Young Beto Lopez was accepted into the United States military by a sharply uniformed sergeant manning an induction office in a Houston, Texas.
Enlistments into the U.S. military in the eyes of many veteran recruiters were going to weaken by 2003. An illegal alien, Beto’s interest grew quickly once he was told by his recruiter of the military’s “guarantee” of swift U.S. citizenship to young Mexican “warriors” who signed up to seek revenge for the attack that had killed 3,000 innocent U.S. civilians in the 9/11 “Twin Tower’s” attack. The 9/11 attack ignited patriotic fever, plus a conversation with Beto’s resourceful recruiter helped convince the young man’s high school principle to allow Beto to speed up his studies. And Beto graduated early.
Once through a relentless series of demanding training, Beto landed in Iraq. He was a gunner on a Recon Humvee – a chief target of enemy forces disguised as civilians. The enemy targeted Humvees by planting IED’s (Improvised Explosive Devices) hidden along key travel arteries. He had been dreaming of receiving a leave permitting him to visit relatives in Mexico all three times he had been blown out of the Humvee. But he had never been “seriously” wounded. Though outside Nasiriyah, he got bounced hard enough to lose consciousness. That got him a ride to see the shock-trauma folks at a field hospital.
Beto’s symptoms included being knocked unconscious. Which meant he actually had an old-fashioned {closed} “skull fracture,” a diagnosis familiar in Mexico. Because Beto wanted to get back to his Recon team, he sped up his “recovery” as much as possible. He denied symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which other “patients” the docs examined displayed.
Luckily, his unit had been stalled by front-line resistance. That gave Beto time to display the good health he needed to cover anything that might block a chance to return to his unit. At Nasiriyah U.S. forces were desperate to maintain trained, experienced soldiers in “active” front-line positions. Things were clearly active. And Beto showed no symptoms of any “brain disease,” as he called the medics’ concerns.
He’d been a little dizzy as he dressed, though he carefully didn’t show it. Instead, he turned to the medical folks and grinned. “Okay, let’s go to the dance.” He spread his arms and grinned.
“You Recon guys really are crazy, huh?” said a member of the medical platoon.
“Yes, sir.”
But Nasiriyah wasn’t funny. Military vehicles, including Recon Humvees, waited in a long halted line, watching helicopters flying back and forth overhead. These aircraft had red crosses on them. They were ferrying dead and wounded Marines back from the battlefield. Then they returned for more. It was grim, watching them pass back and forth. Beto hated it. Scary, dangerous heart- and breath-pumping action was much better. You never felt helpless, totally useless, he’d tell people later.
Finally, his platoon moved past artillery batteries firing salvos at the enemy ahead. The blasts made Beto jerk in his exposed position. He gripped his 50-Cal. From the side of the road Iraqi men swore at him. His Humvee crossed a bridge arching over burned-out Iraqi tanks. Then the wrecked shapes ahead changed. “Shit,” he yelled. “These aren’t Iraqi tanks! Look!”
The vehicles, bulky and shot up, windows chalked with bullet holes, were Humvees. There were daubs of blood on doors where someone had futilely clawed for life. Amazingly large pools of blood were coagulated around flattened tires. Beto’s job was swinging his heavy weapon at targets to obliterate the enemy. Now he leaned weak-kneed against the 50-Cal. That scene was a brutal one of American deaths. Nothing in Iraq had shaken him so.
Later, when he returned home, first to the United States, then Mexico, waiting for redeployment, relatives and friends wanted to know what “it” was like. Friends in Mexico, estranged from the U.S. war, remained puzzled that he had enlisted in a war that had nothing to do with Mexico. His family and close friends were simply happy he was back in one piece. Yet his odd, dodging behavior when riding in civilian vehicles, worried some. Somehow, Beto’s moments of being blown out of his unit’s lead Humvee had gotten into his official medical record. Battle-produced Traumatic Brain Injuries, the result of the brain being slammed around in one’s head, banging against the skull’s sturdier, boney structure as if it were being thrown against a wall of bone — these were being reviewed. Some called it “a wound minus bloodshed.” One that resulted from proximity to explosions that slammed a wall of air against the brain, often resulting in comments such as, “That was close. Knocked me down but not out.”
I had written briefly about “invisible wounds.” The article prompted Beto, whose parents I had known when he was a youngster, to knock on my door while visiting local relatives.
My research mirrored much what military doctors had given Beto. But later in life I had worked with cranky horses, chasing crazy cattle across boulder-strewn terrain. Over the years such activities, including a life of surfing, prompted doctors to decide I‘d had either nine or eleven concussions. They’d labeled such behavior “foolhardy.” So later I argued vigorously with Beto to forego reckless stuff. I gave him addresses of a local doctor and one in the United States. But he waited to be redeployed.