Soldier writes of Afghan tour
"I searched his hands. Empty. Then his magazine rig. The only sound you could hear was that of his cell phone ringing in his pocket.
"Someone was wondering what happened to him. I fought the urge to answer the phone. (Hello? United States Army. Mohammed can’t come to the phone right now. How may I help you?)
"I pulled out my newly issued blade, and cut through the stalk that was preventing me from moving him. … I exposed his neck.
"Absent carotid pulse. ‘Check if he’s dead,’ said an unknown voice. I muzzle-thumped his eye with my nine [9 mm pistol].
"Squish. Still dead."
By Adam Fenner and Lance Taubold
— From "On Two Fronts"
After two tours in Iraq, Sgt. Adam Fenner found a better way to cope with the stress of combat operations in Afghanistan last year: write a book about the experience with a friend he left behind in Las Vegas.
The story — a dialogue between the 25-year-old Nevada National Guard soldier and his friend, Las Vegas entertainer Lance Taubold — is about the traumatic acts an Army medic endures in combat.
It’s also about cultural gaps at home and abroad and the myriad emotions expressed between a soldier who is straight and his friend, an openly gay man.
"The story isn’t necessarily just about the guy out there pulling the trigger," Fenner said during a recent interview at Taubold’s Henderson home.
"The story is also for the people who are left behind. There are the people who support them and the people who are just waiting at home and don’t know what’s going on."
Said Taubold: "If you’re really friends and you really love somebody else, the separation or obstacles won’t change anything. … You need to just support one another whatever they do, like in any relationship."
The manuscript, which has the working title "On Two Fronts," was written in a series of e-mail exchanges during Fenner’s deployment in Afghanistan. The cavalry squadron of more than 700 Nevada National Guard soldiers returned from the war zone last month. More than 40 soldiers in the unit received Purple Heart medals for combat wounds and injuries, including some Fenner had treated.
The pair has sought the help of a literary agent to get the book published.
"I always find a way to vent every tour. I create an outlet … so I don’t go crazy, so I’ve got a way to process everything in my head (and) put it into good places instead of just stewing over everything," said Fenner. He deployed as an active-duty Marine during the 2003 invasion of Iraq and a second time in 2005.
When Fenner went to Afghanistan last year, Taubold, 42, suggested that writing a book would be a good way to communicate and relieve stress.
"Once it was on paper, it was out of my system," Fenner said.
In one passage he wrote: "The people who have been there and done that know that you fight every day and come home. And when you do, when you are finally standing in your doorway, sitting on your bed, holding your girl, you aren’t home. A piece of you lies in the sand, blown around, and you will never get it back."
Fenner also wrote about his desire to return to the war zone while leaving his family and friends behind:
"I have experienced gunfire, rocket attacks, mortar fire, and various other supposedly traumatic combat experiences, but nothing is as hard as telling my mother I am about to deploy. Or in this case, Lance."
Taubold and Fenner met when both were working at Paris Las Vegas. Taubold, a tenor who has performed with New York’s Metropolitan Opera, sang in a cabaret show. Fenner, who worked security, hung out.
"There was a bunch of dancing girls all over the place, so I’d go over and watch the girls," he recalled.
They became friends. Sexual orientation wasn’t an issue because they had so many other things in common.
"We just hang out and drink a lot. Play ‘Dungeons & Dragons’ and talk about books. It’s a normal thing, a normal group of guys all hanging out," Fenner said.
When Fenner found out he was being deployed, Taubold remembered thinking, "Oh my God. My best friend is going off to war. I had never known anybody that was close who went off to war, so this was totally new to me. … I knew he had joined a four-man sniper team and they were going to be going out on dangerous missions."
In e-mails, Fenner described his impressions of the double-standard of Afghan men in remote villages.
While they think it’s wrong to love another man, it’s OK to have sex with another man. And women are treated abusively.
"Women, to put it lightly, in a lot of ways are just walking incubators. … Women hit their prime at 15 or 16, and then they’re pretty much done because they worked them so hard," he said in the interview
"We’d be climbing a mountain, and we’re like, ‘Man, this sucks.’ Good thing you’re a big tough guy because we’ve got all that gear on our backs and we’re halfway up the mountain.
"And you look and there’s a woman with a basket overflowing with corn, and she’s twice as high up the hill for whatever reason. We’d see a woman working and she’s carrying just as much weight as we are. Well I’ve got to keep going."
Fenner said only a few soldiers in the unit knew he was working on a book with his Las Vegas friend.
"A lot of guys I didn’t even tell because at no point do I want them thinking this is going to be in the book. I just want them to do their jobs, and they did."
The book doesn’t dwell on controversy with gays in the military, although Fenner said he prefers the "don’t ask, don’t tell" policy
"I like it because I just want to be able to have everybody focused on the job and I know how guys will treat other guys if someone comes out," he said. "But the hard part is, I’m perfectly content and I’m more willing to fight next to a guy who’s gay and willing to fight than a guy who’s straight and not willing to fight.
"So that’s the trade-off. If you’ve got a really great soldier who’s gay, how can you treat him worse than a really crappy soldier who’s straight?"
One of his scariest combat experiences occurred as Nevada troops were getting ready to come home. When replacements had arrived, the base in northeastern Afghanistan came under attack.
"So we grab our gear, run outside and we started dodging RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades) inside the base," Fenner said. He told how rounds exploded only 25 meters to 50 meters away, but fortunately nobody was seriously hurt. "I was wearing my PTs; I had running shoes, some shorts and a T-shirt on. Then I threw a sweater on before I grabbed my armor and rest of my gear and my rifle and ran outside."
Taubold said, "I knew it was getting close for him to come back and then to read this at the last minute. It makes you realize that it’s one minute to the next. You’re never safe."
Contact reporter Keith Rogers at krogers@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0308.
