Lend Me Your Ears

I wrote this a few days ago, but couldn’t publish it due to OPSEC, media, family, etc. But I did want to capture how I felt—at that. exact. minute.

You were here, just six hours ago. You were here last night, laughing and joking. I picked on you for your poor “Army grammar”… I picked on you because you turned some documents in late to me. We laughed and joked. You were just here six hours ago.

In those short six hours, life changed forever. Your ACU shirt top is here. Your Kevlar helmet is here. But you're in surgery, getting your leg worked on.

You see, he was traveling back to the IZ and his convoy was hit with an IED. He was traveling the infamous “Rt. Irish”… the same route I’ve traveled on numerous times during the past nine months. His MRAP was hit. And he’s in surgery. That’s all we know.

No, there’s more we know. We know that we all wish it was us in that vehicle—not him. We all wish it was us, instead of him. We all are playing back the memories we have of you, just in case we don’t get to see you again. I know I won’t get to see you; I leave here in 3 days. But the thought that immediately went to my head when I heard you were hurt? “I can’t leave yet.” And, “Why didn’t I say goodbye? Why didn’t I tell him goodbye?” And I find myself wishing I was there with you when it hit, so I could have helped. Somehow. With something. I WISH I COULD DO SOMETHING.

You have a family at home, and I’m just hurting for the pain and scare that they will feel when they get that phone call. The fear that will strike them… the fear they didn’t know existed.
I don’t know what to feel; I don’t know what to think. I hear people talking to me, asking me questions, talking about the weather. I can’t answer. I can’t think about anything but, “Why? How? What’s next?” I just wish it never happened. I just wish I knew what was going to happen next.

I feel unsettled. People keep saying, “Well, at least you are leaving in 3 days!”…and I just blink. I feel that maybe I should stay—I don’t know what that would accomplish, or who it would help. It wouldn’t, but for some reason, I feel this spider web pulling me to stay. I think I just realized how scared I am that I’m going to get home, and find out that my old office was hit with a rocket. And that all my friends that I left are hurt, and that I was somehow spared. I feel sick.

As much as this place is “miserable”… it is a little more bearable with our friends here. Didn't Paul, George, John, and Ringo say it best? "I get by with a little help from my friends...." It’s a little less painful to be away from family and friends when you get to joke and kid with your newly made friends.

But that’s how I know that morale is not “poor”. Otherwise, why would we all want to stay? Why do we wish it was us, and not our brother or sister?


**Literally after that last sentence, the General walked up to me. As I searched his eyes--searching for that grim reaper, that morbid speck in his eye....but he told me that MAJ was going to be okay, that his spirits are up, and he is conscious. Who would have thought that knowing that a comrade was “conscious” would make you feel so happy?
***Even more of an update! He's back in the US, recovering.... His leg is saved, so far.






and I'll sing you a song, and I'll try not to sing out of key.