Page 45 of Letting Go

Can't.

It was a routine training dive. Both Mateus and I were on tactical medic training teams, a new kind of training cell with live ammo. I was the senior officer. He was in his fifth year, powerful, talented, a rising star in the Seal's Pararescue Unit.

The investigation that followed showed no negligence. No negligence. I still can't get my head around it. Two guys went down ahead of us, demo guys, and set what was supposed to be a small explosion. We had to work on a medical dummy for simulated injuries during a Tactical Combat Critical Care (TCCC) and Prolonged Field Care (PFC) training. Of course, Mateus aced it. Didn't even flinch when the charge was detonated. We worked to help our medical dummy, George, to the surface with a bullet wound to the chest.

George, strapped with a medical bag, proved to be a dire warning.

We were done. Mateus dove down to retrieve the second dummy, Abigail. I was hot and bothered to get together with a girl as soon as we were done. Mateus agreed he'd finish up and then I could start stripping down early. Protocol says we stay together, but technically, we had completed the exercise. I was impatient for furlough, for food, for sex.

So, we split up, he headed down and I started for the surface.

I still don’t know what made me look down, but just before I broke the surface a second charge went off.

To this day no one seems to know why. I have my suspicions.

All I saw was a flash, much larger than the first, not protected by the pier but right near the dummy, then roiling white water, suddenly tinged with red. The percussion hit me. It flipped me over and there was another flare. The sound was deafening. A third charge.

It took a nanosecond to get my bearings, to figure out where the surface and Mateus were in relationship to each other and me. Then I swam. All I knew was I had to get to him immediately.

It seemed to take ten minutes to swim twenty yards. Blood pounded in my ears. We didn't have radio contact. There was no way to tell people above what was happening below. The water was red, bloody swirls closing in all around and I could see Matthias his arms through the plumes floating. Lifeless, tethered to the pier. I grabbed the CAT tourniquet on my belt and pulled.

I drew up to him and look down at where the blood spread. There was nothing below his left knee. Bone and muscle were shredded, waving with what was left of his suit. There was no time to think. He'd bleed out before he'd drown. I pedaled down, slipped the loop around what was left of his leg, secured it just below the knee, cinched it up, spun the rod as fast as I could, tightening the tourniquet, and locked it. I whip out my knife and cut the tether. No time to search for the clip.

Everything took forever. There was no sense of time and I couldn't look at his face. Didn’t want to see he was already dead. His facemask was broken and his regulator floated behind him, with air rapidly escaping, bubbling uselessly to the surface.

I took my mouthpiece and shoved it into his mouth, but there was no response, no active respiration. I grabbed him in a straight arm collar tow and kicked as hard as I could to the surface. There was another shuttering quiver in the water. Rocks were beginning to slide down from the breakwater. I pulled and my lungs burned, but I didn’t want to stop. It was like trying to drag a corpse. He must have lost so much blood in that first twenty seconds. My regulator slipped from his mouth and then suddenly there were two other Seals with us. The team must have seen the blood from the surface and sent two divers. One grabbed Mateus as well, the other took the bubbling regulator, and placed it in my mouth. Oxygen rushed into the vacuum of my lungs, and black spots blurred the drama playing out in real-time. That's how close I came to passing out.

This time, I took three huge lungful's and placed it back in Mateus's mouth, my hand behind his head to keep it secure. There was no way to tell if he'd inhaled water. If he had, he'd likely drown again, hours from now, as saltwater drew water from other organs and fill the lungs.

The three of us shoot to the surface with his body. His eyes are open. Unseeing.

I will never forget his face.

This is all stored in memory and when I look at him driving down the freeway, it's almost all I can see. Men circling him, everyone trying to get him up, catching him under the armpits, hauling him up onto a stretcher, his body limp. I was certain he had died and I was just as certain it was my fault.

They said I was a hero. That I had saved his life, but I knew I was anything but that.

I wanted to go on a fucking date.

He lost his leg.

When he started his recovery, I made sure I went to rehab with him. I used leave time to be by his side when he needed me. There were surgeries. Prosthetic fittings. More fittings as the swelling went down. He had no family in California, at least no one was willing to visit, and when I asked him why, he sighed and said, "You're my family."

Somehow that made me feel worse. I threw out the medal they gave me.

That day, I lost my sense of who I was and what I thought I wanted. Later, my discharge without honor had nothing to do with the accident. It was what happened afterward. It was because of some jackass thing I did later. I was not worthy of being a Seal they said.

"You ready for this? We good?" says Mateus.

I clear my throat. "Yeah. Of course…bro." It's the first time I've used this in a very long time. It was a joke between us, calling each other bro. We thought we were the original "Frat boy wannabes." As if.

We pull into the parking garage across a narrow alley from the Exeter. Mateus selects a slot right on the exit line and cuts the motor. Nice touch. Smart slot. He's thinking like one of us. He obviously knows protocols.

"It'll be fine. You'll see, boss." He presses a button on the elevator and the door slide shut.

He always was the more optimistic one. I say nothing on the elevator ride up.

When Jackson opens his hotel door, he looks a little perplexed. "He's in the shower," he says, closing the hotel door behind him. "The guy takes a bizarro number of showers. Hey, nice to see you again," he throws a nod to Mateus. A series of quick fist bumps follow.