From my journal

From my journal. 

Horrors

I have done and seen truly terrible things. I know the boundlessness of evil. I have seen it with my own eyes. I have met evil with my own evil. I have drank from the dark well and understand I cannot give it back. Only time and death can erase the true horrors of what I have seen and done. Only the dead have seen the end of the evils of this world.

Heads

I hate the people who cut the heads off of other people and leave them on the side of the road for us to see. It was like a good morning gift of what these people would do if they got their hands on me. If these people so freely did this to their own people, what would they do to someone like me? Because of these people I had to turn my morals off. I became ruthless. Everyone was a threat. Men, women, children, boxes, culverts, donkeys, cars, trees, dogs, and buildings. You name it. I have killed it. I am not proud of that. It is what it is, and I must live with that.

Angry Bees

The scream of the rockets passes by and raises the hair of the skin. The guns roar to life spitting their fiery rays towards the sky. The crackle reports and hopes are dashed as the ground bucks and the whump of the explosion deafens the ears. The British artillery fires, but in the wrong direction. “Fuck the British!” Raises from my lungs. “Why the fuck are we here!” Rocket pieces litter the ground, the concrete is pot marked and insulation floats on the breeze. Someone's room has been hit and it seems like giant terrible bees have ripped through the building. Thankfully no one was in there, when it hit.   

Fuck Them

Lights flash, the siren wails, the brass dangles by its string, the truck rocks, the gun is hot. The hits are good, the car burns, no one gets out. We drove by as though I didn't just kill an entire family. “Why the fuck did he do that. “Why the fuck did he ignore us!? He had to have known that was going to happen! Why? God I hate people who don't pay attention! Fuck them!”

4 Inches High

The building burns, someone is alive. It's not possible, the walls are four inches high. The bombs missed the mark and it was raining dirt, tears wet my cheeks. Blood and brains coat the hood of the truck. I watch Rob lying naked breathing his last breath with tears streaming down his face, they said he died instantly but corpses don't breathe and cry. Rob knew what was happening to him. The trucks march forward, the guns turn the house into a nightmare killing field. Cease fire! Comes the cry. They drag a body out of the rubble and he is still alive. “How?!” I exclaim. That wall is four inches high. He complains about his finger as both of his lungs collapse. The trucks are shot to shit. Don lies there dying. Chief packs bag after bag of gauze into Don. “Oh God what the fuck has happened!” The car burns and the pilots can see it for miles. Everything is fucked! Including me.  

Sniper

No sleep, 24 hour shift. I am the only one on watch, life sucks ass. I sit on the roof! Last night was terribly cold. The sun begins to get hot. My body armor is miserable. I haven’t seen a single soul other than trucks passing on the highway in the distance. Snap! Boom! Zing! The bullet sings. Concrete peppers my face. “What the fuck was that! Oh fuck that was a round! Its a fucking sniper trying to kill me!”

Cacophony of Death Music

The phone rings. “The A-10s did what? They smoked one of our checkpoints, what the fuck! Load the trucks and get the Iraqis ready!” Comes the cry. The HESCO barriers are shredded and there is blood everywhere. The Airforce sure did a number on these dudes. The phone rings. Some of the Iraqis we brought got ambushed and some of them are missing. The trucks are in the ditch burned to a crisp. The Iraqis say that some of them were taken alive. Let's see what happens when we get close to that village. Bullets whiz by. It's kind of fun. The rounds are not close. The 50 rocks sending tracers into the distance. Who knows where the rounds hit the village? It is so far away. SNAP! Says a round as it passes close by. Someone who knows what they are doing has shown up. It's time to leave, we can't get any closer to the village because of ditches and we are being baited into a trap and we can smell it. The brass from the guns firing at the village have jammed the turrets and we drive until it gets dark before stopping to get out to unjam them. Rob is on the roof of his truck in front of us working to unjam his turret. Tracers streak through the sky from the right. There are three PKMs firing from close range. “How the fuck did they get there! How did they know where we were going to stop? They must have been following us on motorcycles under nods.” Rob in full body armor and helmet dives off the top of the truck like he is diving into a swimming pool. He must have gone to sleep from the impact. The .50 on my truck opens up. I hear the brass and links ting into and on top of the truck. The smell of gunpowder envelopes me. I stare numbly out the front window and watch tracer after tracer streak directly towards me in slow motion like I am watching a movie. Tracers bounce off the hood of the truck and and dazzlingly smash against the front window of the truck. I am mesmerized by the sight and am brought back by the jarring and crashing of the overwhelming roar of the .50 cal and the screams of Syid who is attempting to crawl underneath his seat creates a cacophony of death music. I begin to feed ammo to the cook who is manning the gun. I had gotten tired and felt that all the fun to be had had been had and allowed our cook on the gun. I am not sure how he has done it. I have handed up a number of cans of ammo and the gun has not stopped. Chief who is in the truck in front of me opens his window facing the enemy fire and opens up with a SAW. I watch as the gun spits fire and sparks. The short barrel doesn't allow for a clean burn of the powder and looks like a poorly made dirty sparkler. I don't know the true body count. But war math says 14 bodies are found the next morning.