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Published: December 16th 2006
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Three Years Three years ago today, on December 16th, 2003, my baby brother was killed in Iraq.
Nathan Nakis was on the ground for most of the first year of the conflict, working with the B52nd Engineers to rebuild Iraqi infrastructure. At a time when the locals where still quite friendly to the American Military's cause--and the world still held out hope that this now unachievable mission would succeed--Nathan and his unit built orphanages and runways, repaired roads and reservoirs. His freetime was occupied with teaching Iraqi kids English and joining them for games of soccer.
It wasn't the kind of valiant or heroic death you expect from war. He didn't die from enemy fire or from a roadside bomb. He was killed in a truck accident brought on by an oil spill, a heavy rain, the military's poor planning and crass transportation protocols, and by his own attempt to save the lives of his passengers. There's no one to blame or to carry out vengeance on. Nothing to blame but the situation itself.
Nathan William Nakis Nathan was born on April 12th, 1984. My mom's got a story about Tonka trucks that I was
Nathan entertains Iraqi children atop a donkey
(This picture courtesy of the B52nd Engineers family support site memorial for Nathan) too young to remember, but I know when we were kids we played with those yellow construction toys a lot.
Nathan still pulled out the Tonkas in high school, now and then--he didn't worry about being called childish. He was the kind of person who would order a hamburger in a Chinese restaurant and not think anything of it. Who he was and what he wanted just came easy to him, he rarely let the conflicts of doubt or burdensome searches for meaning that block most people's attempts at contentment get in his way. To me, it seemed like he hadn't been saddled with these apprehensions, his meaning was goodness, and he seemed to overflow with it.
His joy came through people and through nature and through simple creativity. He liked to make friends and to entertain: to lift and connect the spirits of others. He liked to appreciate nature and to interact with it. He liked to build dams and forts, to solve problems with devices of his own conception, even to sew.
He could definitely be a jerk sometimes--I grew up with him--but he was by far the brightest light in my world. We didn't
Nate lives it up while his unit in Iraq is flooded out
(This picture courtesy of the B52nd Engineers family support site memorial for Nathan) get along half the time, but I looked forward to growing old with him. I took it for granted.
Castles There are a lot of things that kids plan in their heads when they're growing up. Girls think about their weddings, boys think about about conquering the world (ok, these days a lot of boys are planning weddings and girls are conquering worlds, but you get the idea). I thought alot about raising my family. He did too. We talked about it.
Our immediate family was small, our extended family was fractured and scattered. We enjoyed big parties with friends, and we envied the huge family gatherings of long-time Sedro-Woolley families and our Mexican friends. Nathan and I often promised one another that we'd live nearby in our middle age, so that our kids could have big family christmases and reunions and things like that.
There was always a place in my mind that held visions of my brother's future, and of my future with him. He would probably be a succesfully modest civil engineer with a sterling military record, and also a staunch conservationist. Who knows what might happen to me, but I'd be
rich and brilliant and we'd have each started families somewhere close together in Washington. His wife and my wife would call each other on the phone in the evenings. Nate and I would teach our kids how to climb trees and sneak through the woods. We'd have big family and friends cookouts where I'd sweat in the kitchen and drink too much beer, while he kept all the kids and teens entertained with paintball guns or belay-ropes or something. And the women could just rest and gossip. I wasn't always close to my brother when we were kids, but I wanted to be close to him as we aged.
And all that was destoryed on 12/16/2003. He was taken away at age 19. There would be no future for Nathan Nakis. No shared future for us and our families. But the part of my mind that held that future still hasn't caught up.
Pictures You'll see four pictures along with this blog. They're captioned, but I figure I'll give you some longer descriptions:
1. The first is a picture of the memorial tattoo I got for Nathan on the back of my left arm. The image is taken from a photograph of the small shrine at Nathan's Army memorial service held in Colorado Springs, Colorado. My parents and I attended this a week or so after Nathan's death. The ceremony for his unit in Iraq had just taken place and his body was in transit home, so in lieu of Nathan himself, this service used the memorial ritual employed throughout the Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts. A representation of the soldier is constructed from his M-16, his combat boots, his helmet, and his dog tags, this representation is then the centerpiece of the service. I feel it is an appropriate and powerful image to remember him with on my body.
2. The second is a picture of Nathan entertaining some of the local children in what has become a notorious donkey race. Anyone who knows me and didn't know him can clearly see some strong similarities between us in this picture. He was in the middle of a war in the desert on the other side of the world from home, but he decided to climb on top of a donkey and get in a race, laughing and grinning from ear to ear--with his machine gun still dangling from his arm!
3. Here is another great picture showing Nathan's inimitable spirit. They were flooded, severely. While the rest of the unit was probably in panic over their clothes and their books and their beds, Nathan pulled up a chair and enjoyed the new wading pool.
4. The tattoo for Nathan on my left arm was placed to counterbalance another memorial in the same position on my right arm. This was a tattoo I got in the aftermath of September 11th (I believe the work was done on 9/12/2001). One of my local tattoo shops offered free patriotic tattoos in exchange for donations to the American Red Cross that would go to help the victims in New York City. Similar promotions occured all across the country. The tattoos we picked were overwhelmingly symbols of war and violence. Americans knew there would be battle, we just didn't know with whom. Taken together, these two tattoos will always remind me of the dangerous mindset that led to this war, and of it's high cost, which my family felt so acutely just over two years later.
The middle two pictures come from the B52nd Engineers family support site's memorial to Nathan at http://www.rainbowmarketing.com/b52nd/nathan1.htm, which includes links to further pictures and memorials for Nate.
Today 12/16. This day has become permanently circled on my mental calendar. Not like a holiday, but like an ominous, dreaded date. A date I can never forget, I see it coming long in advance. Every year brings many of the same feelings and emotions, rituals and events, but every year is different and the date is as much a marker of the passage of time as it is a signifier of my own internal changes.
Early in the morning of December 16th, 2003, I was suffering intense nightmares, probably around the same time that Nathan was dying. They were dreams of him, dreams of pain, anguish. Every year on this day, I have experienced similar painful and lucid dreams.
I wake up even more deeply brooding than usual. I prefer to be alone on this day. I think about my brother. I think about the future that was taken away from all of us when he died.
This date also signals the coming of another Christmas without him. Then a New Years. Then my birthday in February with no brother to share it. Then his birthday in April, without him. Someday soon I'll have to come to terms with the fact that there will be more of these than there were with him.
It is important that I remember this day, that I use it to reflect on my brother's life and on this experience. It's important that I am aware of my own changing perspective. It's important not to forget.
I'm not in Iraq today, I'm still in Thailand. I will spend the day wandering, following my thoughts, and visiting temples and churches.
I'm still in Sriracha, but my heart is in Iraq.
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Connie
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Nathan
I will never forget Nathan, or this day he was taken away. He will always be missed.