THIS DIARY IS THE STORY OF TWO SOLDIERS, friends brought together by chance of war, and how one of them died, and of the lies we sometimes tell to each other, and to ourselves.
MICHAEL FRANK had been born in Texas at the start of the seventies, but could have called himself a Mainer, Tennesseean, Washingtonian, South Dakotan, Montanan or even a Buckeye. His father was a Navy pilot for 10 years, then a dentist in the Air Force... so Michael moved wherever his dad was assigned.
And coming from a military family, and knowing little else but military life, it was probably inevitable that he go straight into the military as soon as he graduated high school in 1988. And military service was good to him: he spent his 4 years serving in Hawaii.
For the movie-star-handsome top athlete in the prime of life, it must have been paradise...
DONALD HUDSON was almost young enough to be Michael Frank's son when they met. He too had enlisted young, not waiting until graduation but signing up while still a senior in 2004 -- to earn money for college according to his mother. Following basic, he deployed to Afghanistan. His tour there lasted six months, and when he got home, he hoped it was for good.
In March of last year, he married. Then months later came the word: he was being deployed again, this time to Iraq as part of a 'surge'. His family was livid. The president was still pretending in public that no decision had been made, but here was the proof he was lying. His wife said he cried at the thought of leaving.
But leave he did, to do his duty. And that's where he met Michael Frank at FOB Loyalty, and where they became friends and 'roommates'.
WHAT PASSED BETWEEN THEM only they know. Michael had seen much more of the world and was comfortable with military life. After 14 years out of the military -- during which he received his degree in criminal justice, worked for a PI, decided it wasn't for him, and went on to manage a restaurant -- Michael had rejoined last year because, as he told his father, 'The country is at war. I've got this training. I want to do my part.'
And maybe that was the entirety of the reason... or maybe life had not quite worked out as the 36 year-old unmarried man had hoped, and perhaps unspoken was the fact that with age coming on, it was also a chance for glory.
And for a man without children, perhaps even the chance to mentor younger men into adulthood.
But whatever the complexities, the two soldiers -- the younger one who didn't want to be there and the older one who did -- formed a bond, of the particular kind that only two men and especially only two soldiers can share.
IT WAS ANOTHER HOT BAGHDAD DAY as the 6-vehicle convoy pulled out of FOB Loyalty on May 10. The low that night had been 78 and had climbed to a sweltering 104 degrees. Driving the lead vehicle, Donald Hudson may have been thinking of the temperature, or of his wife, or of his friend Michael Franks four vehicles back -- or maybe of the mission at hand. But whatever his thoughts, they were cut off immediately by the sound that every soldier dreads: an IED had exploded.
He heard a scream. "It's burning real bad. We need extinguishers. We need 'em bad."
Michael whipped his vehicle around and stopped short of the incinerating Humvee... the one that held a burning Michael Franks.
He grabbed an extinguisher and joined the others in dousing the flames. Then he saw it. He saw what had happened to his friend.
DONALD WOULD TELL SOME OF IT in a letter he wrote soon after Michael Franks died. He left the gruesome details out... how he had first seen his friend's leg stretched across the front seat almost completely severed from the still-athletic body, how he and his comrades had pulled his friend out of the Humvee and onto a stretcher, how his friend's remaining leg was swollen and had a foot turned wrong-way round, how the skin was peeling away from his friend's face, and how his friend died less than an hour later at the combat hospital, too broken to save.
And in the letter, he asked:
I came here as part of the first wave of this so called "troop surge", but so far it has effectively done nothing to quell insurgent violence. I have seen the rise in violence between the Sunni and Shiite. This country is in the middle of a civil war that has been on going since the seventh century.
Why are we here when this country still to date does not want us here? Why does our president’s personal agenda consume him so much, that he can not pay attention to what is really going on here...
His name was Michael K. Frank. He was 36 years old. He was a great friend of mine and a mentor to most of us younger soldiers here.
Now I am still here in this country wondering why, and having to pick up the pieces of what is left of my friend in our room. I would just like to know what is the true reason we are here? This country poses no threat to our own. So why must we waste the lives of good men on a country that does not give a damn about itself?
BUT OF ALL THE 'WHY'S' included in the anguish of that young man, there is yet another 'why' unasked. For Donald Hudson sent off his letter to important people in D.C. George Bush. Dick Cheney. Nancy Pelosi. Others.
But he has yet to hear back from a single one, which should have any of us of good conscience asking them, and especially ourselves...
'Why?'
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This diary by Spread the Word: Iraq-Nam, a daily blog on Iraq.
Note: sources for this diary are explained in a comment below.