Shadow of the Sword : A Marine's Journey of War, Heroism, and Redemption

by WORKMAN, JEREMIAHBRUNING, JOHN

• ISBN13: 9780345512130
• ISBN10: 0345512138
• Format: Trade Paper
• Copyright: 2035-01-01
• Publisher: Ballantine Books

Summary

Awarded the Navy Cross for gallantry under fire, Staff Sergeant Jeremiah Workman is one of the Marine Corps' best-known contemporary combat veterans. In this searing and inspiring memoir, he tells an unforgettable story of his service overseasand of the emotional wars that continue to rage long after our fighting men come home. Raised in a tiny blue-collar town in Ohio, Jeremiah Workman was a handsome and athletic high achiever. Having excelled on the sporting field, he believed that the Marine Corps would be the perfect way to harness his physical and professional drives. In the Iraqi city of Fallujah in December 2004, Workman faced the challenge that would change his life. He and his platoon were searching for hidden caches of weapons and mopping up die-hard insurgent cells when they came upon a building in which a team of fanatical insurgents had their fellow Marines trapped. Leading repeated assaults on that building, Workman killed more than twenty of the enemy in a ferocious firefight that left three of his own men dead. But Workman's most difficult fight lay ahead of himin the battlefield of his mind. Burying his guilt about the deaths of his men, he returned stateside, where he was decorated for valor and then found himself assigned to the Marine base at Parris Island as a "Kill Hat": a drill instructor with the least seniority and the most brutal responsibilities. He was instructed, only half in jest, to push his untested recruits to the brink of suicide. Haunted by the thought that he had failed his men overseas, Workman cracked, suffering a psychological breakdown in front of the men he was charged with leading and preparing for war. InShadow of the Sword, a memoir that brilliantly captures both wartime courage and its lifelong consequences, Workman candidly reveals the ordeal of post-traumatic stress disorder: the therapy and drug treatments that deadened his mind even as they eased his pain, the overwhelming stress that pushed his marriage to the brink, and the confrontations with anger and self-blame that he had internalized for years. Having fought through the worst of his trialsand now the father of a young sonWorkman has found not perfection or a panacea but a way to accommodate his traumas and to move forward toward hope, love, and reconciliation.

Excerpts

Chapter One 


 REFLECTION OF THE DAMNED 
Spring 2006 
Parris Island , S . C .

The dream was bad, the worst in weeks. The ceiling comes into focus. I blink the sleep out of my eyes. My heart races, sweat stains my sheets. I’m burning up. Every morning, it is always the same. I remember everything. Every move, every unearthly sensation and disorienting noise. It is the most vivid dream I’ve ever had, and I have it night after night after night. 

A year ago, when the nightmare first invaded my sleep, I drowned it in liquor. At the time my unit, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, or 3/5, was stationed at Camp Pendleton in Southern California. One night, I wandered into a tavern called The Harp in Newport Beach. On one wall rested a plaque commemorating the achievements of 3/5. Right then, I knew I had my watering hole. In the first month after I got back from leave, I ran up a three- thousand- dollar tab at The Harp. 

I discovered that Jack Daniel’s did what nothing else could. I’d drink until I passed out, and in that darkness the nightmares and memories could not find me. Every morning, I’d peel my eyes open, unsure of who I was or where I’d ended up. Self- awareness only gradually penetrated the crushing hangover. I didn’t mind that; it gave me time to slip into myself and prepare for the shock of who I’d become. By noon, I’d be up and about, focused only on that night’s binge, longing for its numb sanctuary. 

Not anymore, not for the last five months. That’s when I started drill instructor school and had to devote everything I had left to graduate. Ever since I was a raw recruit, I’d wanted to be a drill instructor. 

A year removed from my tour in Iraq, I fulfilled that dream and graduated tenth in a class of sixty. Be careful what you wish for. That cliché has become the story of my life. 

I’ve always been an achiever. Varsity football, baseball, and wrestling back home in Ohio taught me to compete without reservation. I came of age in a tiny town of about twenty- five hundred people called Richwood, where Tractor Days was the year’s biggest event. 

My friends and neighbors all hailed from hardworking, blue- collar stock; the kind of Americans who have quietly held this country together generation after generation. They aren’t revered as they should be anymore, and the blue- blood Eastern city folk look down their noses at us Red- Staters, but the fact is, the heart of America beats in towns like Richwood, whether the elites want to admit it or not. We lived a sort ofVarsity Bluesexistence in our little town. Football games dominated the fall weekends, baseball dominated the spring. In between, there were school dances, Saturday- night dates, and cruising after we got our driver’s licenses. 

I had come to Richwood after living in Marion, Ohio, until seventh grade. When I was six, my parents divorced. Dad moved to Richwood, Mom stayed in Marion and remarried a man I came to despise. When I could, I escaped to live with my dad, who worked in a local steel mill. I was the new kid in a town of less than a thousand surrounded by corn and wheat fields. Everyone knew everyone’s business. I dropped in from what folks considered a big city—Marion’s population is about 40,000—and was instantly put on probation by my peers. Where would I fit in? Would I be an outcast? 

I threw myself into sports, and my football and baseball skills gained me acceptance. Soon everyone knew my name, and I could walk downtown after a Friday- night game and receive backslaps and