Bethlehem Revisited

Abstract

Bethlehem Revisited Brian Castner (bio) David Crossman enlisted in the Army soon after 9/11. He wanted to go infantry, but he got good scores on his military entrance exams, and his recruiter convinced him to try EOD instead. EOD is Explosive Ordnance Disposal, the military bomb squad, the guys who disarm all those improvised explosive devices buried in the roads over there. It was my job in the military too. David did two tours in Iraq. On his second, in 2006, our time in-country briefly overlapped. We both served in the north, he in Tal Afar and I in Kirkuk, but we didn’t know each other. David got out of the Army soon after that tour, but he returned immediately to Iraq as a contractor for another eighteen months. He loved the paycheck even more than the work. When he rotated back to the United States he moved to Tampa, found a steady girlfriend, and took a few short-term jobs, cleaning up old bombing ranges in Alaska and Arizona. He bought a house, enrolled in a community college, and partied hard on the beach. In April of 2012, David Crossman died in a motorcycle crash. In July, I published my war memoir, and by the end of that year, the Crossman family had contacted me. [End Page 157] “I have a desire to if you are able to come down to PA at some time so that we could share our son’s life with you,” his father said in a jumbled email. David’s father is also named David. He said that he and his wife Crystal and his son Bryan had all read my book, and in it they found stories of the EOD brotherhood that sounded just like the few David shared after the war. Would I come to Pennsylvania? Would I do a speaking engagement? As a United Airlines employee, he could arrange a ticket. I could stay in his home. “Thank you for allowing us to contact you,” the message ended. When you write a memoir, everyone thinks they know you. They really only know what you chose to share in the book, of course, but if those details are embarrassing or difficult, trials that most of us keep private, they feel like they know enough. This leads people to do funny things: share their own intimate secrets, ask for favors, seek advice, lay their troubles on your door. I got a lot of letters like this. But there is little relief or satisfaction possible in this brief interaction, and most readers intuitively know this; after an exchange of emails, a mutual wish for peace or understanding or healing, we both move on. Realistically, what else is to be done? But the Crossman family was asking for something different, something more, and I admit that the ambiguity of the request made me uneasy from the start. David had texted me “I will meet you at arrivalgate” and I assumed he meant baggage, but I was wrong. When I got off the plane in Newark a man vigorously waved at me from across the concourse, and in that instant every preconception I had of David Crossman evaporated. Looking back on it now, I realize that it was the United employment that threw me. If he could get me a seat on an airplane, I assumed he was a pilot. But the man zigzagging through travelers, hand above his head, matched no such generic mental image. [End Page 158] David Crossman looks like a bulldog who has gotten into one too many fights. His small nose is crushed, pushed upward into his face so that his bridge does a U-turn and his nostrils flare. His teeth are divided into thirds: missing, black, and yellow. His jowls hang. His goatee is long and grey and the short hair on the top of his head is thinning all over. When I met him, he wore a hooded sweatshirt, baggy pants, and beat-up sneakers. His glasses, with nowhere to perch, required constant straightening. He reached out a swollen hand, covered in scars and scabs. I shook it, and David smiled. “How did you get...