Death of a Falcon

When I was in basic training, I had a somewhat unusual event. On a faraway base, planted in a yellowish dessert background. Somehow in the middle of another ordinary day of running to and fro, dropping down for 20 (or more), shouting “Yes drill sergeant” and “No drill sergeant” with my fellow raggedy looking, freshly minted recruits I came across, of all things a wounded falcon.

Somehow or other this poor fellow had gotten broken a big gaping hole in his wing. You could clearly see his broken bones through the hole. Needless to say, he was extremely miserable. The details of how exactly I managed it, have slipped somewhere into the mists of time, but somehow or other I managed to grab hold of the poor thing and place it into an empty milk crate.

Furthermore I had somehow miraculously managed to coax a greenlight from my commander to go back to our barracks with this poor creature, dig my phone out of my pack, and try to get help for this bird. If you’re not aware of how things usually go in basic training (at least in combat units) this is not exactly normal. I think the sheer shock when I produced a bloody falcon, and the sheer audacity of the request carried the day.

So I find myself with this wild, pained falcon, in the eerily silent barracks, in the middle of the day of all things, calling number after number (starting with information — this was before google) trying to reach a number of the local wildlife ranger. After a dozen calls I somehow reached him. He was far away, up north, only to return late at night. He questioned me about the sate of the falcon, who by this point, was in an even worse state then when I found him, having had several times broken into a frenzy of wild desperate and futile attempts to fly away. Violently beating his wings only to further mangle his wing. When he realized that the wing was not simply broken, but what he called an open break — that I could see the bones and they were snapped — he told me. “That bird is going to die son, the only thing I can do for it is end it’s misery”

Silence

“Then what should I do?” I asked, “Should I kill it?”. “If you can”, came the soft, not unkindly answer, “That would be best. It’s going to be a good many hours before I can get there”.

I said thank you and hung up the phone…

There are certain, painful moments in life. Where you are standing right before an unpleasant duty. A thing, that must, if you wish to be able to look yourself in the mirror, be done.

Those moments are in a way, out of time. If you have ever went lead climbing, those moments are similar to those frozen moments you get, that feeling you have, right after your hands lose hold of the rock face, but gravity hasn’t seemed to have caught up to you just yet and that sharp jerk of the rope is many feet down the rockface, that endless moment right before you start falling.

You are not happy that these moments are thrust upon you. They are not what one would call; “Pleasant”, but you know that life, as relentlessly as gravity, is calling you to move forward.

Fast forward Several months later, recently having been placed in a fighting unit. I was happily dozing in my tank, on my loaders chair. We were on base, or rather right on it’s outskirts, in edge of it, in the dark sticky mud. It had been a long day. We were not the regularly assigned tank crew of the base, but part of an auxiliary force, brought over temporarily as part of an extraction force, just in case things went south with that special forces unit that was making it’s way through Shejaiya on route to a certain factory, which was suspected as being mainly focused on manufacturing bombs. In the best SNAFU tradition of military everywhere, our arrival was not coordinated with the kitchen, and we were stopped at the entrance to the mess hall. I don’t recall if we ended up forcing our way in past the god-damnable cook or whether we ended up carrying food off to eat in our tank like the strays that we were, but I remember that it was a long bloody day..

We split the night into shifts, taking turns to stand watch, listening to the com, just in case. My shift had just ended, my replacement was up, and I just finished snuggling comfortably onto my beloved loaders chair, propping my legs up on the sixshooter like rotating casing where we kept handy shells in the tanks turret, when I was promptly thrown off of my chair- INSIDE THE TANK. That was one loud boom. Something most definitely went south.

In 30 seconds flat our tank and the rest of the armored vehicles who were part of the extraction convoy were racing towards the fence. I recall a somewhat comical image of Nusbaum leaving a trail of snacks behind his tank — the one designated as the Tankbulance. Apparently he figured the space made in the tank for potential wounded was just as well used for the sort of ammo that any military belly appreciates, but under the circumstances his tank commander figured different.

The details of the next 2 days we spent in there are somewhat hazy, much of it was frankly droll. There was the initial rush down the cemented road leading into Gaza. The chain linked-barbed wire gates opening wide like the gates of hell ready to swallow us whole. My tank commander’s momentary panic when he lost for a fem moments in that dark maze, the lead Armored caterpillar D9 that was supposed to clear the way for us (The platoon of a relative of mine lost about 6 men and 2 tanks in the space of 10 days to buried explosive charges in that god forsaken city). And those chilling moments where we heard over the comms the search for the k9 unit. They found the dog first. His body rather, or whatever was left of it, and then a few tense minutes later when they found his operator we all knew what the choked “I think he’s a flower” (Hebrew radio procedure word for dead) meant. We all heard, and felt that boom.

We were tasked with guarding part of the perimeter we established to secure that building while the bodies were being extracted, and the factory was being scanned for any additional booby traps to be dismantled, and the machinery used to create those instruments of death destroyed.

And when a few hours later a couple of entrepreneurial terrorists approached with automatic Rifles, I loaded the shell we sent their way to assist in their rendezvous with the 40 virgins promised them for their efforts, leaned back to make sure the cannon has plenty of room to recoil, gave the all clear “loaded shout” and breathed in.

Back in basic, a few months earlier, in that weird twilight zone I had somehow found myself in. I carried that falcon, in that milk crate in his wild half crazed state. I also took what we called a scabies blanket, a standard issue grey blanket, who’s only real use was for making the bed for inspection as part of the grilling process of basic, and as something to put under equipment placed on the ground. I only ever met one soldier who was enough of a dirty pig to actually use it as a blanket. Most self respecting soldiers brought normal sheets and blankets from home.

I headed towards a sort of garbage dump we had on base. And when I got there I picked a big stone. I wrapped that poor falcon in the blanket put him down on the ground, picked that stone up high and breathed in.

It almost feels like these moments, spread throughout my life are somehow connected. Frozen forever in the midst of the stream of my life. Frozen moments before you have to do something distasteful, unpleasant, that nevertheless must be done. A moment when it behooves you to end something, a poisonous relationship, the life of an innocent animal, the life of a guilty murderous enemy, something, must be ended, and it must be ended by you. And it’s not something you want to do, but it’s something that you must.

breathe out.