I Died For What?

“MISSION ACCOMPLISHED”

Yet I trudge wearily along a sandy street in this God forsaken country. The oppressive heat saps the strength, especially when one is laden with combat gear - helmet, flak vest, ammo. My weapon at the ready, I have no question as to the identity of the enemy. He, or even she, may hold the ideology or religious belief of Sunni, Shite or even the insurgent, but whomever points their weapon at me is the enemy . Do I hold as truth the propagandist belief that I am here to create democracy in this war torn land? No, I’m here to survive until my rotation day. I cradle my weapon tighter, closer for I know not what awaits as the enemy lurks silently in every nook and cranny.

Did I hear a shot ring out? Perhaps, but almost instantaneously I suffer a mortal wound as the unseen projectile finds its mark and rips through my throat. My jugular pierced, blood cascades from my body like flood waters raging through a levee. No words come to pass. No scream for a medic - at least not from me. Had I died before I fell to the ground? God only knows.

“Bring ‘Em On”

I looked over at my driver. A young lad of twenty, a hardware store clerk in civilian life, not much younger than I. But he looked much older as he drove along, his eyes intensely focused on the road ahead, his hands gripping the steering wheel as if he held it in a strangle hold. Sweat not merely dripped, but poured from his brow. His pale face might have seen a ghost or maybe knew that one was out there.

Suddenly the RPG’s lit up the terrain and we became the little bears sporting the bulls eye in the carnival arcade. The hardware store clerk swerved to his right to avoid the incoming missiles and ran over the booby trap hidden along side the road. The initial explosion was deafening. Imagine a little red wagon precariously perched on the rim of a volcano at the moment of eruption. The undercarriage of the vehicle exploded upwards forming thousands of hunks of shrapnel, large and small. The searing metal mixes with fragments of flesh and bone. The acrid putrid smell of burning flesh chars my nostrils. All the while, the relentless attack of the enemy continues until we are no more.

And the military brass, safe in their operation centers miles away, continue to send the brave men and women into harm’s way without a viable plan of attack. The suits ten thousand miles away continue to paint a rosy picture of victory.

The American death toll continues to rise