Fathers and Soldiers

Father’s Day summons a flood of mixed emotions for me. I am both a son and a father, though I am neither by choice.  I became a son through no decision of my own making, though at the cellular level I must have been present. I became a father in a moment of uncharacteristic abandon within months of my deployment to Iraq.

Being a combat soldier, becoming a father had no real effect on me. Nor did it outwardly affect any of the soldiers I fought with. People often speculate on why soldiers fight and why they sacrifices, but the answer that keeps turning up is that they fight for each other. Full stop.   I never once heard a soldier say, “Sir, I can’t drive the Humvee tonight, because I have kids.” I never heard that, because soldiers don’t think that way.  They can’t think that way. Although, for their kids’ sake, I wish they could.

I think back often to November 9th 2004 in Al Dora, Baghdad. My own son had just turned five-months old.  My gunner, Specialist Travis Babbitt, father of three, stood behind the machine gun, as he had done 300 missions prior.  Neither of us suspected that later that evening, fate would find us in an ambush so complicated, savage, and lethal, that only one of would make it back alive.

For his efforts, Specialist Babbitt received the Silver Star, the third-highest military decoration for gallantry in action against an enemy of the United States.  He was a hero in a time when that term is overused and undervalued.  His children would be proud of how he fought.

They would also get to see how he died.  If you Google “Travis Babbitt,” as I did, the web results contain an expected number of hits for “Faces of the Fallen” and hometown narratives of his heroism.  What I never expected to find, centered in the middle of the search page under “Image Results” was the last moments of Travis Babbitt, tagged as such. 

The photo is gruesome.  Four soldiers are pushing a wheeled gurney past a non-descript green door. A fifth, yelling to someone off frame, kneels on the chest of soldier we cannot fully see. Of that soldier we can only glimpse a limp left arm, mostly undamaged, and a shaved head that looks unresponsive. That soldier is Travis Babbitt. My reaction to this image is visceral.

 For the record, I am not adverse to the media recording all facets of war. I think that it is necessary for people to understand those horrors as they support certain policies or initiatives.  These images of the dead and dying represent the last full measure of sacrifice. Each American that purports to support the solders should be made to drink deeply from images that will resonate in their minds forever.  Grievously injured soldier are inspiring figures, and mortally wounded soldiers are equally compelling.  They offer the warnings to citizens and policy-makers that can never be approximated through rhetoric. 

Consider this timeless observation by the maimed narrator of Dalton Trumbo’s Johnny Got his Gun, who believes that his deaf, dumb, and mute body can still serve a purpose.  He challenges the reader, “Put my glass case [which holds his limbless body] upon the speaker's desk…before they vote on them [policies of war] before they give the order for all the little guys to start killing each other let the main guy rap his gavel on my case and point down at me and say here gentlemen is the only issue before this house and that is are you for this thing here or are you against it.”

That is the same issue that I consider each Father’s Day.  I notice that Travis’ children, like millions of others, change their facebook  photo to that of their father.  I can stare at the shaved head and hidden smile, as I did for hundreds of missions. It is the way I wish I could remember Travis. But I cannot. I remember him on the gurney. I remember the frantic last moments and the instant we all knew it was too late. It is an image and a time I will never forget, and one, which I hoped, his children would never see.

 It is with great sadness then, that today I discover that his children can find his last moments easily - perpetually archived on the internet.  Usually I find those images pay homage to duty, and comprise appropriate warnings to the public. 

Usually, I think of Travis as a soldier. 

Once a year, however, I think of him as a father. I see him laughing and smiling, as he recalls his family back home.  May his children think of him that way,  always.