Crawl Through the Sewer
By Tommy Cheis
My Acute Care Unit patients are locked behind three doors to prevent their escape. Individual rooms are molded plastic and rubber. Beds, desks, bookshelves, every sharp edge and everything that can hold a rope is rounded and flattened. Both measures worked. We at Miami’s Behavioral Health Hospital had never lost a patient to elopement or self-slaughter.
That summer morning, I buzzed into my first ACU patient’s room. Waiting there was Philo Outis, 28, a descendant of Greek sponge divers from Tarpon Springs and a combat medic with three Iraq deployments. Philo acknowledged previous alcohol abuse and adverse childhood experiences. No surprise. What shocked me was what landed him in ACU.
According to the Army, Sergeant First Class Philo Outis refused to deploy to Afghanistan, then refused an administrative discharge that would have spared him punishment. After two weeks’ cajoling and threatening, the Army branded Philo a deserter, convened a court-martial, and appointed me to a three-member Sanity Board to determine whether he was sane or not. The Army’s psychiatrists, chaplains, and brass said Philo suffered only from a personality disorder and, worse, bad character. But Philo’s own defense lawyer said he was nuts.
Desertion, the most serious military crime, carried a possible death sentence, and Sanity Boards find fewer than one defendant in 200 not responsible due to mental illness. While the Board’s neuropsychologist and neurologist reviewed witness statements and tested him to decide if Philo was lying about his psychiatric symptoms to “earn” an insanity determination, I, as Board psychiatrist, would decide whether, when he refused to deploy, Philo suffered from a serious mental illness that kept him from understanding the wrongfulness of his conduct. If I found Philo “insane” when he went AWOL, the charge would be dismissed. Whereas if I found him “sane,” Philo would go to trial for his life. As a firm opponent of the death penalty, I was determined, if ethically possible, to find him insane. By court-martial rules, I had six weeks. I took a deep breath and buzzed into Philo’s room.
On my entry he stood at attention like a Homeric hero. Tall, athletic, alert, determined. Philo had gravitas.
“I’m Dr. James Panther,” I told him. “At ease, Sergeant Outis.”
We shook hands.
I pulled up a chair and asked him to sit. “Your secrets are safe with me, Philo. Psychiatrist-patient privilege attaches. Anything you tell me will not be used against you in court-martial.”
His grey eyes slitted with suspicion.
“No trick, Philo. My only purpose is to facilitate a diagnosis and treat you.”
“I don’t care if you tell the world everything I share.” He was warm and sincere, with none of the glib superficial charm, shallow affect, and remorselessness of psychopaths I’d treated. But we’d barely begun. “That’s if I tell you anything. You know I’m sane, right?”
“What sane person isn’t a conscientious objector?”
Philo chuckled. “Problem is, if everyone’s a CO we can’t have a war. Doc, I’m not willing to kill, but I’m willing to die.”
“Tell me about that.”
“Nah. I’ll stay mum.”
“The status quo puts you before a firing squad. Doesn’t that upset you?”
“Ha! You’re a learned man, Doc, but you’re no vet. I’ll keep my own counsel.”
“I know many veterans won’t speak to a non-veteran, but I’m prior—”
Philo waved me off. “The modern battlefield is brutal beyond description. No psychiatrist can comprehend it. And I won’t tell war stories to a voyeuristic civilian. One innocent of war has neither lived nor died. In fact, he never existed.”
“Yet I’m here. I’ve read your chart. And I’m strong enough to affirm your experience without judging or laying blame.”
Philo grimaced. “Yeah, right. No thanks. And I don’t want to have to explain jargon or acronyms.”
“What do you want?”
He tugged a lock of dark curly hair but said nothing.
I threw up my hands in frustration. “You want the government to kill you. Put that aside. Let’s build rapport. You’ll be surprised how well I speak your language.”
“Ha. Look at you. I bet you’ve never been in a fistfight.”
“As it so happens—”
“Doesn’t matter. Tell me everything about you. Then I’ll decide.”
I started with the relevant bona fides. University of Miami undergrad. Harvard Medical School and psychiatric residency. Hired to research and run the veteran’s clinic I founded. Hearing it come from my mouth bored me too.
Rightly, Philo poo-pooed it. “Who cares? I thoroughly distrust credentials and institutions. I respect only the ability to listen and get it. You’ll probably exploit me for your own advancement.” He paused. “Trust is earned, James.” He paused again. I wondered if Philo was having a psychotic break. “Doc,” he said, studying me. “Will you crawl through the sewer with me?”
“By the sewer, you mean your experience of war?”
He nodded.
“Philo, not only will I crawl in, but I’ll help you crawl out.”
“You say that, but my life’s been an odyssey of crap.”
“Philo, teach me your life and times. If you want, I’ll be the hole in the floor into which you shit whatever you’re tired of carrying. Or not. We can just sit together. All I ask is that at some point you let me try to shepherd you toward an appreciation of your service and your humanity.”
“What do you ask in return?”
“Total honesty.”
He smiled as if I’d confessed a belief in Santa Claus. “Telling the truth is a bad habit if you want to get ahead in this world. Just don’t declare me mentally unfit for duty. Find me sane so I can go to court-martial and be shot. Promise me.”
“I can’t make that promise.”
“That’s my condition for us to work together.”
My stomach fluttered. “If I find you sane, you’ll be sent back to battle.”
“Nah. They’ve already hand-picked the firing squad.”
“Philo. We’ve all had civilizational inhibition drilled into us, but you can still finish your enlistment honorably. I’ll help you.”
“Like Siegfried Sassoon? Never.”
“I’ll work with your lawyer to explain it. The Army would prefer to see you cope with trauma, find meaning in loss, and persevere. You’re the first soldier to face death for desertion since Private Eddie Slovik. It’s terrible for public relations and recruiting.”
“There’s a principle at stake.”
“You have better options than death. Have you no ambitions?”
“No. I’ve foresworn my possessions. And I’m monastic.”
“Are you loveable?”
“No longer.”
“Do voices order you around?”
“Never.”
“Do you think of killing yourself or others?”
“I lack the energy. Come on. I’m not crazy.”
“What’s sanity? What’s crazy? We don’t use those terms in psychiatry. Both are fleeting conditions.”
Philo stood and shook my hand. “So we’re partners, Jimmy?”
“Yes. But we’ll go where the evidence takes us.”
“As long as we go together. What more can I ask of a brother?”
For the next forty-eight hours, I worried about him.
* * *
We met again in the dark windowless cave of his lockdown room.
“Why desert now, Philo? You couldn’t introspect in the adrenaline, noise, and heat of battle?”
“Exactly!” Philo clapped his hands. “Impressive, for someone who’s never seen the elephant.”
“What elephant?”
“Combat. Why do you ask all the questions while I give all the answers?”
“Good question. The truth is, we’re all shrinks. Some have degrees and paying patients. Others don’t. But writing peer-reviewed articles and getting paid doesn’t differentiate me from you. Ask what you like. I’ll answer when the time comes. For now, please continue.”
Philo divulged terrible childhood abuse. Jerked from beds. Beaten by drunken foster fathers. Raped by an older foster brother. Broken bones. Concussions. Knife scars. But he’d poured himself into school and sports and earned college scholarships.
The attack on the World Trade Center jolted him off that path. He’d enlisted as a combat medic when the recruiter guaranteed him he’d not be obliged to carry weapons. During basic training at Fort Sill, he realized he’d been duped. Cadence calls glorifying war reinforced his moral conviction that killing another person was abominable. Yet when his unit deployed to Iraq, he was still thoroughly committed to building a stable democracy by winning hearts and minds. His morals and the mission were still commensurable.
But battle transformed Philo Outis. His company deployed via Bradleys into the Battle of Wadi as-Salam Cemetery in Najaf, then attacked on a quarter-mile frontage to destroy the Mahdi Army lurking in catacombs. Then-PFC Otis, toting his aid bag, dismounted into a hurricane of red tracers, shrieking RPGs, and whistling mortars. The onslaught pulverized graves, dislodged rotting flesh, and tossed bones into flight. His platoon lost lateral contact and over-advanced into a three-hundred-sixty-degree close-quarter battle. “I was pinned down by fire,” he said. “I called for medevac but it was too hot to get a bird in. I decided who got treated and who didn’t.”
“Triage is a terrible responsibility.”
“And for each wounded man there was someone for whom he was his or her whole life.”
“Go on.”
“First a sucking chest wound. Guy from Montana. Gray pallor. His lung collapsed and his ribs were bone meal. I could only massage his heart and jab him with two extra morphine hits. He asked if he was going to die. I pretended I couldn’t hear him. Mortars were bursting fifteen feet away.”
“Keep going.”
“One-by-one, the enemy waxed our Brads. Guys got shredded. I was a blur with hemostats, syringes, bandages, trying to keep blood in my guys. Roll, jab morphine, roll back. Repeat.”
“With discipline. As you’d been trained.”
“I was a priest at the altar of blood and death.”
“Do you believe in God?”
“No. I told you I’m sane. I’d start an IV but the patient got drilled in the dome. Or the arm where I’d put a line would get blown off. Shrapnel paralyzed a guy at C2. Goddamn shooting gallery. An RPG every ten seconds. A mortar every thirty.”
“Your left cheek is scarred.”
“Bone shrapnel from a patient. And I took a round through my arm. Endorphins surged. I felt nothing until later.”
“Keep going.
“I had to pick up a weapon and fire at the enemy.”
“Did you—?”
“Yes. I don’t want to talk about it. Maybe later.”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”
“When I couldn’t keep fluid going, I radioed for help. ‘TRAUMA ONE! MEDEVAC KIA AND WIA!’ The chopper arrived but couldn’t put down. The incoming fire was so great.”
“Keep going.”
“It was 130 degrees in the shade. I’d give the dying sips from my canteen, but the water burned their lips and throats. Mama. That’s what they’d say right before they died. If there was time. Mama.”
“Often our thoughts turn to our mothers in moments of great strife or loss.”
“I guess. For a time, I thought we’d break out. But now I’m caked with sweat and my guys’ blood. Trying to put an eye into a corpse’s socket. Fumbling in the dark. Gathering fingers, toes, and testes to stuff into a bag.”
“You were in deep shock.”
“The other platoons have withdrawn, all my guys are KIA, and I’m surrounded. The cordon’s shrinking. The enemy’s firing as they come. I just leveled my rifle and fired away.”
“To what effect?”
“I popped jihadis like balloons at the county fair. Maybe twenty, until my ammo went black. But I received no stuffed bear.”
“What did you feel?”
“Back then, just recoil into my shoulder.”
“Go on.”
“I bit out the throat of the first jihadi to scale the berm, then called division artillery on my position.”
“You were dead either way. And then?”
Philo shrugged. “An AC-130 shows up. I dive into an open tomb. She unleashes her chain guns and 40 mike mike. It’s like one of those Mongolian BBQ joints where the chef tosses ground lamb on a grill. Later, dogs came to eat the dead. No food wasted.”
“You have a morbid sensibility.”
“Let me back up. In a prior engagement, the enemy’s kids were planting IEDs.”
“Converting them from noncombatants to targets.”
“A kid, maybe ten years old, fired at me. Without thinking, I shot him between the eyes.”
“How did you feel?”
“Pride in my marksmanship. Later, shame. I also shot a jihadi holding a baby in one arm.”
“Did he hold the baby or did you? Whose arm was hit? Sorry. Injecting levity. The jihadi made the kid a human shield. His fault.”
“I don’t know. Everything ran together. Sorry. I’m scattered.”
“Need a break?”
“No. Then my battalion CO refused my request to treat some wounded kids and their wailing mom. He said our supplies were insufficient, refused medevac, and ordered me to waste them all. Don’t ask.”
“You were following orders.”
“Not when I shot a passel of Iraqis raping boys for sport.”
“That was morally justified. Killing can be like amputating a diseased limb. It’s the least bad option. Bonhoeffer would laud you.”
“The Lutheran priest guillotined for resisting Hitler? He’s entitled to his opinions, as I am to mine: I committed war crimes.”
“There are three exceptions to every rule. The rapists needed to die. If you hadn’t killed them, who would have?”
“That’s how I saw it.”
“Rightly so. Some moral dilemmas can’t be understood by civilians, Philo.”
“Yet here you are, understanding well.”
“And there you were in the crashing immediacy of battle. No one who wasn’t is entitled to judge you. Not legal scholars. Not military lawyers. Not philosophers nor theologians. To whose version of morality should you have to answer? Your battalion commander’s? An Article 32 panel’s? God’s? Bad things happen in war.”
“From the actions of evil people.”
“And sometimes by the actions of good folks setting things as right as they can set them. Philo, only a sociopath would feel nothing after taking human life. Yet soldiers like you were promoted and decorated for their actions.”
“Yet there are guys doing life in Leavenworth who did less than I.”
“Proving that the difference between a Silver Star and a court-martial can be as little as whether the on-call JAG is offended.”
“For a civilian, you’re quite invested in the moral chess of the battlefield.”
“Some things I just can’t countenance.”
“Don’t we share a common humanity with our fellow soldiers?”
“Soldiers, yes. Rapists, no.”
“A good person doesn’t take the law into his own hands.” He shrugged as if to brook no further comment. “If I can’t be shot my own people, send me to The Hague. Prosecute me as a war criminal.”
“We’re regressing. Philo, you’re a warrior who served your country honorably. Iraq was run by a brutal dictator. You delivered democracy and freed the oppressed. Why throw yourself away?”
He belly-laughed. “Because I violated the sanctuary of my being through my transgressions.”
“Aspirations to law in war ended with the machinegun and mustard gas. You targeted no innocents. You’re no perpetrator. In fact, you’re a hero and a victim.”
“In other words, thank you for your service. How perverse. Is that your best effort?”
“Show me the soldier who never fell short of the warrior’s code in battle.”
“I can’t.”
“Of course not. Do you believe yourself to be evil, Philo?”
“I do.”
“Do you trust yourself to make moral decisions?”
“No. But others can and must.”
“Knock it off. You were put in an untenable moral quandary. Die or kill someone else to remain alive. You did what you had to.”
“Yet I’m ashamed by my military service.”
I changed tacks. “What percentage of the blame for your supposed malfeasance do you assign yourself?”
“One hundred percent.”
“What culpability do you assign the jihadis you killed?”
“Zero.”
“Incredible. And the U.S. government?”
“Less than nada.”
“Next you’ll say vets should picket Congress demanding reparations for Iraqi and Afghan victims of an unjust American war. Sergeant Outis, the Board makes me inquire every session: will you drop your insistence on a court-martial and return to duty?”
“No. And I won’t let you use drugs or your prodigious wit to force be back. Not that I think you’re the sort of shrink who would treat me to further political objectives. If I did, I wouldn’t divulge my dirty deeds.”
“I’m glad you trust me. Philo, describe yourself.”
“I’m a spent, embittered veteran. I live in a world where everything’s slow, flat, and dull. Without you, I’d be insufferably lonely.”
“Have you ever been in a bar fight?”
“A baker’s dozen.”
“I’m revising your diagnosis. PTSD is the result of unmanaged fear. You don’t have PTSD.”
“I told you I was sane.”
“You misunderstand. One can have PTSD and be sane insofar as sanity’s definable.”
“So I’m insane because I engage in self-criticism instead of shivering in terror?”
“No. You have severe moral injury.”
“What part of my body is affected?”
“Moral injury’s an existential wound caused by high-stakes transgressions of moral values in the face of death. Your sense of what’s right and just in the world has been egregiously violated. It’s a soul wound.”
“Many guys in my unit walked away from war like it was a pickup basketball game.”
“But your damage began before you signed enlistment papers. In childhood. Your parents denied you security and safety.”
“I’m more than the sum of my history and symptoms.”
“How do I explain this? When a person suffers moral injury, the discrepancy between the Self as he knew it and the Self as he has come to understand it causes cognitive dissonance.”
“How can A be true if Not A is also true?”
“Exactly. Moral injury is an accusation leveled against the Self for its failures. My Self is evil for not spotting the sniper who killed my friend. My Self is evil for killing innocents. My Self is evil for deserting comrades and surviving when they died.”
“You’re onto something.”
“You were innocent. Childhood fractured your ideals about what was legitimate, natural, and binding. War blew them away.”
“Keep going, Doc.”
Now who was the patient, and who the psychiatrist? “War caused moral pain exceeding your coping capacity. You’re in existential crisis, doubting your right to live. And you’re engaged in self-handicapping behavior, such as doing everything you can to be put to death.”
“It’s better that way. No one would miss me.”
“And you’ve lost faith in people and in the sacred.”
“Faith is gratitude mixed with delusion. The world’s an evil place. No one’s any good. God’s dead. What point in forging on?”
“Philo, your heart isn’t as dark as your worst moment. You can be forgiven. And treated.”
“Treatment’s a waiver of individual accountability. Why waste your time, Jimmy? Curing me won’t make me rejoin the fray.”
“Whether you return to duty is your choice. And there’s no cure for moral injury. But I can help you to find hope.”
“Treat me however you like provided you find me sane.”
“You may feel worse before you feel better.”
“Good. Question. You used the word ‘honor.’ What did you mean?”
“The value of a person in his own eyes. And social acceptance of his claim to decency.”
“Ah. Then I have no honor and deserve less.”
“That’s the core of your problem. We’ll address it next time.”
* * *
Another forty-eight hours later, when I entered his room, Philo was batting out pushups.
Hearing my entry, he bounded up and took my hand. “I didn’t think you’d return, Jimmy.” He inspected me like I was a horse at auction, then seemed satisfied I’d be a good addition to his stables. “I’ve given what you said much thought.”
“About moral injury?”
He waved his hand. “The culpability of the U.S. government.” He sat on his bed and nodded at the orange plastic chair.
I sat and started in. “Philo, let’s back up. In our last session, you told me you deserved punishment for your conduct in war. A war in which you served by choice.”
“I’m part of the tiny fraction of Americans who volunteered. But I’ve had an epiphany. I’m not entirely to blame.”
“What a quick volte face.”
“You persuaded me.”
“My intention was merely to encourage you to consider another point-of-view.”
“I did. And I now assign eighty-two percent of the blame to the USA.”
“The other day you wanted to face a firing squad sans blindfold.”
“Since our last meeting I achieved moral clarity. I’m not perfect, but I’m not a bad person.”
“No. You’re a good person. Repeat that while looking into a mirror. Let no one, including yourself, demean you. Can you explain the rapid shift in your moral calculus?”
“You dispelled the fog of war. I reflected. Call it a conversion on the road back from Baghdad.”
“Please elaborate.”
“The war was illegal, immoral, and violated international law.”
“Because it was an aggressive war in violation of the just war doctrine?”
“Precisely.”
“You reject the claim that the U.S. is a force for good in a violent world, and thus your service in Iraq was moral and lawful?”
“Yes. Show me one Muslim country upon which we’ve not dropped a bomb, apart from those blessed with oil. America was founded on violence. Case in point: the genocide and land theft committed against your people. The Seminole and Chiricahua.”
“You’re a student of history.”
He laughed. “I was ignorant before the war. I believed America was incapable of martial sin. When the Army slayed our barbarian foes we did God’s work. Every American war was holy. Every American soldier was a hero.”
“Your only obligation was to do and die. And win, of course.”
“It’s as if you’d served.”
“In fact, I—”
“The Army chaplains said any soldier who questioned the war was a blasphemer and an enemy of the state. The Army psychiatrists said any soldier who disagreed was crazy and gave him drugs to fix it.”
“Tell me more.”
“Now I realize that all our wars are for power and cash. Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. Saddam Hussein and bin Laden weren’t buddies. Fuck every warmongering politician, corrupt military leader, and media moron who pretended otherwise. I used to trust the authorities. Now I know so many of them are radically evil.”
“That knowledge carved a wound in your soul that’s suppurated into cold fury and bitterness.”
“Those bastards ought to have declared war against someone who deserved it instead.”
“But you lost the power to choose the wars you fought and the enemies you faced once you swore your oath of enlistment.”
“That was the greatest mistake in my life.”
“Your schema’s been rent. Can I help you come to see you bear no personal responsibility for what you did in Iraq no matter how unjust the war may have been?”
“On the ground that I was told what to do, that I harbored no rancor or cruelty, and I abhorred my labors?”
“And that you rendered service not as an individual but as an agent of the state.”
“I refuse that out. Culpability lies elsewhere, too, Doc. Why was there no anti-war movement?”
“Cindy Sheehan doesn’t count? Or the several NGOs that wrote sharply-worded letters?”
Philo scoffed, got up, and paced. “There are two kinds of people. Soldiers and civilians. Fuck all Americans who questioned nothing, voted for the ringleaders, and paid the taxes to fund the shit show. Most of them are mindless drones who don’t know anyone who knows anyone who served.”
“What should they have done?”
“Engage in civil disobedience.”
“It’s a lot to ask the average civilian to ape Thoreau.”
“They should be bound by the same principles we were. Duty. Courage. Self-sacrifice. I want to smash the face of every civilian who mumbles thank you for your service.”
“The desire to kill those we feel dishonored us is common to moral injury.”
“It goes deeper. American manhood has disintegrated. On every street corner is a pack of punks who think they can flap their mouths with impunity. Not so long ago, our culture made them back it up. They had to deliver or absorb an asswhipping. Now they can trash talk and just snivel off. Amazing that women allow them to breed. Lesser men should defer to their betters.”
“Such as you?”
“And you. We’re an ancient elite brotherhood. We learned about ourselves and the world. We were once Spartans marching to Thermopylae, thrilled to be killed while killing Persians in the name of democracy.”
“You’re talking philia. You need to know who you can trust in the face of danger. And you want your death to mean something.”
“No civilian comprehends that.”
“Let’s summarize. You feel betrayed by your government and your people? And you blame those holding legitimate authority for compelling you to transgress your moral boundaries?”
“Emphatically. And the sheeple who made it possible. I propose to transfer the noose of guilt around our necks to theirs.”
“How?”
“With a code that restores trust to the social compact. Rules and punishments. Can we end our session? I’m drained.”
“I’m sorry, Philo. I’ve pushed you hard.”
He searched my face. “You said you might not be able to cure me.”
“I didn’t rule out the possibility.”
“But you’re hedging.”
“After incurring moral injury, true happiness isn’t always possible. Insight doesn’t always lead to joy. The past pursues us. And upon its back, truth rides. Truth can be ugly. The more truth we see, the more troubled we become.”
Philo embraced me. “Will you help me, Doc?”
“I started the instant we met. We’ve progressed, Philo. Your locus of blame is shifting. We’ll keep on until you no longer feel shame and the need to isolate.”
“Baby steps, Doc. That’s over the horizon.”
“Then we’ll help you believe in a better future, then work towards self-forgiveness and assuaging your moral pain.”
“I’m too angry. I need to atone. Justice needs doing first.”
“It always will. The world’s morally imperfect. Maybe you can have justice in small measures.”
“I don’t know if I believe that.”
“Do you trust me?”
“With my heart and my life.”
“Given what you’ve suffered, that’s a staggering act of courage.”
“But what if I’m beyond your ability to save?”
I tried to find something he could cling to for hope, but I wouldn’t lie. “Maybe all we can do is talk to our friends. Or pray. Or just stay on the right side of the dirt. Rest now. We’ll meet again Thursday.”
Philo burst into tears.
“Let it go, brother. Tears are sacred.” My own strained my cofferdam. “So is laughter. So are rituals.”
* * *
When I entered his room two days later, Philo sprinted over to grab my lapels.
“I worked it through,” he said robotically, as if his thinking had warped. “My code for political and military leaders.”
I sat down with him. “Let me guess. They won’t be allowed to lie. They can only take America to war if the country is truly threatened. They can only assign missions if they have the means to accomplish them. And they must follow the law of war and punish violators. Am I close?”
“No. There’s only one rule, Jimmy. Win.”
“What do you mean?”
“You see? The idea of the U.S. winning a war trenches on the fantastical. We haven’t since 1945, and that’s debatable.”
“Given the rapid onset of the Cold War?”
“Had Eisenhower sent Patton gas, the Stars and Stripes would have flown over Moscow. The craven bureaucratic decision not to fight spawned the Korean and Vietnamese imbroglios, which prefigured our humiliation in Iraq and Afghanistan. Patterns are difficult to amend. I always thought American leaders would do what’s right. But the longer the war endured, two things crystallized. One. Politicians gave no shits about who died at their behest.”
“Second?”
“They should have dispatched the Peace Corps instead.”
“Keep going.”
“What we fought for has been torn asunder. Our sacrifices were wasted. We were stabbed in the back.”
He sounded like the Austrian corporal. I reframed things. “You suffered social betrayal.”
“Either potentates fight to win our wars or they dissolve our allegiance. And when the United States doesn’t win, there must be accountability. Perhaps a realignment. Or a rewriting of the future. Some call it regime change.”
“By way of elections?”
“The ballot box is indirect. Try the bullet box.”
“Civil war?”
“Something more proportional. A judgment that limits collateral damage.”
“Assassination?”
“Yes. Direct action upon the perpetrators. The President and Vice President. And the SecDef. And the heads of congressional committees. Maybe a Justice. All the Pentagon paper-pushers who risked nothing worse than eyestrain and paper cuts. The euphemisms they spun destroyed confidence in our language. You look queasy, Jimmy.”
“Laws proscribe what you advocate. You’re reasoning’s illucid.”
“Succeed and we’re heroes. Fail? We’re murderers and dupes. I need to kill the motherfuckers who dropped the ball.”
“An eye-for-an-eye?”
“Lex talionis. If we don’t lop off crowned heads, nothing makes cosmological sense. We’re here for a reason. Survival.”
“What’s the threat?”
“They’ll do something wretched. Get me out of here so I can prep.”
“I’m concerned by what you’re saying.”
“Don’t be. I’m excited about the future now. But not in the way you wanted.”
“Philo, there’s no utopia.”
“But I have a path to tread in the world that is.”
I felt a rush. “Have you changed your mind about the court-martial? You can’t pursue your goal if you’re dead.”
“True that. Please release me.”
“I can’t until you’re well. In the meantime, can you promise me you won’t harm yourself or anyone else?”
He held his hand over his heart. “I’ll do my best.”
Two days later, Philo missed his appointment. Somehow, he’d escaped.
Another war is on the horizon. Two years have gone by with no word of Philo Outis.
As his psychiatrist, I’m supposed to want him apprehended and returned to my care.
As his fellow veteran, I hope for his freedom, in every possible way. More than that, I hope he can crawl out of the sewer.
****
Tommy Cheis is a Chiricahua Apache writer, guide, Cochise descendant, and former political action officer in the intelligence community. He lives in Arizona. His father served honorably in the US Army Second Infantry Division. His short stories (will) appear in Yellow Medicine Review, Rome Review, After Dinner Conversation, Chicago Stories, Literary Times, Ploughshares, ZiN Daily, Blue Guitar, Military Experience & the Arts, Medicine & Meaning, Harvard Advocate, and many other publications.