Soldiers
Posted: Wed Jan 28, 2004 11:25 am
You're standing in the middle of a small third world town, somewhere in Kuwait. Run down buildings that are on the verge of collapsing stand to all sides.
Standing next to you is your battle buddy, your new best friend. Everywhere you go, everything you do, he is at your side. You are a member of the United States Army, and you couldn't be more proud. You know that you would take a bullet for your battle buddy in a heart beat, and the comfort of knowing that he would do the same warms your heart.
As you round a building, one of the same ones that you've rounded every day for the past eight weeks, you notice a little girl starting to walk towards you. You look at this girl and all you can see is innocence, just a poor girl in a poverty stricken nation. She's not more than waist high on you, her long brown hair tattered and nappy. Smears of dirt and filth cover her face, but through all the dirt, her eyes shine an image of pure inculpability.
As she gets a good five feet from you, her right arm extends as to offer you a gift. Her tiny fingers are wrapped around something that you cannot quite make out, so you and your battle buddy begin to walk towards her. Still not making out what she has in her hands, your battle buddy kneels down to accept the gift.
She looks up at you, then to him, and instantly you snap out of your picture perfect world and realize that something is horribly wrong. You scream at your battle buddy to run, but by then it is too late. She has already dropped it. She turns and runs, scurrying off into the maze of buildings behind her.
In that instant, your entire life comes before you. Your family, your friends, the plans you had, the wife you have at home, the children you never had. All of the things you wanted in life, they all seem so distant... so faded.
In that instant, as your knees buckle and your mind goes completely blank, you come back to reality. Only a split second has passed, but it feels like you've been floating on a bed of clouds for eternity. You reach to grab your battle buddy to start running, but he is not within reach. He is on the ground, screaming at you to run. He dove onto the grenade, your best friend, the person you've spent virtually every waking moment with ever since you shipped off to this forsaken land. You finally realize what had just happened, and you know there is no other choice. You don't say anything to him, you don't have to. The look he gives you, and the look you return, gives a lifetime of explanation.
You turn to run, and only get about four feet before you dive to the ground.
The explosion rattles your ears and sends chunks of dirt and rock into the air. You are familiar with the sound of a grenade, but this one sounded different. This one was accompanied by screams, screams of which you have never begun to imagine.
Immediately you rise to your feet and look down behind you to where your battle buddy had been lieing on the ground. You realize where the screams were coming from... right where he is laying. The kevlar vest that you put on every morning completely protected his torso. His midsection was kept whole, but as you try to give him a little comfort, you cannot help but know that he will not survive. His arms and legs are completely torn to shreds, shrapnel embedded inside his skin.
Your life was spared, but the life of your closest friend was taken from you. His family, his dreams, his future, were all sacrificed to save yours.
..
This is a true story of what happened last week to my best friend's brother and his battle buddy. I do not consider myself a writer, so please do not critique what I wrote.
The next time you say "Well, that's what you signed up for" to a member of our military, please think of this. This is not what they signed up for. He will be living with the screams of his best friend ringing in his ear every night. He will be living with the images of his best friends torn body etched in his mind. He will be reliving the nightmare of what happened forever. This isn't just some movie, this is reality.
My best friend will be leaving the country in March to go to Iraq. She will be in the same type of hostile territory that her brother is in. I hope that you can all spare some time to pray for her and the rest of our soldiers that are risking their lives to do what they believe is right.
Standing next to you is your battle buddy, your new best friend. Everywhere you go, everything you do, he is at your side. You are a member of the United States Army, and you couldn't be more proud. You know that you would take a bullet for your battle buddy in a heart beat, and the comfort of knowing that he would do the same warms your heart.
As you round a building, one of the same ones that you've rounded every day for the past eight weeks, you notice a little girl starting to walk towards you. You look at this girl and all you can see is innocence, just a poor girl in a poverty stricken nation. She's not more than waist high on you, her long brown hair tattered and nappy. Smears of dirt and filth cover her face, but through all the dirt, her eyes shine an image of pure inculpability.
As she gets a good five feet from you, her right arm extends as to offer you a gift. Her tiny fingers are wrapped around something that you cannot quite make out, so you and your battle buddy begin to walk towards her. Still not making out what she has in her hands, your battle buddy kneels down to accept the gift.
She looks up at you, then to him, and instantly you snap out of your picture perfect world and realize that something is horribly wrong. You scream at your battle buddy to run, but by then it is too late. She has already dropped it. She turns and runs, scurrying off into the maze of buildings behind her.
In that instant, your entire life comes before you. Your family, your friends, the plans you had, the wife you have at home, the children you never had. All of the things you wanted in life, they all seem so distant... so faded.
In that instant, as your knees buckle and your mind goes completely blank, you come back to reality. Only a split second has passed, but it feels like you've been floating on a bed of clouds for eternity. You reach to grab your battle buddy to start running, but he is not within reach. He is on the ground, screaming at you to run. He dove onto the grenade, your best friend, the person you've spent virtually every waking moment with ever since you shipped off to this forsaken land. You finally realize what had just happened, and you know there is no other choice. You don't say anything to him, you don't have to. The look he gives you, and the look you return, gives a lifetime of explanation.
You turn to run, and only get about four feet before you dive to the ground.
The explosion rattles your ears and sends chunks of dirt and rock into the air. You are familiar with the sound of a grenade, but this one sounded different. This one was accompanied by screams, screams of which you have never begun to imagine.
Immediately you rise to your feet and look down behind you to where your battle buddy had been lieing on the ground. You realize where the screams were coming from... right where he is laying. The kevlar vest that you put on every morning completely protected his torso. His midsection was kept whole, but as you try to give him a little comfort, you cannot help but know that he will not survive. His arms and legs are completely torn to shreds, shrapnel embedded inside his skin.
Your life was spared, but the life of your closest friend was taken from you. His family, his dreams, his future, were all sacrificed to save yours.
..
This is a true story of what happened last week to my best friend's brother and his battle buddy. I do not consider myself a writer, so please do not critique what I wrote.
The next time you say "Well, that's what you signed up for" to a member of our military, please think of this. This is not what they signed up for. He will be living with the screams of his best friend ringing in his ear every night. He will be living with the images of his best friends torn body etched in his mind. He will be reliving the nightmare of what happened forever. This isn't just some movie, this is reality.
My best friend will be leaving the country in March to go to Iraq. She will be in the same type of hostile territory that her brother is in. I hope that you can all spare some time to pray for her and the rest of our soldiers that are risking their lives to do what they believe is right.