist Pham was?"

For reply, Amber went to the fridge and took out the bottle of white, returning it after topping up both of their glasses. Then she sat down and gave him her most attentive look.

Chapter 7

Ray took a long sip of the wine before he began telling her a story she'd heard over video calls, but now in more detail.

"Okay, you already know the basics. We're cruising along to this remote village to treat whatever we can treat, offer immunizations for the kids, that kind of stuff. We're a small group, ten of us in three vehicles. Evans is out front driving the M1117 Guardian. He's got Pham riding shotgun and Tompkins up in the turret. Our translator, Ahmed Saleh, is inside with the medical supplies. My Humvee is second in line, with Joya from the security company behind the wheel, me in the passenger seat and Clara Morrow in back. She's going to check out the women villagers while I handle the men. Then another Humvee at the rear, with Johnson for security and Jason Speyer and Wanda Hemson to help me and Clara."

Amber easily pictured the small convoy going down a dusty Iraqi road. She knew all the Medical Company personnel Ray named. Clara Morrow was a captain like Ray, but a Nurse Practitioner. Jason Speyer and Wanda Hemson were both NCOs and senior medics. She hadn't known any of the security personnel before the deployment, but she sure knew all of their names now. She also noticed how Ray fell into Army-speak by calling their security detail by just their last names.

"Then, all the sudden, there's this incredible bang and the front left corner of the hummer just drops, and we come to a dead stop." His voice had gotten lower, now it too just stopped, like his ambushed vehicle. When it returned, it had a distracted quality to it. He'd told Amber that the whole memory was like a dream or a movie, and Amber thought she was hearing that now. Her heart ached for her husband.

"A huge cloud of dust envelops us, and I can't see anything outside. I hear Joya groan and start chanting, 'Fuck, fuck, fuck.' Then the rounds start zinging off the truck. It took me a second to figure that out, until a couple of cracks showed up on the driver's window and the windshield on that side.

"I shake Joya's shoulder and ask him if he can get us out of there. I know the truck's tough, but if a bad guy gets his AK focused, the windows are going to go. He growls like an animal and throws it into reverse. The front left is still dragging, but the other three wheels actually start pulling us backward. Then I guess the front axle let go, because the whole front end dropped and only the rear wheels were trying to drag us along."

Amber took her chair and moved it around behind Ray's. She leaned forward, wrapped her arms around his chest and lay her cheek against his upper back.

"We're barely moving, and I yell back to Clara and ask if she's okay and is she ready to make a run for one of the other vehicles. She says yes and I tell Joya to stop and get ready to climb over to my side, since the bullets seem to be coming from our left. That's when he tells me he's hit in the leg and doesn't know if he can walk.

"I unbuckle and start working on Joya's seat belts, thinking I'll have to pull him out, when suddenly this huge shadow blocks out all the light from the left. The dust is still too thick to see, but then I make out the sound of the Browning and I know it's Tompkins in the turret of the Guardian. Evans has come to get us."

Ray paused, rested one hand on top of his wife's where they crossed over his chest, and picked up his glass with the other. After taking a drink, he said, "The rest is a mixture of what I remember, what I was told by the others, and what we figured out from the evidence.

"When he realized we were hit, Evans wanted to get us in his vehicle and get us the hell out of there, but there wasn't enough room to turn around without risking a rollover off the edge of the road and down into a dry riverbed. So he threw it into reverse and set up a blocking screen for our Humvee. Tompkins was laying down suppressing fire with his machine gun and then Evans joined him with his M4 through the driver's firing port.

"I saw the Guardian later and it was tore up all along its left side. Thank God the bad guys only had AK's and not a machine gun like our Browning. Anyway, I'm trying to get Joya turned in his seat so I can pull him backwards by his ALICE harness over the center console, when a face suddenly comes out of the dust right up against his side window. I'm sure I screamed and probably dropped poor Joya. But then I see the helmet and realize it's one of our people. It's Pham and she's yelling at us to open the door.

"I get my shit together and push Joya in the back so he can straighten up and reach the door handle. As soon as he does, Pham rips the door open, grabs Joya by his harness in front and pulls him out and straight into a fireman's carry."

Ray stopped, peeled Amber's hands apart and spun his chair around to face her. His eyes were glowing, and his voice was strong and confident again.

"Can you see it, baby? Hue Lan Pham? You've seen her by video, a tiny Vietnamese girl, right? Five-foot-one, no more than one-ten or one-fifteen and already carrying a good twenty pounds of gear. And Joya's 200 pounds of solid muscle. She drapes this brute over her small shoulders and squats him like it's just another heavy day in the gym. Then she's walking and yelling, 'Move, move, move!'

"Clara jumps out of the back and helps Pham with Joya. I climb across the console and follow the three of them. Fortunately, it's only a few steps to where Ahmed is waiting in the open side hatch of the Guardian to pull us in. By the time I get across, they've already laid Joya down in the center aisle and when I come in, Pham grabs me and says, 'His leg. Check him out.' Then this tiny thing looks dead into my eyes and says, 'Save him,' and I just know she means, 'Or else.'"

"Holy shit," Amber mumbled before reaching across for her wine glass and taking a drink.

"It gets better," Ray said excitedly, sending Amber's eyebrows skywards.

"She runs back out of the truck."

"What? Why? Why not just ride in the back with you guys?"

"That's just it, she wasn't running back up to the front of the Guardian, she was running back to our Humvee."

Amber's mouth simply dropped open.

"She climbs in through the rear door and starts setting off magnesium flares next to some cans of ammo that were stored in the back. Then she finally hustles back over to us, climbs inside, closes the hatch and starts yelling, 'Go, go, go!' to Evans.

"Holy shit," Amber repeated.

"Bad ass?" asked Ray, holding up his glass for a toast.

"Fuckin' bad ass," she agreed, clinking.

Chapter 8

After a long sip, Ray continued in his excited voice. "Then Evans turns into Grand Theft Auto! First, he forces his way past our Humvee, shoving it off the road. Then he gets this 30,000-pound behemoth barreling backwards down this elevated dirt track that's following the curve of the river. The dry riverbed is only five feet below us, so we'd probably survive the fall, but we'd be sitting ducks for the bad guys.

"Pham is looking out the tiny rear port, yelling back whatever guidance she can give, and Tompkins has set aside the Browning and is using the grenade launcher to dissuade the assholes."

"Dissuade?"

Ray grinned. "Dissuade pretty convincingly. It seems the bad guys were using motorbikes to get around and Tompkins put a round right where three were parked together, keeping them from following us.

"Finally, Pham says she can see the other Humvee a little way ahead, waiting for us."

Ray paused and slowed down and spoke more directly to Amber, not telling the story now, but explaining something in it.

"Jason and Wanda were in the Humvee behind us in the convoy, with Specialist Franklin Johnson from the security company driving. They all had personal weapons, but no mounted machine gun and of course, just like me and Clara, Wanda and Jason are medics, not infantry. They stayed with us when we were hit but were taking rounds themselves and couldn't really get out of their vehicle to help. So Evans told Johnson to get his wards the hell out of there and make sure there weren't more insurgents behind us, closing the trap. They didn't take off before then."

Amber nodded that she understood the three soldiers hadn't abandoned the rest of the team.

Ray nodded back and picked up his story. "When they found a place wide enough to turn around, they got out and checked to be sure no other bad guys were around. Then Johnson started reversing back to us in case the Guardian had been crippled too. But soon they see us charging ass-backwards at them, so they go forward and guide us to the place where they turned around. It's just barely big enough for Evans to do the same thing with the bigger truck, but he manages it and then we all haul ass back to camp."

"Wow," said Amber before taking a long drink.

"Wow," agreed Ray. His body collapsed as he released the excitement from the story. He drank the last of his wine.

Then he got to his feet and turned on the oven to pre-heat. "Enough rabbit food for now, eh?" he said with forced humor.

His wife brought the rest of the veggie platter to the counter, put the plastic wrap back on it and tucked it back into the fridge.

"Magnesium flares?" she said.

Ray chuckled. "Pham said she'd be damned if she was going to let the assholes have the ammo we left behind or capture the secure comms gear in the Humvee."

"Fuckin-ay Bad Ass," said Amber.

Chapter 9

While Ray was putting rice into the rice cooker, his wife stepped up behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist. After a light hug, she moved her hand up and laid her palm on his pock-marked cheek. "And this?"

"Not really more to tell you than what I already have," he said. She wrapped her arms back around him and squeezed again. More tightly this time. He sighed.

"So, Tompkins and Evans had done a pretty good job of pinning down the ambush team, but finally one of them makes his way out in front of us and starts firing between our two vehicles. I was coming out of the Humvee door just then and the side window finally lets go. Of course, it's armored safety glass, so when it goes flying past, I pick up these few dings, but no real cuts."

"When the glass and the bullets went flying past," she said in a small voice.

"None of them even needed stitches," he continued, papering over her comment. He brought her hand back to his injured cheek. "You won't even see anything in another couple of weeks, even sooner when my tan fades." He moved her hand to his lips and kissed the fingertips.

She had heard the story before, but not like this, not with him finally in her arms where she could really see and feel for herself that he was whole. It was a terrible story, but she needed to hear it and she needed to hear it from him so it wouldn't stand between them.

"And this?" She moved her fingertips from his lips to the raised scar beside his eye.

"Best guess is that a piece of the side mirror caught me just under the edge of my helmet. It was kind of jagged, which is why the scar is rough. It'll go down more over time too, but I can probably also have a revision later."

He put his hand on top of hers and drew it down to his chest. She felt his body shiver and knew he was trying to shake off the mood.

"Then the shooting stopped, and I scurried across to the Guardian."

"The shooting just stopped?"

Ray's voice took on a quieter, more somber tone. "That's one of the things that Specialist Tompkins and I talk about, Mrs. Sempels. There's guilt there that bounces back and forth between having to do his job and not doing it soon enough."

Amber had initially heard this part of the story from the liaison officer who'd come to tell her about the attack. About how their machine gunner had put down the insurgent who'd almost shot Ray. She'd been happy to hear the asshole got what he deserved. But she hadn't thought how it would make a young man feel to kill his first person, professional soldier or not.

"That poor man," she said. "But I'm sure you've helped him, just like he helped you."

She squeezed him tight again.

"You know I was so mad that you stayed when you could have come back. But I think I get it now. You needed to help each other heal."

Ray had indeed been offered the chance to get on the medevac flight to Landstuhl with his injured driver, Sergeant Joya, but had declined since his injury only took him out of the game a few days for the required concussion protocol.

"I wanted to see you so bad," he said softly. "But I couldn't leave them."

"You did the right thing," she reassured him. Then she gave him one more squeeze and kissed the back of his neck before stepping back.

She gave herself a shake as Ray had done earlier, and said, "This looks like too much of a real meal to eat in gym clothes. I think I'm going to have a quick rinse and put on something a little nicer."

"Sounds good," said Ray, turning to her and kissing her forehead. "Once I've got everything going here, I'll follow you."

After the rice was cooking and the chicken was in the oven, Ray headed up the stairs of their rented German house and into their bedroom. Amber was sitting at her dressing table, brushing out her thick black tresses. She wore a light sundress that sent warm feelings rushing through him. They melted away the last of the shards of ice that had formed around his heart while telling the battle tale. He stooped to kiss one of her bare shoulders, then whistled his way into the shower.

Chapter 10

"This is delicious, baby," said Amber.

"Well, it's not MRE's, but it'll do," Ray shrugged, although he was secretly pretty pleased himself with how the meal had come out since he was so out of practice.

"How are things going with the school graduation?" he asked.

"Even crazier than usual," she said. "It is so good they made sure you guys were back before graduation."

"That was Colonel McCormick, the Brigade C.O.," said Ray. "He's really been impressing me through all this."

"Well, his timing was perfect. A week later and they'd have missed the graduation, but a week earlier and their kids probably would have bombed their final exams due to the excitement and distraction."

"Yeah, we've got kind of the same thing going on at work. I mean, summer is always the big Permanent Change of Station season anyway, but this year we've got people who only have a month or so between getting back from downrange and getting their families and houses packed up to PCS to their next duty station. They've got focus issues too and I worry about the handover to the new incoming people."