Blink after blink I relive the moments that haunt me.
I can remember each of their screams. I remember how piercing they were. Busting my eardrums worse than the ricochet of bullets. My ears rung for days until all I heard was the faintest of screams that lasted for weeks. I remember their faces as it happened. Men who were made of pure titanium break down to raw iron. Sheer panic and terror holding them captive.Paralyzed by fear. Desperation seeping from their skin. Eyes frantically searching for a way out. Until they landed on me.
Until all their eyes landed on me.
They weren’t searching then. They were begging, pleading for me to do something. To do anything to get us out of there alive.
The worst part I remember is the realization they all shared. The realization that there wouldn’t be a way out. This would be their end. There wasn’t anything I could do to help them. And with that realization came acceptance and disappointment.
As I watched, choking on my own blood all my comrades take their last breaths I wanted nothing more than to take mine, too.
We were brothers.
All of us.
Then came the very last second.
The last breath.
The last flicker of light in their eyes.
The last heartbeat.
I witnessed my brothers experience their lasts while mine never came.
And I waited. I waited so fucking long for it to take me, too.
That was the plan. Fight together. Die together.
Together.
I couldn’t even give them that.
And there are days where I can’t tell which guilt weighs heavier.
The guilt of not getting them out of there alive after I ordered for them to go through or the guilt of living.
But right now, right now I can feel the guilt of living pressing down on my chest to where it hurts to fucking breathe. Every breath that I take a painful reminder that they will never have another.
All the little things that people take for granted scream at me. Being able to walk with my own two legs. A leg that was bleeding out from a bullet that Roman took. A leg that he would have lost if he would have survived. Having my own two arms and all ten of my fingers. The fact that I can wake up every day.
They scream at me. They remind me of how good that I have it. They tell me I could’ve lost so much more.
But my head, my fucked up brain tells me too often of all the things that I have lost. Of all the things I’m continuing to lose everyday.
You see they don’t tell you this when you enlist.
Fight for your country. Be a proud and courageous Marine. Remember what you were taught. Act how you were trained. You will be in life and death situations but you are prepared. Do your duty and stand for what you believe in. Then when the time comes you will go home and your fight will be done.
They failed to mention the risk of losing yourself in the process. How combat can change a man. That some days will be harder than others. Where there will be days that you question if humanity still exists. Images will burn in your head to last a lifetime. Nightmares will become more frequent. Sleeping in a bed is no longer comfortable because you prefer the cold hard unforgiving floor. Home no longer feels like home.
And when you come back you try to find a sense of normalcy but it’s never within your grasp.
They told us to fight for our country.
They didn’t tell us we would have to fight for our souls.
After my comrades were brutally shot to death before my own eyes, screaming and begging for an escape, they said I was detached.
