Waking Up On the Appalachian Trail

By N. B. Hankes

Nate Hankes returned home from his tour in Iraq unable to answer one simple question: Had his mission overseas been honorable? Determined to find clarity and forge a new identity outside of the U.S. Army, Nate, alongside his brother Ben, a recent college grad delaying his entry into the Great Recession job market, set out to hike the entire length of the 2,180 mile Appalachian Trail. Unpredictable weather, brutal terrain, straining health, and a fractured mind stretched beyond comfort by a wise but imperfect hiking companion turn this walk in the woods into an adventure of body, mind, and spirit. And in a world gone mad, this coming-of-age story reminds us that true clarity and peace can only be found within.

 

Advanced Praise:

"Like Cheryl Strayed's Wild, Waking Up On the Appalachian Trail is a tale of transformation and emergence from trauma and confusion into something closer to insight and clarity. Hankes writes from the heart, and his story is both powerful and important. I hope this book finds the large, passionate audience it deserves."—Chris Ryan, Ph. D., author of Civilized to Death: The Price of Progress and host of the Tangentially Speaking podcast

"There are two battlefields described in Waking Up On the Appalachian Trail—one in Iraq and the other within the human heart and mind. Nate Hankes' memoir is the perfect metaphor for the path that leads each of us from ignorance, fear, and suffering to true freedom, reconciliation, and awakening. This book will change your life."—Darren Main, author of Yoga and the Path of the Urban Mystic

 

"In his courageous exploration and dogged determination to make sense of his young life as an Iraq war combat veteran, Nathan Hankes offers us the raw, honest, and gritty perspective of one who is willing to question everything in the service of living a connected, empathic and meaningful life." —Heidi Bourne, Mindfulness Educator & Consultant, Pacific Mindfulness

 

"Tim O'Brien wrote in his novel about Vietnam, The Things They Carried, 'A true war is never moral.' Nathan Hankes reminds us of that, but shows us there is a way forward: By bravely seeking truth, one step at a time, to understanding and redemption."—Kevin Sites, author of The Things They Cannot Say: Stories Soldiers Won't Tell You About What They've Seen, Done, or Failed to Do in War

 

"Waking Up On the Appalachian Trail is a deeply personal and powerful tale of a young veteran's journey to understand his role in America's post-9/11 wars. This unique coming-of-age story is an incredible encapsulation of young peoples' general disillusionment with American exceptionalism and the frustration that comes from questioning the status quo. I can't wait to see where Nathan goes next."—Allegra Harpootlian, ReThink Media

• Language: English
• Publisher: N. B. Hankes
• Release date: Apr 12, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393614128

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

I’m saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: The Iraq war was largely about oil. – Alan Greenspan, Chair of the Federal Reserve from 1987 to 2006

––––––––

Forward Operating Base Falcon

Baghdad, Iraq

October 2007

First Sergeant’s voice wavered when he called Specialist Frank Steel’s name one final time. The booming echo, forever humbled, drifted down the hollow chamber of the makeshift chapel.

The pews emptied in a somber and orderly procession as the congregation paid their final respects, saying goodbye to a friend, a brother in arms. Stained and dusty combat fatigues were all we had occasion to wear, feeling fortunate enough just to attend the memorial during the brief quiet moments between missions. Assault rifles rested diagonally across our chests and backs, held loosely at the hips with our hands.

We filed past a shrine at the plywood altar: two boots and a rifle, dog tags hanging from the pistol grip. A framed picture showed Steel’s grin, a devious smirk that never let on to what he might be thinking. The grin seemed out of place in the dim glow of the chapel, an untimely echo from the past.

The American flag in the photo’s background reminded me of the innocent patriotism that led to Steel’s final seconds in the streets of Baghdad, his willingness for duty, and his eagerness to please his superiors. I hung my head, reaching out to touch the dog tags, and I began to cry. Tears turned to stifled sobs as I failed to find the language to cope. The desperate cries from my mouth weren’t me. They were the release of months of fatigue and grinding psychological stress. Months of witnessing the worst in humanity, of never letting my guard down or letting myself think of home. Months of being stretched to the point of collapse. I wiped my eyes and buried the grief, gathering my strength for the night’s missions.

I set a coin at the shrine’s base, adding the precious silver medallion to the pile of offerings. The collection of honorary medals and simple mementos of shared moments were scheduled for shipment to his mother in California, along with the folded American flag.

* * *

July 2nd, 2009

Day 0

Trail Mile 5

The orgiastic buzz of nocturnal life filled the forest air around me. Each hum and click betrayed an insectile fear or desire, a battle and victory, a yearning to play a round of Darwinian roulette. I slapped at a mosquito on my neck, balling the crushed carcass with my fingertips before flicking the remains to the ground—a Pixar tragedy deep within the heart of Maine’s Baxter State Park.

The beam of my headlamp lit trees and falling raindrops, and my upward gaze stopped at the perfect specimen to turn theoretical book knowledge into action. Potential energy to kinetic. That’s the branch we’re looking for, I declared.

I stood there, in front of my brother, as an outwardly confident but desperately insecure middle-class American youth, the typical ’80s kid with no sense of history and a public-education world view. The military should have made me a man, but I couldn’t tell you with any certainty if my time in Iraq had been honorable or if I’d been exploited by a pathological greedy tribe of ivy leaguers, an oil dynasty waging war for oil. The TV commentary argued both sides.

I was the kid in high school who cheered when the armed forces initiated the Shock and Awe campaign on Iraq. If asked why, I said that the act was about justice and democracy. If probed deeper, I could only fall back on the assertion that America was the best country in the world, that we had moral obligations as the freest nation on earth.

Looking back on myself in those days—the way I wove my identity into that nationalistic pride—I would tell myself to look deeper. I’d tell myself to investigate behind the shiny facade I’d come to believe as objective truth, the one I learned about from the authority figures and media outlets entrusted to shape my mind. But I couldn’t.

And I was not a victim either. I only followed the same cultural currents, the swift and relentless torrent followed en masse by all the unthinking that led to so many of my peers going to college without any real clue as to their true calling, and that leads to middle-aged men asking, what for? after a life of corporate servitude and consumption. This rising current finds young wives crying silently next to sleeping husbands that they don’t really know or understand. It’s the same unfeeling current that finds struggling families drowning in credit-card debt and onerous mortgage obligations in their unconscious efforts to keep up with their friends and neighbors. I dictated my behavior and thoughts on the way in which I imagined those around me would condone or even admire. I swallowed the cultural Kool-Aid.

And I became even more intoxicated with patriotic arrogance nearing graduation. The sustained surge in patriotism following 9/11 made me feel as if my world view occupied the cultural moral high ground, that I was part of something larger than myself. I listened to vengeful country ballads on the radio and memorized the lyrics. Yes, I’d put a boot in their ass. I nodded as I sang along. Just hand me a rifle and point them out.

Like a character in a war film, I imagined myself operating in the shit and outside the wire, wondering what it would feel like to shoot someone, to maybe even get shot, to earn a purple heart. People would buy me drinks at the bar and give acknowledging head nods. They’d know my name. Their nods and approving gaze were the only rubric I had for success and self-worth. And in small town Middle West, I would come home from war a hero.

Okay, Ben, I said. Tie this end to the food bag. I flung the bundle of rope through the rainy forest air.

He rolled the line between his fingers, asking, Is this even gonna hold the bear bag?

Of course, it will! I replied, careful to project an impression of confidence. The cordage came from an outfitter just outside of Fort Riley, Kansas. He’d assured me of the rope’s all-purpose backpacking utility. Water from the forest floor soaked into my hiking pants, but the strain and fatigue of the day’s hike had me past caring about comfort. It seems skinny, I began, but it’s rated at like, eight-hundred-pound test or something stupid like that. You could reel in a bull tuna with that stuff.

A bull tuna? He brushed off the idiocy of my claim with an incredulous puff of air. He wanted to tell me that I had no idea what I’d gotten us into, that I’d started us on a poorly planned and pointless excursion along the Eastern Seaboard. He suspected that I’d made a 2,180 mile, continental-scale blunder.

Just tie it, I urged, grabbing the bag as he pulled a knot tight. I tied a stout branch to the rope’s free end and threw the rope up and over a horizontal tree branch overhead, smirking condescending fuck-yous at my brother when the branch landed at my feet, just as I’d planned. When it came time to lift the food bag, I drew up the slack and pulled tight to lift our provisions. But the waterproof sack seemed to have taken root, so inadequate the rope and my attempt at American muscle were for the job.

Humph? Ben snorted, looking me in the eye with an unimpressed look of inevitability. His gloating slowly faded into shades of uncertainty and almost-panic as he realized that the threat of a bear attack was a real possibility. With the dim Aha! expression of a Neolithic-order epiphany, he stooped and lifted the food bag high into the air, his frame toiling behind the unwieldy weight of eleven days’ worth of food. I drew up the slack, my confidence shaken by the set back. He lifted, I hoisted. Again, I commanded. I lifted, he hoisted. I jumped, pushing upward. Grunt, curse. Heave, ho.

Ben pushed at the bottom of the bag with outstretched fingers and on tiptoes, trembling like a quaking aspen in a mountain breeze, a cascade of sweat swept bits of moss and duff down the side of his face. My chronic incapacity to think critically had turned a How to Hang a Bear Bag magazine article into a folly, approaching cinematic proportions.

Okay, I said, delaying the command ever so slightly, quite possibly sadistically, as I watched him struggle. I gave him a nod while I tied the free end to a nearby stump.

Backpacking is really awesome, he said, looking up at the swaying bag overhead. He stood in a six-inch-deep pool of stagnant rainwater, shaking his head. Then he looked at me, pointed his thumb downward, and made a farting noise with his mouth. I shoulda stayed in Oshkosh delivering pizzas, he added, glancing down at his submerged feet. I couldn’t blame him. I had doubts, too, but I knew—deep inside—that time in the wilderness would help me, that I could find answers and clarity, even if I wasn’t yet sure of all the questions.

Now can you find the way back to camp? he jabbed, wringing rainwater from his beard. He bent down and stretched his right knee, wincing as the inflamed tendon pulled tight. I didn’t care that he’d been uncomfortable all day. He’d asked to join my hike. If backpacking wasn’t his idea of adventure, he could quit whenever he liked. So, I brushed off his insult, all of his snarky comments. He didn’t understand what the trail had come to represent for me.

Besides, he’d lost sight of the true irony of the moment: He had signed on to hike the entire length of the Appalachian Trail for the same reason I had. His worthless BA degree had given him the same flimsy sense of identity as my confusion over Iraq had given me. We both felt something was wrong, that certain social contracts had been broken.

After all of our separate existential flailing, we’d found ourselves in the same spot—though, if you’d asked at the time, neither of us could have articulated why we decided to hike the trail. Ben might have said he tagged along because he had no real job prospects in the recession and maybe even that he looked forward for an opportunity to hang out with his combat veteran brother. And I’d have said that I intended to hike the Appalachian Trail for the adventure of it all.

Neither of us could imagine that in the months ahead, Ben would find his confidence and life’s calling, and I would find an unlikely and unconventional mentor to help sort out my confusion, leaving the Appalachian Trail with a completely new and lasting world view. All we knew, standing at the base of that tree, was that we didn’t know enough to be out there.

* * *

Day 0

Trail Mile 0

Yeah, that should be enough, I said, stepping forward from the weather-battered sign. I grabbed the camera, its metal frame cold to the touch. The wooden placard had been carried, many years prior and board by board, up the same trail I just struggled up with my brother. The fact that the sign existed in the first place and that a governing-agency committed resources to erect such a sturdy sign in such hostile terrain denoted the cultural import of its resting place. Generations of outdoors enthusiasts had revered the peak as the northernmost point of the Eastern Seaboard’s fabled Appalachian Trail.

Are we good? Ben yelled through the wind, looking toward me for guidance. He rubbed his hands together in front of exhaling, pursed lips. The mist of Alpine clouds collected into dewdrops on the scruff of his beard as he shifted weight from one foot to the other. I couldn’t be sure whether this was for warmth or to comfort his aching feet.

Yeah, I called out, stepping away from the iconic sign. We can head back down. I turned around for one last look at the lettering on the sign. I had seen pictures of thru-hikers, bowing down to kiss the jagged lettering on those boards. Their faces and clothing were as battered and beaten as the flaking brown paint and sun-bleached wood. I’d imagined the moment many times myself, except circumstance had determined those faded letters marked my beginning, not ending. But I was out there, and I was free. That’s all I cared about.

Okay, well, let’s get going, Ben insisted, attempting to coax me down the trail like a winged killdeer. The weather really sucks up here.

I turned around to follow. Walking south, I looked behind me one last time before the sign faded into the blowing mist. I’d walked into my daydream.

CHAPTER TWO

Day 1

Trail Mile 5

My body felt like it had been thrown off of Mount Katahdin—so swollen and tender, every joint and tendon. I couldn’t tell if I’d slept or not. Stretching from inside the relative comfort of my down sleeping bag, I peered over at Ben. He shuffled inside his bag, shifting chaotically, almost defiantly, as if under a magnifying glass. He sighed, unable to find a comfortable resting place.

What time is it? I asked. A digital beep lit the tent with a faint blue tint.

Quarter to four.

I sighed at the thought and listened while so many expectation-shattering patters of rain rolled off the tent’s rainfly.

Rubbing my eyes, I considered the series of events that would have to occur before we could begin our first full day of hiking. First, I’d have to put on my clothes from the day before. They were wet and had filtered a perspiratory sheen I hadn’t produced domestically since before I’d left for the Iraq desert two years prior.

I would have to start with the socks, wringing them by hand before sliding them onto swollen feet, then the pants and shirt, followed by boots and rain gear. We would have to cook oatmeal inside the tent, but first, we’d have to traipse through the dark woods in search of our bear bag—assuming it had remained suspended above the forest floor and not become lodged in the digestive tract of a contented black bear.

Then, assuming we could complete those tasks, we’d have to pack our backpacks with all our wet gear, jamming the soaked tent into its stuff sack; our equipment had sopped up at least an extra pound of water that we’d carry for the rest of the day. On top of that, I didn’t know what direction we would have to hike to leave the park and enter the 100-Mile Wilderness.

I closed my eyes at the thought, though it all seemed domestic compared to my time in Iraq. A couple more hours of rest would help everything. The world dropped away as I drifted into a sort of half-sleep, pushing the day’s worries out of my mind.

Alright, Ben said, louder than necessary, as he sat upright in his bag. Might as well start the day. He unzipped his side of the tent. Cold water splashed onto my face.

Can’t sleep for shit, and you’re already awake. Son of a bitch. His tone registered like a shot across the bow. I rolled over in an act of nonviolent resistance.

Sliding out of his sleeping bag, he began putting on his cold, wet socks. Wake up, he said, nudging my shoulder.

Definitely a shot. Perhaps I’d misjudged his potential as a hiking partner when I told myself that we would have fun together. Maybe our five-year separation had irrevocably split us apart. Perhaps we weren’t as similar as I’d always imagined.

He might come around, I reasoned, pulling myself out of my sleeping bag and fumbling around the tent in search of my headlamp. Can I borrow your headlamp? I asked, too groggy to find my own.

I’m using mine right now. You should have slept with it around your neck. Worked for me, he said, tying his boots. Ben’s snarky reply, I imagined, was his way of getting back at me for having blindsided him with the physical toll required to hike up and down Mount Katahdin. I had forgotten to factor the 8,000-foot-elevation change into my verbal estimate of the effort required for our first day’s hike.

Okay, I told myself, my thoughts congealing firmer by the second: We would hike the trail. We would make it work. We’d start fresh.

* * *

Day 1

Trail Mile 17

Let’s take a break at these boulders, I called out, prompting Ben to drop his pack on the ground with the immediacy of a shift worker clocking out at the local lead smelter. Everything felt out of sorts, the contents of my life relegated to an eighty-five-liter backpack. I’d lived bare bones in Iraq, but never to such a degree. I felt as if I’d embarked on an alternate adventure, not the sun-bathed laugh-fest I had imagined. Survival had become a real consideration. The straps from my Osprey pack dug deep into my shoulders under the weight of its contents. Forty-three pounds of gear and food made walking on the relatively level riparian lowlands an arduous task. I never imagined backpacking could be so difficult or uncomfortable.

Wooowwwww, Ben said with the exaggerated pronunciation of a patronizing elder, his intonation deadpan, backpacking is amazing. We’re going to have sooooo much fun out here.  He inhaled greedy gulps of air. His sides heaved, ejecting carbon dioxide and sequestering oxygen in a rushed and rhythmic succession. The goddamn mosquitoes are going to send me to the loony bin. He flailed a hand in front of his face at the persistent hum of vampiric life. Nothing, nothing, was worse than putting on those cold-ass socks this morning.

I sat down and looked at the forest around me, letting my big brother blow off steam. Thick moss covered the forest floor like a soft green blanket. Hikers had carved a deep anthropogenic scar into the landscape, the muddy trail exposing rocks and roots. Generations of hikers, some just out for a couple of weeks, others for half a year or more, had contributed to its unsightly curvature, which seemed to be the quintessence of physics’ observer effect: our attempt to observe the natural world had altered the very system whose beauty we wished to admire, but the Baxter State Park wilderness was far from tamed.

Rain fell from the low-hanging clouds, not aggressively, but persistently in a way that communicated an unfortunate climatic resolve. Overhead, water dripped from needles and branch bows, beginning its steady, downward march toward the ocean—a cyclical, Sisyphean journey each and every droplet had traveled repeatedly for millennia. The particular forest ecosystem felt foreign and alienating in the context of the moment, though not so unlike the northern forests of the Middle West that I’d loved so much as a child. I thought of the family trips that our parents had taken Ben and me on as kids. I followed my big brother to the end of the dock to watch him coax perch to the surface with the beam of his flashlight. I’d follow his lead as he rigged up his fishing pole, watching closely to see how deep he set his bobber. As these thoughts rushed at me, I began to feel the calming rhythm of nature around me, the soft patter of rain on the moist duff and breathing moss.

Funny that the woods can be so tranquil while we’re struggling in our own little worlds.

Ben didn’t acknowledge having heard me. I paused, mentally focusing on a bead of sweat as it fell from my shoulder blades down the curve of my spine, gathering momentum before getting lost in the void of my ass crack. We had at least one hundred miles to hike before there was any certainty of the civilized comfort of an actual town, any guarantee of dry clothing, and neither of us had any way to predict the upcoming weather. I took a breath, a deep clearing breath, and observed my body as each muscle relaxed.

What are you expecting from this hike? I asked after a long pause, curious about Ben’s attitude. In all the pre-hike planning, we’d never discussed this.

Ah, well. His head turned downward as he mindlessly massaged his right knee. I knew he was in pain even though he hid his quiet grimaces. "I didn’t really have any plans set up for after I got done with school, really. After three years I basically knew I didn’t want to do anything with my criminal justice degree, but I was too far along to change programs at that point. I didn’t care for my stint in the National Guard either. And, ah, well, you kept talking about the hike, so I figured I’d tag along.

Then there’s Jill, he continued after a reflective pause, perhaps uncomfortable with the silence in such an uncommon real moment between us. We were having fun, for sure, and I’ve been thinking she’d be a good girl to marry. She’s hard working and loving, you know. If we can make it through this time apart, I might just have to ask someday soon.

No shit?

Yeah, I think it will be a good test. But this hiking . . . I figured we’d just kinda hang out around campfires and eat beef jerky all the time. I didn’t ever really think about all this rain and cold, these bugs.

Well, we should only have another mile or mile and a half to the shelter.

Which is it? Ben asked. One or one and a half?

Shouldn’t matter. I patted at the guidebook inside my pack. We have to walk there regardless. I hadn’t come to the trail to focus on such temporal minutia as tenths of miles. I wanted adventure, to fly by the seat of my pants, to get lost and meet strangers, to take detours and explore the out of the way treasures and mysteries the trail had to offer.

Look it up, Ben said. I want to know how close we are.

I don’t want to get the book wet. We’ll just walk until we get there. We’re not in a rush, are we?

No, but it would be nice to know how far I have left because then I’ll have something to look forward to.

Well, the good thing about the trail is that if we’re heading south, we know that it will lead us to where we’re going. Maybe tomorrow we can try your approach.

Ben kicked at the mud.

We sat in silence for several minutes, each of us thinking about our expectations for the hike. I didn’t know exactly what I wanted, but I knew, dimly, that the trail was an unprecedented opportunity for growth. Ben adjusted the visor of his rain jacket’s hood, craning his neck backward, deep inside the protective shell like a pissed off turtle. Without a word, I stood up and put on my pack. A thin layer of fat on my stomach pushed up and over the waist strap as I cinched the buckle tight. Like starlings in flight, Ben mimicked my direction simultaneously, somberly and in silence. We continued on to Hurd Brook Lean-to.

* * *

Forward Operating Base Falcon

Baghdad, Iraq

April 2007

My experience of war was no different or somehow more tragic than the existence of any blue-collar shift worker. I set an alarm clock before bed, maybe hitting snooze a couple of times before rolling off of my cot in the morning. I’d get dressed in the work clothes I wore the day before, yawning as I tied my boots tight.

Early on, I carried out these morning routines in a tent housing fifty other soldiers. I’d dress in the three-foot section of personal space to the left of my cot, careful not to wake the soldier next to me. Like most working class, there was no joy or hopeful expectation for the day. An industrial air-conditioner the size of a car blasted chilled desert air into the space, pushing the plastic fabric of the tent walls outward like a balloon. A row of fluorescent lights flickered overhead 24 hours a day. Every few months leadership moved us around, first to an abandoned factory and then into modular dorm rooms.

I’d brush my teeth in the morning, looking forward to going back to bed at the end of my shift. Twelve-hour workdays, seven days a week for months on end could do that. With an assault rifle over my shoulder and a 30-round magazine in my back pocket, I’d step into the blistering sun ready to grab the day by the tail. The walk to the flight line followed a decrepit road cutting between old Iraqi buildings.

Forward Operating Base Falcon was like any town, really. The military mechanics set up shop in an