Military Death
With a Little Help from My Friends
This week my blog is being taken over by Jessica Charles. This from Jessica: I am Corporal Joshua Alexander Harton’s Big Sister. I am his sister and I protected him his whole life. That is until September 18th, 2010 when a bullet from Taliban’s rifle went through his neck, cutting his carotid artery, moving through his torso and destroying organs and finally leaving his body at the left hip and shattering his Kevlar armor. I am Josh’s sister and I need you to know that my little brother is dead and my epic life will never be the same again.
*****
I watch my daughter throw her body down on the floor. She lifts her head to scream and then pounds her hands and feet on the ground. It is a classic tantrum performance. And though she does this act with such precision that I can’t help but want to laugh, I do not. I do not laugh because my daughter is in pain and need and she has no other way of telling me.
I ask her if she is hungry-shakes head no, is she thirsty-shakes head no, does she need to be cuddled-YES.
It seems silly. A cliche event in the life of motherhood but there you have it; a child communicating that she needs help. She doesn’t do it with grace or dignity. She is unabashed at her discomfort with the world and will make sure we all know it. She knows no shame in being upset or sad or uncomfortable. She only knows that IF she shows you she feels bad you WILL help her to feel better.
What a remarkable idea. Telling one another that we feel pain, discomfort and even anguish with the expectation that telling someone will get us HELP.
My brother’s name is Joshua. There are many Hebrew translations of his name but my favorite is “A crying out to G-d”. It is also translated as “Salvation”. The reason for two seemingly dissimilar meanings is clear if you have studied Hebrew (which I have). In Hebrew, often a word means one thing AND its response, or its understood that if in context something is asked it is ALSO replied to. For example, the word SHEMA means “Listen, Hear and Obey” as in “If you were listening to me, you would have heard and then obeyed”. In this way, “A crying out to G-d means that G-d will answer and you will be given Salvation”. Remarkable huh?
My brother did not cry out. Not in his life or at the time of his death. He made his own salvation. He did not like to ask for help but was happy to offer it. When he did ask it was of a very few. Josh would not ask for help unless he thought it was something you could give. I admire that but at the same time, I wonder how much more we could have helped one another if we only knew where to begin.
Before he deployed, I told my brother some things about our childhood. Details he was not previously aware of and they seemed to bring him peace. I wish I had known sooner and been able to tell him. I wish I could have told him how much I relied on him to get through a day, just knowing with him in this world I was never really alone.
Now Josh is gone and I have learned a hard lesson in an uneasy way. I need help, I need it almost daily. I go to therapy and I take medications and I read the books assigned by my doctor but in the end and I mean up until MY very end: I will not get over my brother’s death. I can’t. And that will leave me with a difficult life filled with painful moments, moments which can only be eased if I tell you that I hurt and you give me your aid. I am in mourning which has no end date.
If when I am in pain, if it seems the world is caving in on all sides and I want to throw myself on the ground to scream and hit and kick, don’t laugh, don’t run, but instead, give a little help. Because I get by with a little help from my friends.
*****
You can visit Jessica’s blog at “Always His Sister.” And you can follow her on Twitter.
Lost
This week my blog is being taken over by Jessica Charles. This from Jessica: I am Corporal Joshua Alexander Harton’s Big Sister. I am his sister and I protected him his whole life. That is until September 18th, 2010 when a bullet from Taliban’s rifle went through his neck, cutting his carotid artery, moving through his torso and destroying organs and finally leaving his body at the left hip and shattering his Kevlar armor. I am Josh’s sister and I need you to know that my little brother is dead and my epic life will never be the same again.
*****
I lost something the other day. It was something small but very important to me. I lost the locket I had made with my Gold Star lapel pin. The bevel broke and I am fairly sure it is somewhere in my house. With the added trouble of a two year old who may have helped misplace it I am at a loss over my lost item. Where is it? Will I find it again? How could I have been so careless?
But, then I think, well it is just a thing. It probably will turn up in the next month. If it does not surface, I had it insured and I can have another one made with only a deductible and a scolding from my husband.
I did not lose my brother. He is not somewhere in the back of my closet in the spare room we never use. He isn’t misplaced. He isn’t replaceable. He is dead.
When someone asks me “How I lost my brother?”, I feel very uncomfortable. I know they mean well, I know they are trying to soften the blow of the real question (How did your brother DIE?). But the truth is, I did not lose my brother. It wasn’t my turn to watch him and I turned my back for just one second….then he was gone. No, my brother volunteered to do a dangerous job, and in doing that job, he was killed. I can’t emphasize how much that does not equate to the word ‘lost’.
When I am asked about my ‘lost’ brother, I get defensive, which really means I get snarky (love that word!). The response is, “Oh, he isn’t lost, I know right where he is, the hole in the ground where I put him”. Or, maybe something like, “I lost him while we were playing hide and seek, he is a sore loser and went all the way to Afghanistan so I wouldn’t find him”.
I mostly don’t say those things, not aloud anyway. Like I said, I KNOW that people are trying to be kind, we just aren’t very good at it. We want to soften the blow of harsh unchanging words like died, death, killed. Only, the words we use do not mean what has happened. I didn’t lose my brother, he did not pass me like two ships in the night, his life ended and mine continues.
When you say lost, I know that you are uncomfortable with what we are talking about. So am I, friend. It is uncomfortable to wake up every day knowing I am again a little older than the previous 15 months difference that separated my birth and my brother’s. It hurts, but your words do not add to my pain.
There is no nice way to say that someone you loved has died. I recommend that you don’t spend too much time trying. Instead, try asking me about my brother’s life, about his smile, or my favorite shared memory. Ask me about how he lived. Because I will never be snarky when answering those questions.
He is my brother and I can never lose him, but I will be happy to share him with you!
*****
You can visit Jessica’s blog at “Always His Sister.” And you can follow her on Twitter.
You Can’t Pick on My Little Brother
This week my blog is being taken over by Jessica Charles. This from Jessica: I am Corporal Joshua Alexander Harton’s Big Sister. I am his sister and I protected him his whole life. That is until September 18th, 2010 when a bullet from Taliban’s rifle went through his neck, cutting his carotid artery, moving through his torso and destroying organs and finally leaving his body at the left hip and shattering his Kevlar armor. I am Josh’s sister and I need you to know that my little brother is dead and my epic life will never be the same again.
*****
Since I was 15 months old, I have been a Big Sister. It was my first identity. Of course you can say I was a daughter first, but that is a fairly passive role. Big Sister on the other hand, was involved. It involved being teacher, friend, confidant, tormentor and of course protector. My mother likes to tell people how I would sit by my infant brother and scream at ANYONE who came near. A cat passing by his crib would get an earful of, “That’s MY brother”. At my brother’s baptism I even shouted those words at the pastor as he introduced my brother to the congregation. Yes, in my mind, I came before God when it came to that little boy.
Then, September 18th, 2010 God decided that Josh, my Boshy, was supposed to leave me. At sunset in a place more like Hell then anything we can imagine, my brother, an SPC in the United States Army, was killed while defending a convoy from Taliban terrorists. It was quick and dare I hope painless?
I received the news first from my grandmother on Sunday, September 19th. I answered the phone and she was crying and I thought, “Dear Lord, is she having a heart attack and calling me instead of 911?”.
“Josh is Dead” she said.
“What?”
Josh is Dead”.
In the Bible we read about the wailing and tearing of clothes when a loved one dies. It seems overly dramatic, even for the Bible. I wailed. I tore at my hair and my clothes. My husband took the phone. Then a knock at the door told us that the official word was here. Two men in dress uniform were here to inform me that my brother was dead.
Shock, despair, grief all of the usual thing followed. I couldn’t look at my 3 year old son because he looked like my brother’s childhood self. I was 3 months pregnant and could not take anything to numb the pain. At my brother’s Wake he was toasted by all except me. There was this sharp pain every time I breathed. And a question I could not answer, “Am I still a Big Sister?”.
Twenty months have passed since then. I have a beautiful daughter. Her Hebrew name is T’shua meaning Salvation, the same as Joshua. I am a wife and mother of two but I know that I can never stop being Josh’s Big Sister.
Big Sister is still an involved role. Now it involves sharing his story and protecting his extended family, the U.S. Military. The men and women who choose to serve this country are fighting for us out there in the world. The very least I can do is fight for them here at home.
Support our troops, not just with words but with actions. Shake their hands and hug them when you see them. Send a letter, send a care package, send a job their way. Because when you don’t, when you ignore our Active Military and our Veterans, when you tell them they have PTSD but you are not a doctor, when you look at them like animals instead of heroes; I will be there and I will stand between you and them. Because I am a Big Sister, and you can’t pick on my little brother.
*****
You can visit Jessica’s blog at “Always His Sister.” And you can follow her on Twitter.
“You Working on Memorial Day?”
I’ve been finding myself at local hospital morgues nearly every day for the past month and today was no different. I parked my car behind the hospital in the little parking space that they have set aside for us funeral directors … a space where the dead are out of view from the living. I backed up to the ramp, put my car in park, pulled out my stretcher, punched the passcode into the security lock and parked my stretcher in front of the morgue door. From there, I took the long walk from the back of the hospital, through the halls and to the front, where I happened to pass the security guard. Usually he’s in his office, but today I must have caught him returning from fulfilling one of his many duties.
“You’ll be seeing me in a moment”, I said as I pass him along the hall. He’s responsible for opening the morgue and – if he’s feeling up for it — helping me with the transfer.
He’s about 35 years old. Nice. Professional guy. Takes his job seriously.
He stops the conversation that he’s having with a pretty nurse, turns around and starts walking with me to the lab that holds the paper work I have to fill out to officially release the body from the care of the hospital.
“I’ll let the lab staff know that I’m aware you’re here so they don’t have to page me.”
He lets them know, and starts his walk back to the morgue while I fill out the necessary paper work for the release.
I walk back and he’s at the morgue door waiting for me.
“Do you want some gloves, sir?” he asks.
I’m 30 years old, but I look more like 25ish. He’s probably 35. “Why would he call me ‘sir’?” I think to myself. This honorific was so natural for him too Pondering it a little more I suspect I know why, so I probe.
“You have the weekend off?” I ask.
“Yup.” He replies.
“You working Memorial Day?”
“Nope. Sittin at home, by myself, remembering.”
Feeling pretty confident that I’ve figured out why the whole “sir” thing was so natural for him, I ask my next question based on an assumption: “Are most of your co-workers ex-military?”
“Yes, sir.” He says. “Our boss is ex-army and hires us veterans.”
I reply: “Going from military to security is probably an easy transition for you guys.”
“Not for me. I was trained to take lives not save ‘em.”
At this point, the conversation moves from small talk to real talk. He’s starting to get personal and I can tell he wants me to know who and what he is.
“I’m an ex-marine. I was on the front lines of the first wave of infantry when we invaded Iraq.”
Out of the blue, without me probing, he say, “Lost some good fuckin friends.”
I lost a great uncle in World War II (who I obviously never knew), I lost a childhood friend in Iraq, but I’ve never served in the Military. I’ve attended a hundred military funeral services, some at Military Cemeteries and a half dozen at Arlington Cemetery, but I’ve never lost a close friend. My dad and cousin have blown taps for hundreds of veterans at their interment, but none of those veterans were my immediate family.
I know enough to know that while Memorial Day has significance for our nation, but I can’t say I have a personal connection to Memorial Day like the parents and sisters of my childhood friend, or like the this young man I was a talking to as we pulled the body out of the morgue.
I could have pushed him. I know how to ask the questions that start the tears, but I refrained. “He’s shed enough”, I thought.
But I pushed him anyways. I looked him in the eyes as I draped the cover over the dead body lying on my stretcher, “What are you doing on Monday?” Tears started to well up in his eyes, so I pulled back any more questions.
He paused. Gathered himself. Looked at the ground and shook his head. Years removed from war, his emotion was still raw, and he struggled to constrain it.
I knew what he was saying. I’ve heard it said a thousand times. No words, but enough to say what you’re feeling.
After he gathered himself, and I listened for a couple minutes, it was time for me to go.
He helped me down the ramp to my car. I reached out my hand, shook his hand and said, “Thank you for your sacrifice.”
“I’d do it again”, he said.
This Memorial Day I’ll be remembering him as he sits in his house and remembers the ever haunting ghosts that will torment his life. I will remember and memorialize the sacrifice this young man has given as he carries the burdens those who passed before their time.
We should remember that these types of deaths also can take the lives of those left alive.
“You Working on Memorial Day?”
I’ve been finding myself at local hospital morgues nearly every day for the past month and today was no different. I parked my car behind the hospital in the little parking space that they have set aside for us funeral directors … a space where the dead are out of view from the living. I backed up to the ramp, put my car in park, pulled out my stretcher, punched the passcode into the security lock and parked my stretcher in front of the morgue door. From there, I took the long walk from the back of the hospital, through the halls and to the front, where I happened to pass the security guard. Usually he’s in his office, but today I must have caught him returning from fulfilling one of his many duties.
“You’ll be seeing me in a moment”, I said as I pass him along the hall. He’s responsible for opening the morgue and – if he’s feeling up for it — helping me with the transfer.
He’s about 35 years old. Nice. Professional guy. Takes his job seriously.
He stops the conversation that he’s having with a pretty nurse, turns around and starts walking with me to the lab that holds the paper work I have to fill out to officially release the body from the care of the hospital.
“I’ll let the lab staff know that I’m aware you’re here so they don’t have to page me.”
He lets them know, and starts his walk back to the morgue while I fill out the necessary paper work for the release.
I walk back and he’s at the morgue door waiting for me.
“Do you want some gloves, sir?” he asks.
I’m 30 years old, but I look more like 25ish. He’s probably 35. “Why would he call me ‘sir’?” I think to myself. This honorific was so natural for him too Pondering it a little more I suspect I know why, so I probe.
“You have the weekend off?” I ask.
“Yup.” He replies.
“You working Memorial Day?”
“Nope. Sittin at home, by myself, remembering.”
Feeling pretty confident that I’ve figured out why the whole “sir” thing was so natural for him, I ask my next question based on an assumption: “Are most of your co-workers ex-military?”
“Yes, sir.” He says. “Our boss is ex-army and hires us veterans.”
I reply: “Going from military to security is probably an easy transition for you guys.”
“Not for me. I was trained to take lives not save ‘em.”
At this point, the conversation moves from small talk to real talk. He’s starting to get personal and I can tell he wants me to know who and what he is.
“I’m an ex-marine. I was on the front lines of the first wave of infantry when we invaded Iraq.”
Out of the blue, without me probing, he say, “Lost some good fuckin friends.”
I lost a great uncle in World War II (who I obviously never knew), I lost a childhood friend in Iraq, but I’ve never served in the Military. I’ve attended a hundred military funeral services, some at Military Cemeteries and a half dozen at Arlington Cemetery, but I’ve never lost a close friend. My dad and cousin have blown taps for hundreds of veterans at their interment, but none of those veterans were my immediate family.
I know enough to know that while Memorial Day has significance for our nation, but I can’t say I have a personal connection to Memorial Day like the parents and sisters of my childhood friend, or like the this young man I was a talking to as we pulled the body out of the morgue.
I could have pushed him. I know how to ask the questions that start the tears, but I refrained. “He’s shed enough”, I thought.
But I pushed him anyways. I looked him in the eyes as I draped the cover over the dead body lying on my stretcher, “What are you doing on Monday?” Tears started to well up in his eyes, so I pulled back any more questions.
He paused. Gathered himself. Looked at the ground and shook his head. His emotion was still raw, and he struggled to constrain them.
I knew what he was saying. I’ve heard it said a thousand times. No words, but enough to say what you’re feeling.
After he gathered himself, and I listened for a couple minutes, it was time for me to go.
He helped me down the ramp to my car. I reached out my hand, shook his hand and said, “Thank you for your sacrifice.”
“I’d do it again”, he said.
This Memorial Day I’ll be remembering him as he sits in his house and remembers the ever haunting ghosts that will torment his life. I will remember and memorialize the sacrifice this young man has given as he carries the burdens those who passed before their time.
We should remember that these types of deaths also can take the lives of those left alive.
