Alan’s oncologist was an hour and a half away and, with no military affiliation, had no clue what was going on or what was at stake. So when Alan got there, he nonchalantly walked into the exam room and made it seem like this was the most run-of-the-mill, check-the-box, stamp-the-passport visit in the world. Which it was—until he felt Alan’s lymph nodes.
“These seem swollen, Alan.”
Here’s the thing about civilian doctors who practice around the edges of a military population: They may be adjacent to our world, but that’s a lot different than being in it, and the truth is, they know fuck-all about how the military actually operates. So when a young, healthy-looking Marine walks into one of their exam rooms ramrod straight, confident, and unflappable, then lies right to their fucking face, they have no incentive to dig deeper and no clue that they’re getting ridden hard and put away wet. Plus, Alan had already done this to the doctor a year earlier, when he fed the doctor the line of bullshit that got him cleared for SOI before he should have been. This guy was used to the feel of the man in the saddle taking him for a ride.
“Oh, I know, but I’m obviously fine,” Alan said. “I mean, you declared me cancer-free eleven months ago, and truthfully this is just a formality the military requires so they can cover their own asses. Also, I’ll be home in three weeks. It’s almost like a retreat in a way. It’s not like I’m invading Iraq or anything.”
That was enough for Hall of Fame Hippocrates, apparently, because he signed off and sent my brother on his way.
When Alan got back to base, there were still a few “small” hurdles he needed to overcome. First, he needed a ride to Kuwait, because his company, Echo, had just left, including our brother Davis. There were other companies still scurrying around preparing to deploy the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that…but his company was already flying the friendly skies. So he hatched a plan to go standby with Fox Company, which was leaving the next day.
It was a solid plan, except for the next problem: Since he wasn’t officially cleared to deploy, he didn’t have any equipment. No helmet, no body armor, no nothing. It’s one thing to talk your way onto another company’s plane; it’s another thing entirely to come up with a plausible reason why you have no gear. So Alan didn’t even try. Instead, as he told me later, he “found some loose equipment laying on the floor by the lockers” of other companies who weren’t about to deploy. Then he added, “Some of the lockers might have been open, it was hectic around there.” You know what else is hectic, Alan? The tornado of bullshit whipping around your head.
The rest of the night and into the next day, Alan scrambled like a man on fire to get onto Fox’s plane. Once he got approval and was safely onboard, he triumphantly grabbed a seat and took a breath for the first time in seventy-two hours. He looked around at everyone to see if they were as excited as he was. That’s when he realized his next and biggest problem: All these dudes had guns. He did not. Whoopsies! How the hell was he going to get a weapon? Oh well, one hustle at a time.
When the flight landed, Alan caught a lift to base with Fox Company. When he got off the truck and took his first official step onto a U.S. military base in wartime conditions, a guy from Alpha Company saw him and stopped him in his tracks.
“Best?” he said in disbelief. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“Oh, I hitched a ride.”
“Dude, Davis is going to fucking shit his pants. Does he know?”
“What do you think?”
The Alpha Company guy laughed and disappeared, but Alan had other things on his mind. Big, long, hard, black things that gave him immense pleasure to wrap his hands around. Also, he needed a gun. How does one go about getting a firearm in a war zone when you’re not even supposed to be there in the first place? Turns out, you just ask. Alan showed up to his unit HQ, talked to the first sergeant of another company, and asked to sign out a gun. Simple as that. No one even said anything to him, and he went along as if it was business as usual.
Within twenty minutes of Alan being there, word had reached Davis, who immediately bolted out to see if the rumors were true.
“Bro, what the fuck are you doing here?” Davis asked.
“Turns out Southwest flies really far east now.”
Davis had so many questions. Alan patiently answered them all, the way you do when you’re explaining something awesome you’ve done and you’re just waiting for the other person to catch up and agree with you. Davis just shook his head. None of the answers made any logical sense; they were only understandable if you knew Alan as well as Davis does. Ultimately, the “how” of it all didn’t matter. It was the “why” that was important, and Davis was glad that Alan wasn’t missing out, because not being over there with the guys really would have killed him. Well, that and the cancer.
I didn’t even find out about Alan’s little stunt until about a week later. I was chilling at home when the phone rang. When I answered, I heard the crackling of what I now recognize as a SAT (satellite) phone, followed by a faint voice.
“Hey man, what’s up?” he said, as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
“Hello? Alan, is that you?”
“Yeah man, I’m in Kuwait.”
“What?” I said, stunned.
“Yeah, I can’t really talk. I only have a minute on this thing. Tell everyone that I love them and that I’m here with Davis and it’s all good.”
“Okay. You guys kick some ass. Love you guys.”
“Same here.”
The phone call ended as quickly as it had started. Knowing what I know now, I have no idea how the fuck a lowly E-3 in the Marine Corps even got to use a SAT phone. Back then, they were like a hundred dollars per minute. When my dad got home and I told him Alan had called, and where he’d called from, and how he’d called, my dad just shook his head, just like Davis had.
But that was Alan: unstoppable. There was no obstacle he couldn’t overcome, no bull he couldn’t shit. Not cancer, and certainly not the pesky regulations of the United States military. He never complained, he never made excuses, and he never asked for pity or a break. He just did his job. That, as much as anything else, really pushed the baby out of the stroller for me when it came to the idea of joining the military.
Alan’s calmness and deliberation and fortitude were an inspiration for me from the day he got the news—of his diagnosis, of the planes hitting the building, of the long road ahead for him. I was fired up for patriotic reasons too, of course: I wanted to do everything I could to defend my country and the freedom it provides to all of us. But the real motivation came from within my own family. Watching how Alan and Davis turned into men as the war filled them with purpose, I remember thinking, “I want that.”