An Orange Blast
From our Community Listener Sam Lundquist:
For the first time since this project began, I lost a Hope Journal.
A week ago, I flew from LA to Nashville. As I’ve done for months now, I readied my journal. Prepped and primed with stickers, business cards, and my seat number, I passed it to the person next to me, and it made its grand voyage toward the back of the plane. I know it made it back there because I had coworkers planted throughout to make sure it would get passed along.
The flight ended… And no journal. I dug through seat back pockets, crawled on dirty airplane carpet, and searched in the sticky, peanut-crumb crevices between seats. Nothing. The journal was nowhere to be found.
So, for my flight back home to Los Angeles, I had nothing. No magic book to pass to my fellow passengers. No easy conversation starters.
Thankfully, I met Dan.
Dan had taken Seat 14E, a middle seat on the right half of the plane. I had the window seat because, for whatever reason, I have to lean to the right. I slept for the first hour and a half of the four hour flight, and awoke only after the Southwest flight attendants had come through the aisle with their grab bag of snack food. Shucks, I just missed it!
I pulled out my iPhone ready to kick back and listen to some music when Dan spotted it.
“Is that the iPhone 4?” he said.
It was. Thank you, Apple, for making products that are cool enough to bring people together. What would we do without you?
I handed it to him, and he pulled out his old iPhone with its industrial strength rubber case. That thing could have taken heavy fire and still survived. I learned later that it probably had.
Dan was leaving Nashville for California after having been discharged from the United States Army. For nearly two years, he had served in Iraq and Afghanistan as an infantryman, a soldier tasked with countering “the enemy by means of fire and maneuver in order to destroy or capture him or to repel his assault by fire, close combat, and counterattack.” Those are the Army’s words, not his.
Eventually, I asked him what he remembered most about those 19 months of his life. He smiled a toothless grin. He pointed at his mouth.
“Car bomb,” he said with a hesitant chuckle.
“Talk to me,” I said. “Tell me what happened.”
He pulled down his tray table and in we went, making do with a Chips Ahoy bag and a Southwest Airlines cocktail napkin as props.
Dan unrolled the napkin to create his makeshift Army base. That morning, he and his buddy Robby were standing guard outside this base in Afghanistan. Both were about 30 yards away from a busy city street. A low wall stood halfway between them and the street. An Army medic was positioned with Robby. Across the street were Afghan houses and apartments—the Chips Ahoy bag—a few stories high.
Without any warning, he heard, “Pop-pop-pop-pop.” Shots rang out. Bullets darted from the buildings across the street. Dan looked around and saw what he thought were his own men point their weapons at him. Afghanistan gunmen in American uniforms were now on the attack.
As the crossfire continued overhead, a car came rolling up toward the base. Dan saw it as it moved closer and closer.
He saw a small orange blast. Then, a large orange blast.
He landed on his back.
Dan could see nothing. He could hear nothing.
“The car bomb,” he said to me, this time without the hesitant chuckle.
Looking at the sky, but seeing nothing, Dan wriggled his tongue around in his mouth as he began to spit out teeth. Out came nine from the top and shards of tooth from the bottom. He would later lose parts of the bone of his upper jaw. He felt his face. A large gash ran the length from his forehead down his nose, nearly splitting his face in two.
Then, adrenaline kicked in. His face, his mouth—it all miraculously felt fine. It wasn’t, but it felt that way.
After that, I got lost in the story.
Dan, Robby, and, I’ll assume some amount of back-up, killed more than 32 people that morning.
“It was quite an exciting morning,” he said.
Yes, exciting indeed.
Dan’s now back in Southern California with his girlfriend of more than three years. He said they’ve seen each other no more than 100 days in those three years because of his military service. This week, they’re moving in together, and finally have a chance to spend some time with each other.
I don’t know exactly how it came up, but Dan then asked me to guess how old he was. I looked him over. I saw the scar running down his face. I looked at the napkin on the tray table and mulled over the crazy story I had just heard.
“26,” I guessed.
He laughed. “No way. 22,” he said. “Enlisted at 17.”
As our plane began its descent into Los Angeles, I meant to ask Dan what he hoped for. I didn’t know what I expected. He had seen so much at such a young age—much more than I ever did. He’d quite literally been through hell at the age when I was worrying about my college finals and cushy career choices.
Before I could even get to the question, my right ear began to hurt with a piercing, throbbing pain. The plane’s air pressure had changed, but for some reason my right ear refused to pop. That has never happened before. He asked me if I was OK, and I said something akin to, “No, my right ear kills.” How dramatic, right? I thought to myself, how I can complain about my ear pain after just having heard about a car bomb?
We landed, and the pain didn’t go away. Focusing only the my ear, I paid no attention to anything happening around me. I grabbed my bags, but Dan had already left.
No words of hope from a young man who had been through so much.
I guess I’ll try to take it from here, then. An attempt that I know will do no justice to what Dan would actually have said.
If I can have any hope for Dan or anyone who has gone through what he has, I would hope that he can tell people his story. I hope that he can continue to live so positively and courageously, despite having seen all of the things that he has. I hope he has friends and family around him that encourage him and help him heal. And, without getting political, I would hope that, for the love of the good Lord, this would all stop. I hope for the peace that seems so elusive right now. I hope that no more 22-year-olds see those orange blasts.
Thankfully, though he may be missing some teeth, Dan still has a huge smile.
Tags: afghanistan, california, flight, iraq, journal, los angeles, nashville, tennessee, war