The Mirror
by Katelyn Gilbert
I could see the majestic mountains of Pakistan looming off in the distance through the thick smoke coming from my stale cigarette. They were treacherous and beautiful. I could picture a small single lane road winding through the steep cliffs of the mountain range. I imagined malicious men smuggling weapons and bombs in old dusty trucks and hatchbacks. There were terrorists in those mountains and they would kill me if they got the chance. It was a shame that such beauty was giving shelter to such evil. Afghanistan was a mysterious land in which fragile beauty could be shattered and destroyed instantaneously.
As I finished my smoke, my fellow soldier yelled up to my friend and I that our ten minute break was over. It was time to return to the aid station, where I spent the majority of my time on my deployment to Afghanistan. My home base was located at an airfield in Jalalabad, which most people just referred to as JAF. JAF was a decent place to be stationed, compared to some of the other operating bases further out in the smaller villages. There were small cement buildings with paved paths in between, everywhere you looked. Port-a-potties were strategically placed near living quarters and other larger buildings, which you could always find due to the revolting aroma. The dining facility was in a central location near the runway. This large runway, or flight line, took up the majority of room within the walls of the base. From the sky, JAF looked like a big rectangular runway with two small cities of cement and wood buildings to the left and right.
Immediately surrounding the thick heavily guarded outer walls were miles of ancient looking irrigated farms and fields. There were goats and birds and dusty children that danced through the green fields during the day. The local men tended to their crops of wheat and sugarcane and glided through their lands dressed in their lightly colored pajama-like shirts. They looked like sailboats drifting in an endless green sea. The scene was calm, peaceful and mesmerizing to observe. It looked nothing like I pictured it would look. Beauty was abundant, but in my heart, I knew there was a powerful ugliness hiding and plotting evil in the midst of the paradise-like land.
As I entered the aid station from my smoke break, I reached up towards my neck to tuck in my rosary beads that I frequently played with while I killed my lungs with nicotine. My twin sister had bought me the beads while she was on a trip to the Vatican. She told me they were blessed by the Pope and that they would keep me safe during dark times. They did not look like typical wooden or plastic rosary beads. The necklace was made from sparkling rose pink beads that glittered in the light. The crucifix was detailed and made of strong, heavy metal. I was not authorized to wear this gaudy necklace while I was in uniform, but exceptions were made in a combat zone.
After tucking my necklace into my shirt, I went back to my daily task of treating patients, cleaning equipment, and preparing for the next patients. I was a trained combat medic but I had never really had the opportunity to do my job. I chose to be a medic because I wanted to help people who were shot, as opposed to choosing a job in which you had to shoot people. But I was unaware of the fact that no matter what specific job you had in the Army, everyone was trained to be a killing soldier first. We were trained to shoot the enemy before we could provide medical aid, but of course this concept was not always applicable in all circumstances, especially when working in the aid station. I worked with four to five other medics and two doctors per shift. The hours were long and the work was difficult but the motivation to make it home pulled me through each day. Working with injured and dying humans gave me an enormous appreciation for life and showed me how fragile the human body really is, physically and emotionally.
The aid station was tucked away next to the helicopter landing zone and the outer wall of the base. Our field litter ambulances, FLAs, were parked in a line in front of the entrance. There were two old wooden shacks on the other side of the FLAs, which is where the civilian contractors, who fixed our medical computers, resided. The government loves its computers to be updated and running smoothly, especially in a combat zone. To the left of the shacks was the guard tower built into the outer wall of the base. The tower was made of wood and was strengthened by hundreds of army green sandbags filled with wet sand and dirt. Having a shift on tower guard was not an enjoyable experience, considering the small, unprotected room reeked of moldy sand and chewing tobacco. And of course, the obvious reason that you were more likely to get taken out by a hidden sniper or a mortar explosion. But the guard tower was also the place that you could observe the beauty and normalcy of the land.
On the other side of the aid station were the living quarters—the barracks. These were cement one-story buildings with plywood walls separating eight rooms per building. Each room was different because of all the modifications the previous occupants had made such as wooden shelves or lifting the bed off of the floor to create space for a desk or TV. My room, however, was just a plain wooden box with an old wooden bed in it. The best part of the room was a mirror that was left by the soldier before me. This was no ordinary mirror purchased at Target for a freshman dorm room. This mirror was a hand-woven, Indian-looking masterpiece from a local merchant from Afghanistan. There were tassels and strange yarn-work made from brightly colored yarn. I remember feeling spooked when I first laid eyes on it because of how strikingly unbefitting it was. But I loved it and immediately decided that I would take it home with me after my long nine months were over.
One evening, after dinner I was getting ready to walk out of the aid station to grab my bag of dirty laundry from my barracks for washing, when I heard and felt a louder than normal explosion. I felt the impact in my heart and eardrums. I quickly ran to my equipment and threw my body armor on and shoved on my helmet. At first, no one wanted to show the fear and panic that was creeping into everyone’s minds. But as we realized that a mortar had hit close to our location, people started yelling and taking roll call. A soldier came exploding through the entrance and collapsed in my arms. She had dust and shattered glass all over her but was not bleeding from any vital parts of her body. I carried her into an exam room and calmed her down by telling her to breathe and relax because she was safe. But I knew none of us were safe as long as we were in that country.
I searched for my closest friends and overheard someone saying that the barracks were on fire. I reached up to my neck and started twirling the sparkling pink beads in my fingertips. I was terrified. More people were rushing into the entrance and being placed on beds. Alarms were roaring and echoing throughout the base, warning the masses we were getting attacked. My training kicked in, and I went to work taking vital signs and assessing patients. I remember looking around the room and realizing that all of the patients in the beds were the medics from my barracks building. For some reason, the first thing I pictured was that yarn mirror shattered and burning on the floor in my room. I felt like someone deliberately blew up the one place in Afghanistan that I called home. I snapped back into work-mode and did my job.
At one point during the chaos of the night, all the occupants of my barracks were asked to go assess the damage and retrieve essential items only. I felt my hands quivering as I walked towards the danger zone. I could see the huge crater from the impact area, but I was surprised to see the building was still standing. . The mortar had hit less than a foot away from the building, and less than a foot away from landing directly into my little room at the end. The metal door was ripped apart from shrapnel exploding through it. There were hunks and chunks of twisted metal lodged in the thin wooden walls throughout the building. Part of the roof was collapsed. The windows were blown out and glass littered the hallway. The area smelled of smoke and burnt chemicals. I entered my room, expecting to find destruction, but instead I found my elaborate mirror still hanging on the wall as if nothing happened. I wondered if it was a lucky mirror or maybe it was blessed, like my beads around my neck; two items from very different worlds, both protecting me and allowing me to return safely home.
Katelyn Gilbert is currently a student in the Occupational Therapy Assistant Program at North Shore Community College. She was a combat medic in the United States Army and was deployed to Kunar Province, Afghanistan in 2012-2013. Katelyn was promoted to Sergeant while she was on deployment due to exemplary actions surrounding several life-threatening events.
by Katelyn Gilbert
I could see the majestic mountains of Pakistan looming off in the distance through the thick smoke coming from my stale cigarette. They were treacherous and beautiful. I could picture a small single lane road winding through the steep cliffs of the mountain range. I imagined malicious men smuggling weapons and bombs in old dusty trucks and hatchbacks. There were terrorists in those mountains and they would kill me if they got the chance. It was a shame that such beauty was giving shelter to such evil. Afghanistan was a mysterious land in which fragile beauty could be shattered and destroyed instantaneously.
As I finished my smoke, my fellow soldier yelled up to my friend and I that our ten minute break was over. It was time to return to the aid station, where I spent the majority of my time on my deployment to Afghanistan. My home base was located at an airfield in Jalalabad, which most people just referred to as JAF. JAF was a decent place to be stationed, compared to some of the other operating bases further out in the smaller villages. There were small cement buildings with paved paths in between, everywhere you looked. Port-a-potties were strategically placed near living quarters and other larger buildings, which you could always find due to the revolting aroma. The dining facility was in a central location near the runway. This large runway, or flight line, took up the majority of room within the walls of the base. From the sky, JAF looked like a big rectangular runway with two small cities of cement and wood buildings to the left and right.
Immediately surrounding the thick heavily guarded outer walls were miles of ancient looking irrigated farms and fields. There were goats and birds and dusty children that danced through the green fields during the day. The local men tended to their crops of wheat and sugarcane and glided through their lands dressed in their lightly colored pajama-like shirts. They looked like sailboats drifting in an endless green sea. The scene was calm, peaceful and mesmerizing to observe. It looked nothing like I pictured it would look. Beauty was abundant, but in my heart, I knew there was a powerful ugliness hiding and plotting evil in the midst of the paradise-like land.
As I entered the aid station from my smoke break, I reached up towards my neck to tuck in my rosary beads that I frequently played with while I killed my lungs with nicotine. My twin sister had bought me the beads while she was on a trip to the Vatican. She told me they were blessed by the Pope and that they would keep me safe during dark times. They did not look like typical wooden or plastic rosary beads. The necklace was made from sparkling rose pink beads that glittered in the light. The crucifix was detailed and made of strong, heavy metal. I was not authorized to wear this gaudy necklace while I was in uniform, but exceptions were made in a combat zone.
After tucking my necklace into my shirt, I went back to my daily task of treating patients, cleaning equipment, and preparing for the next patients. I was a trained combat medic but I had never really had the opportunity to do my job. I chose to be a medic because I wanted to help people who were shot, as opposed to choosing a job in which you had to shoot people. But I was unaware of the fact that no matter what specific job you had in the Army, everyone was trained to be a killing soldier first. We were trained to shoot the enemy before we could provide medical aid, but of course this concept was not always applicable in all circumstances, especially when working in the aid station. I worked with four to five other medics and two doctors per shift. The hours were long and the work was difficult but the motivation to make it home pulled me through each day. Working with injured and dying humans gave me an enormous appreciation for life and showed me how fragile the human body really is, physically and emotionally.
The aid station was tucked away next to the helicopter landing zone and the outer wall of the base. Our field litter ambulances, FLAs, were parked in a line in front of the entrance. There were two old wooden shacks on the other side of the FLAs, which is where the civilian contractors, who fixed our medical computers, resided. The government loves its computers to be updated and running smoothly, especially in a combat zone. To the left of the shacks was the guard tower built into the outer wall of the base. The tower was made of wood and was strengthened by hundreds of army green sandbags filled with wet sand and dirt. Having a shift on tower guard was not an enjoyable experience, considering the small, unprotected room reeked of moldy sand and chewing tobacco. And of course, the obvious reason that you were more likely to get taken out by a hidden sniper or a mortar explosion. But the guard tower was also the place that you could observe the beauty and normalcy of the land.
On the other side of the aid station were the living quarters—the barracks. These were cement one-story buildings with plywood walls separating eight rooms per building. Each room was different because of all the modifications the previous occupants had made such as wooden shelves or lifting the bed off of the floor to create space for a desk or TV. My room, however, was just a plain wooden box with an old wooden bed in it. The best part of the room was a mirror that was left by the soldier before me. This was no ordinary mirror purchased at Target for a freshman dorm room. This mirror was a hand-woven, Indian-looking masterpiece from a local merchant from Afghanistan. There were tassels and strange yarn-work made from brightly colored yarn. I remember feeling spooked when I first laid eyes on it because of how strikingly unbefitting it was. But I loved it and immediately decided that I would take it home with me after my long nine months were over.
One evening, after dinner I was getting ready to walk out of the aid station to grab my bag of dirty laundry from my barracks for washing, when I heard and felt a louder than normal explosion. I felt the impact in my heart and eardrums. I quickly ran to my equipment and threw my body armor on and shoved on my helmet. At first, no one wanted to show the fear and panic that was creeping into everyone’s minds. But as we realized that a mortar had hit close to our location, people started yelling and taking roll call. A soldier came exploding through the entrance and collapsed in my arms. She had dust and shattered glass all over her but was not bleeding from any vital parts of her body. I carried her into an exam room and calmed her down by telling her to breathe and relax because she was safe. But I knew none of us were safe as long as we were in that country.
I searched for my closest friends and overheard someone saying that the barracks were on fire. I reached up to my neck and started twirling the sparkling pink beads in my fingertips. I was terrified. More people were rushing into the entrance and being placed on beds. Alarms were roaring and echoing throughout the base, warning the masses we were getting attacked. My training kicked in, and I went to work taking vital signs and assessing patients. I remember looking around the room and realizing that all of the patients in the beds were the medics from my barracks building. For some reason, the first thing I pictured was that yarn mirror shattered and burning on the floor in my room. I felt like someone deliberately blew up the one place in Afghanistan that I called home. I snapped back into work-mode and did my job.
At one point during the chaos of the night, all the occupants of my barracks were asked to go assess the damage and retrieve essential items only. I felt my hands quivering as I walked towards the danger zone. I could see the huge crater from the impact area, but I was surprised to see the building was still standing. . The mortar had hit less than a foot away from the building, and less than a foot away from landing directly into my little room at the end. The metal door was ripped apart from shrapnel exploding through it. There were hunks and chunks of twisted metal lodged in the thin wooden walls throughout the building. Part of the roof was collapsed. The windows were blown out and glass littered the hallway. The area smelled of smoke and burnt chemicals. I entered my room, expecting to find destruction, but instead I found my elaborate mirror still hanging on the wall as if nothing happened. I wondered if it was a lucky mirror or maybe it was blessed, like my beads around my neck; two items from very different worlds, both protecting me and allowing me to return safely home.
Katelyn Gilbert is currently a student in the Occupational Therapy Assistant Program at North Shore Community College. She was a combat medic in the United States Army and was deployed to Kunar Province, Afghanistan in 2012-2013. Katelyn was promoted to Sergeant while she was on deployment due to exemplary actions surrounding several life-threatening events.