Home, but not really

SECOND OF TWO PARTS

The Gophers football game droned on in the background as Chip Rankin and a half-dozen guys from Bravo Company dug into their burgers and fries.

On this sunny Saturday in October, Rankin and the boys had gathered at Champps Restaurant in St. Paul to welcome a comrade to Minnesota.

Max -- or "Mad Max" as the troops called him -- was a 19-year-old Shiite who had served as interpreter for Rankin's National Guard unit near Fallujah. He had gone on most of their missions, translating tough questions for U.S. troops.

But in so doing, Max had put his life at risk. Before leaving Iraq, Rankin had promised himself that he'd work to bring Max to the United States. On this day, he made good on his word.

"The bond you have there is so tight, nobody else understands it," Rankin said. "When you go out every day and think you may die with these guys, you get very close."

The war was three months behind him and the tug of unfinished business was still strong. In many ways, he was still a captain looking out for his men.

But Rankin also knew it was time to move on.

• • •

Camp Fallujah, Iraq, Dec. 10, 2006

A week after the fatal Humvee attack, Bravo Company pulled out of Camp Fallujah for a two-week sweep of Anbar Province.

"Operation Sledgehammer" was the most ambitious mission yet under Rankin's command. About 265 National Guard members and Marines were in on the action, hoping to flush out insurgents.

The mission was dangerous, and Rankin's men were a mess. Just a week before, Bryan McDonough and Corey Rystad had been killed by an IED, and John Kriesel's legs had been blown off.

"When the first guys die, everything kind of changes," Rankin said. "Now, it's real. And you had a range of emotions from 'I never want to go outside the wire again' to 'Let's kill 'em now' to everything in between."

But this operation had been in the works for weeks. There was no turning back.

Once in the field, Bravo Company searched villages and rounded up the enemy while dodging sniper attacks and roadside bombs. Two full weeks of fast-paced, dangerous work on little sleep. Nobody was killed. Nobody was injured.

By the time the troops returned on Christmas Eve, they had killed more than 15 insurgents and captured 18 more. What's more, they'd gotten word from Germany that Kriesel would survive.

At dinner that night, Rankin looked around the mess hall. He saw a few smiles. He sensed calm.

Two weeks before, his men had experienced some of the worst that Iraq could deliver, but they'd gone out and done their job. Now, the confidence was back.

If someone had asked Rankin at that moment to sign up for lifetime duty, he would have done it. Easy.

Looking back on that night, he said, "There was nothing that we couldn't tackle."

• • •

After lunch, Rankin, Max and the guys headed east toward Cottage Grove. Kriesel had spent eight months at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, but now he was back, rolling down the road in his golf cart, showing off his new handicap-accessible house in the hills not far from the Mississippi River.

Rankin lingered, basking in the laughter and joshing with his men. "What you all got lined up, fellas?" he asked as the guys soaked up the sunshine on the back-yard patio.

"Drinking," someone said, chuckling.

"Yeah, I know you do," Rankin said with a smile.

Rankin had jokingly warned Becky that it might be a late night with the guys. And now his guys were laughing, the sun was shining and part of him wanted to stay.

But the drive west was long, it was getting late and, tempting as it was to stay, Rankin knew he really ought to go.

• • •

Camp Fallujah, late December 2006

In the mess hall after a long tough day, Sgt. Jim Wosika spied Rankin in the chow line.

Wosika was a big-city kid from St. Paul. Rankin was his superior, but he was from a small town -- Little Falls -- and Wosika loved to get under his skin.

Both were wrestlers; Wosika starred in high school, and Rankin coached the Litchfield team to a state title in 2003. They gave each other a lot of grief. Wosika called Rankin a hick. Rankin called Wosika a cake eater.

On this night, Wosika popped off again, teasing Rankin about the fatty burger he was about to eat.

Rankin had had it.

He put down his tray, and they headed to the wrestling room. With a dozen of their comrades cheering them on, the sergeant and the captain squared off.

"They all wanted to see me get my butt kicked," Rankin said.

They wrestled for maybe 10 minutes, maneuvering for the angle that might bring a takedown and victory. Rankin finally found it, pinning his sergeant for the win.

Wosika walked off the mat, leaned over and threw up.

Go have another Marlboro, Rankin said, grinning.

The boys had wanted a butt kicking. But on this night, it was the captain who delivered.

• • •

On a night in late October, the Fargo VFW hall was hopping. A band kicked out some rock and roll as a few dozen regulars lined up at the bar. They sipped drinks and played blackjack in the blue haze of cigarette smoke.

One by one, the first of about 50 boys of Company B pushed through the door. Chip hadn't seen them in weeks, and he clapped them on the back and shook their hands. They bought each other drinks.

Rankin had rented the room as a place for his guys to get together on a Friday night. The next morning they'd gather across the river in Moorhead for the second of three National Guard meetings meant to help soldiers ease back into civilian life. The final meeting would come in December, when this Bravo unit would be disbanded. Rankin was already feeling a sense of loss at the thought.

When the band took a break, a customer approached, holding two bottles of champagne.

She handed one bottle to Chip, who thanked her and took a swig. Over the din, she thanked the men.

"Good job, boys!" someone shouted. Rankin smiled again and passed the bottle to a comrade. He looked embarrassed.

"Turn the music back up," he said. "That's enough of that."

• • •

Anbar Province, Jan. 9, 2007.

Wosika's squad was on patrol with another when they came upon an abandoned vehicle.

Operation Sledgehammer had restored Bravo's confidence, and everything was clicking at Camp Fallujah. The troops were looking ahead to the end of their tour, eight weeks away.

Wosika got everybody down, then walked up to check out the situation. As he approached, the vehicle exploded into flames. Wosika, the scrappy wrestler from St. Paul, died instantly.

Days later, more bad news -- Bravo Company's tour had been extended. That March date had been pushed back to July. After a year in combat, four more months seemed an eternity.

"How much longer can everyone stay lucky?" Rankin said. "When does your luck run out?''

• • •

His wife and son were asleep when Rankin closed the door to his Litchfield rambler on a cold November morning. He got in his pickup and headed down the empty two-lane highway toward Mora.

Winter was approaching, and Rankin was growing weary of these long, starlit commutes. Since returning in late July, he'd been living a push-pull life: his home in one town, his job in another; his body in Minnesota, his heart still in Iraq.

Over Thanksgiving, he told Becky that he'd never been stretched so thin in his life.

They were both ready for something to give.

"I feel he's very well-connected with his men," Becky said then. But, "We're not engaged yet as a family. We're doing fine, but we're not yet where it needs to be."

A few weeks earlier, Chip had walked into the woods, climbed up into a deer stand, and sat with his hunting bow and a quiver of arrows.

It was a perfect autumn afternoon, clear and still with touches of fading brown, orange and yellow splashed across the landscape.

He listened as the squirrels raced about on the fallen leaves. A six-point buck walked past. Then a doe.

Rankin hesitated. It'd been two years since he'd been out in the field. What was he waiting for?

He pulled back on the bowstring and released the arrow.

The doe stopped.

Rankin knew he'd hit her, but with dusk settling in, he couldn't be sure where. He didn't want to spook her into running, so he waited.

Minutes passed. He checked his watch -- in less than an hour, he had to be in Mora to help supervise the crowd at a football game. He didn't have time to track down the doe.

But he wasn't about to leave the job unfinished; he knew the responsibility of a good hunter. He'd be back.

He climbed down, raced to the cabin and hit the road. Hours later, under a starry sky, he returned with a flashlight.

The doe lay 15 yards from where he shot her. A clean kill. She had died almost instantly.

• • •

Rankin had known that the time would come when he would dismiss most of his men to the rest of their lives. But when that day arrived -- a cold, gray Saturday in mid-December at Camp Ripley -- it was harder than he'd thought.

As he looked into the faces of his troops, he thought about the past two years. These guys had endured some of the worst Iraq could throw at them.

Yet during their time in Anbar Province, they'd pushed back the enemy, captured more than 90 insurgents and driven out scores more. Their proudest moment had come in January 2007, when they found and freed three people who were being tortured in a house not far from Camp Fallujah.

Now, Rankin stood in the mess hall, his baggy fatigues tucked into the tops of his desert boots, his men at attention. "Things were not perfect," he said. "But you know what? We had faith in each other and took care of each other."

He talked about how war had hardened them, and he cautioned them about tough times ahead. He spoke of his own struggles in coming home. It hadn't been easy, he said, and he was still working things out.

And he told them once again that if any of them were ever in trouble, they could count on him. "I care enough about you so that if those issues are out there, I'll come out."

With that, Rankin thanked his men and wished them luck. He called them to attention one last time and delivered a parting salute.

• • •

A thin blanket of snow coated the streets of Litchfield as Chip Rankin pulled a trailer up to the front of his rambler.

Inside, Becky was packing boxes. Today was moving day; the Rankins' push-pull existence was nearing its end. After two years apart, after nearly six months of back and forth, Chip and Becky were acting on a plan they had talked about for months.

They were selling the house, Becky had quit her job, and they were going to make a go of it as a family -- living full time, together, in the cabin outside of Mora.

During a break, Chip smiled. "OK, Mrs. Rankin, what are we doing next?" Nathan played in the corner. Soon, he would be leaving the only home he'd ever known, and he wasn't happy.

Becky put her arm around him and told him about the new house and plans to get a "little dog and a big horse," and Nathan smiled.

As the afternoon faded, the Rankins shut the door on their house one last time and headed out the highway toward Mora.

Six months after leaving Iraq, Chip and his family were finally headed home. They had no illusions that life was going to be simple. "It's easier," Rankin said. "I communicate better, but I'm still not where I was when I left."

But they knew they were headed in the right direction.

Richard Meryhew • 612-673-4425