We were there for just two nights while Sebastian was ‘processed’.
The harried but sympathetic staff gave me a small, cell-like room in the women’s quarters. Day and night the injured arrived: there wasn’t time to learn the names of the soldiers with so many identical injuries who streamed through the hospital, some from Iraq, most from Afghanistan. They were treated and moved on. Treated and moved on. An endless flow of mutilated flesh and tortured minds.
Sebastian had the option to go back to San Diego or to an East Coast facility. We decided it would be easier if we were near home – my home – our home, and we flew out to Walter Reed in Maryland on a Thursday at the start of May.
The journey from Germany was long and painful for Sebastian; he didn’t complain once, even though I could tell he was in agony, his body covered in an unhealthy sheen of sweat. But he didn’t speak to me either, and that scared me.
There were many who were far worse off. One young man I spoke quietly with during those dreary hours was named Lance. He’d lost both legs and one arm. He told me that he was ‘glad’ it had happened to him, because he wouldn’t have wanted it to happen to any of his buddies in his platoon.
He was 22.
Our arrival back on US soil was without fanfare. I traveled with Sebastian the whole time and saw him settled into a unit, before I found myself accommodation nearby in a cheap motel. There were other wives and family members staying there and we became close, sharing our hopes and dreams – or rather, forging new dreams that were far more limited in their scope than formerly.
Liz’s memorial service came and went. I sent a letter to her editor, asking him to read it out for me, and I asked him to recite the poem ‘High Flight’ by Pilot Officer Gillespie Magee. I knew it had always been a favorite of Liz’s.
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds – and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of – wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long delirious, burning blue,
I’ve topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew –
And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untresspassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.
I said a prayer for her, too, alone in my motel room.
For nine weeks, I waited and watched with anxious eyes as Sebastian slowly began to heal.
He was given intensive physiotherapy to help him use his left arm, but, more particularly, to walk again. He became breathless and tired quickly, but, in the face of so many with worse injuries, he hid his true feelings. I think I was the only one who could see the simmering anger beneath the surface.
To other soldiers and to the staff, he seemed cheerful and worked hard at whatever exercises he was given. But to me, he was closed and distant. He’d always been so honest and open with me; I felt lost and alone – more truly lonely in his company than when I was by myself.
It soon became obvious that the extent of his injuries would render him unfit for duty. One of the prerequisites of being a Marine was the ability to run without a limp. The doctors thought it extremely unlikely that Sebastian would ever be able to walk without using a stick, let alone run. A medical discharge was the most likely scenario.
The military was generous to those wounded in combat, and although Sebastian wouldn’t qualify for a medical pension, not having served his 20 years, he was told he could still expect to receive between a third and half of his current salary. He would be a disabled veteran.
Those words sent him into a fury: he ranted at me for nearly half an hour.
“I won’t take it,” he growled.
“What? Why not?”