Kenneth Iaciofano

“hey, do you know Yauch or O'Bryan?”

“Why?” my husband asks coming up behind me.

Shouldn't he know by now? Every time I ask if he knows someone, it is because they are dead. If someone had been shot, I merely say Barnes (or whomever) was shot in the leg (or wherever). Sometimes the guys are home after their injuries. Sometimes the bullet only grazed and they are back in combat. If I ask if he knew someone, I am doing so to gauge his relationship so I can tell him with the appropriate level of solemnity.

Because Karl does not check social media, I always hear before him about who drove over an IED or was shot in the face. One of my duties is to keep him informed. I did not know Yauch or O'Bryan so my concern is only for my husband. Those are the easy ones.

In 2009, I read the status RIP Ice and I immediately send a message to the guy who posted it. “You're kidding, right?” has been my standard response to anything too hard to hear since my dog Ellie died when I was 12. No one has ever been kidding.

Kenneth Iaciofano was, according to the internet, a fuck up. Earlier in 2009, he had drunkenly driven his car the wrong way down a highway. Unbeknownst to the internet, Ken (or Ice as the guys called him) was also the only guy my husband had served with who kept in touch. He would call just to chat about how his stupid Guard unit was or how much vodka he'd been drinking. I think he called because he wanted someone to recognize how hard he had tried to escape the crappy life ahead of him. Alcoholism was in his blood so before Ice even joined the army, he had been coping with life by drinking.

At 18, Ken went to war in Iraq. First he was an errand boy for some higher ups. His job was to fetch coffee for men in air conditioning who were not being shot at. After my husband's battalion started losing men – Chevy died within 48 hours of their arrival in Baqubah, where the men started attending a funeral a week on average – the higher ups asked their errand boys which of them were infantry. Ice, among others, raised his hand and was sent into the thick of battle. He went from being in air conditioning all the time to wearing over seventy-five pounds of gear in a sweltering Iraq summer.

Ken was a good soldier, maybe not an excellent one, but he hadn't gotten the practice everyone else had. Regardless, he was a good soldier, which is more than can be said for 99.5% of our population. Currently less than one half of one percent of our population serves in the military. So Ken was a good soldier in some of the heaviest fighting of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Almost 6 months into his war, Ken's kidneys failed.

I can only imagine how betrayed he must have felt. The enemy had not gotten to him but his own body was failing him. Ken was sent home.

I met him when we went to clean the barracks with the FRG (Family Readiness Group) for the single soldiers who were close to coming home. As a friend and I walked into a dusty room, we saw three soldiers sitting on beds without sheets.

“Hey,” said a baby-faced boy of 18, “you're Karl's old lady.”

“How do you know that?” I asked.

“I recognize you from the picture in his wallet.”

It was a good first impression, recognizing me, being my husband's friend.

I was saddened months later when I learned Ken was in 5N, the designated mental health ward at our military hospital. He was drinking, a lot, not only liquor but also cough syrup. My husband visited him a few times. A few months later, Ken's contract was up with the army, but he wouldn't pack his things. So Karl helped him pack and brought him to our house. Then he spent a few days helping Ken tie up loose ends and sign out. During the evenings, he would pore over maps with Ken, plotting the best route back to Rhode Island. Without Karl, I'm not sure Ken would have ever left. When he was finally squared away, the date to report for Guard looming over his head, Ken left. I never saw him again.

He called every once in a while. He was the only one, once my husband left the army a few months after Ken. I liked Ken so when I read that he was dead, I was stricken. I sobbed. I sat down on our tile kitchen floor, bracing myself in a corner of cabinets and sobbed. Then I stopped. Not only was my daughter looking worried when I could not explain to her why I was crying so hard, but I knew the blow would be worse for my husband. If, as I have always believed, only one of us can fall apart at a time, then he certainly deserved this collapse more than me.

My husband and I had been planning a date that night. I called the babysitter and arranged for her to come early. I steadied my voice and called my husband, explaining that the kids were driving me crazy and we were going to leave as soon as he got home from school.

I made it around the corner before I pulled over to the curb.

“Ken's dead. Apparently he started drinking heavily a few days ago, around Veteran's Day, and he drowned last night in the bath tub.”

Instead of going to a movie, we spent the evening on our cell phones. Karl called Ken's mom for funeral details and I called the airlines to find him a plane ticket to Rhode Island to say goodbye to Ken.

At the funeral, Karl read a letter one of their other brothers in arms had sent from Iraq. When he said goodbye to Ken, Karl removed Ken's Guard unit pin from his dress uniform and replaced it with his unit pin from Iraq.

Ken's death has not been labeled a suicide. No one from my husband's unit calls now.