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Boom! Boom! Boom!
The inexplicable rapture of the sky from the thunderstorm shattered my core.
“You are OK, Papi! You are OK!” A cherubic voice soothing the pain; a warm hand resting on my head; the taste of metal in my mouth. Gentle caresses slowly bringing me back to reality.
Boom! Boom! Everything around me is dark. “Papi, don’t worry about it! You are OK!” Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out. Ozone burned my eyes as thunder shook every car awake. “Papi, you are OK!” It was a statement, not a question.
I wish I had Luca with me that Fourth of July night outside the movie theater in Colorado; then it would be a furry companion anchoring me to reality instead of me offloading my demons onto my eight-year-old kid.
I was walking towards our car when the first boom of the night created a gateway between the present and the past. The explosion sent me to a curry stall-lined sidewalk leading towards the chow hall in Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. At the main road, Disney Drive , my battle buddy Brian uttered, “You know you aren’t paranoid when people are actually trying to kill you, right?”
His words ran through my brain as I searched for my son’s hand outside the movie theater, as the rocket’s red glare streamed through the night. A part of me will always live in Bagram, wishing I had died there. My lizard brain clawed onto Brian’s words—run! save yourself!—while my son guided me that night. My frontal cortex knew I was home; I was safe, and I needed to hang on to my son.
At the dining facility in Bagram Air Base. The writer is standing on the right. (Photo courtesy of Enrique Gautier)
Months later, Luca became my anchor, a guiding compass. I know he understands me so much better than I do him.
I remember seeing a doctor on Sembach Kaserne Army Base in Germany post deployment. A masked, perfunctory exercise in pretense, checking off tasks to go home.
“How are you sleeping?” the doctor asked. “Fine, just fine, mostly on my side,” I replied. (I haven’t slept more than three hours in the past week, but all is dandy.)
“Any thoughts of suicide? Of harming yourself or others?” “No Sir!” (The shotgun is oiled and prepped to go, ready to do its worst with my brain.)
“I see here you have an advanced degree, what are your plans?” “Well, Doc, I want to become an officer.” (If I can make it past lunch today.)
Between 2013 and 2017, I attempted suicide at least three times. I neglected life and those whom I love, but on each check in, I was doing just fine. Except I didn’t have my Luca in my life. Petahorns lurk everywhere.
What is a Petahorn? I don’t know, yet. Petahorns came to me in a dream in 2013, hunting me and my squad in packs in the desert sands of Afghanistan. Petahorns predicted our every move, dodged bullets, and closed every escape route. The name is an amalgamation of the conscious mind trying to make sense of a senseless dream world.
A Petahorn is a dream visitor. Think of it as a bison with the horns of a dinosaur and mouth of a croc. Heavy breathing usually alerts me to their presence. A nightmare Petahorn almost always results in a sleepless night.
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A visit from a Petahorn is terrifying. It is not the shape, nor their pack hunting instincts, the bone-crushing jaws, or seeing my wife and son succumb to them that scares me the most. It’s that I can’t rescue anyone. I’m just a powerless witness.
I know that to escape I need an anchor to tell me they are not real. Sometimes, my wife can hold my hand and guide me back. “It is OK, honey. You are OK.” Then a howl in the night.
On my second date with my now wife, I met Luca. She got him from the same farm as our older dog, Maverick. My wife likes to say, “The dog chooses the human,” and when Luca met me, he allowed me to pet him and offered me his belly. I thought the belly offering was normal behavior—after all, I had owned dogs—but in his case it was a sign of trust.
Years later my wife told me that I got a third date because I received “Luca’s paw of approval.” When I was adrift in life, Luca understood my core better than anyone. He knew my Petahorns were lurking just below the surface, ready to pounce when I let my guard down.
The author at his wedding. His now-wife Mandy introduced him to Luca, who has become his anchor. (Photo courtesy of Enrique Gautier)
When the Petahorns come, Luca licks me or touches his paw to my shoulder, bringing me back. During my worst nightmares, he performs “puppy CPR,” pouncing on my chest to wake me up. He only does it when I have nightmares; it’s like he knows.
Calling Luca a dog doesn’t do him justice—his nose, a compass charting hearts; his eyes search my bleeding soul. His coat is silk to the touch, much like his heart. But that gentleness is not constant. Many times, life with Luca is punctuated with one adventure after the next. He once opened our oven and ate our dinner! The only proof was his tomato-stained face, and the violent crash of a plate with a boom!
We didn’t understand Luca’s boundless capacity to guide the disenfranchised, including myself, through life. A few short months after the Fourth of July incident we were hiking near the Flatirons in Boulder. Though I was now far away, somehow the scent of Colorado’s arid dust and pines took me back to Afghanistan, and I was again walking between my camp and the dining hall, on alert for hidden bombs.
That day my wife and I spotted a mother and her child who had a developmental disorder. The mother asked if they could pet Luca and Maverick. I expected Luca, who is usually standoffish like a cat, to move away from the overly excited child. Instead, he stood quietly in place while the child caressed his ears and rubbed his back.
The encounter lasted less than two minutes. But it was a life-changing two minutes. I realized that Luca has a high EQ and his empathy was far larger than anything I had ever known. The child readily accepted Luca’s love, and on that day I learned that I could, too, despite the Petahorns, my demons of war that still stalk me.
I’m one of many veterans suffering from war. In 2014 Adm. William McRaven urged new graduates to find a coxswain to change the world. Luca is my coxswain, guiding a veteran through life.
I wish I could say that the episode of hugging the ground with my son by my side was a one-off. I still feel shame from my war Petahorns. My first episode took place in 2013 near my home. I was jogging along a row of nearly identical homes before work.
I felt someone’s stare on my back. Movement on the second story of a home caught my eye. Imperceptible sway of a curtain. Next the smell of Bermuda grass tantalized the corner of my mouth. The momentum from the Earth’s sudden decision to stop spinning reeled me back to reality. I couldn’t see anyone looking. Rubor infected my cheeks. Embarrassment percolated from every inch of me.
The next four years were a constant battle of pretense. I am OK, breathe in, breathe out. I needed an anchor to the world, but a mask would have to do.
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I wish I could say I was alone in my thoughts. But according to the Department of Veterans Affairs, 16% of Afghanistan and Iraq war veterans suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. But my diagnosis is far more perverse. I suffer from complex PTSD, where treatment requires time measured in years, sometimes decades. The triggers can be a voice, a smell, a sound, a car cutting you off on your way home.
When it happens, Luca finds me. He sleeps and comes to work with me. Ninety percent of the time he sleeps like a log without a care. His snores sound like crashing waves against a rock, the sign that I am home. But, regardless of how loudly he snores, I can always count on him to be there for me when I need him. His presence blows away my nightmares.
Usually, it is the soft howl from Luca that brings me back. A cold nose aspirating all the horrors. A soothing warm breath sampling my heart. That howl is music to my soul. Luca howls a sweet calling of compassion. I learned that to hear the true meaning of a howl at night, sometimes you must walk with Petahorns and a wet nose by your side.
This War Horse reflection was edited by Kim Vo, fact-checked by Jess Rohan, and copy-edited by Mitchell Hansen-Dewar. Kim Vo wrote the headline.
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