I find myself, yet again woken up in a cold sweat curled underneath the shallow warmth of my blanket.
Sleep as it would seem brings me down memory lane again. The topic of tonights terrors. My first tour in Afghanistan.
The dream is reoccuring and not new in the slightest. Walking down the road doing a regular patrol in Khandahar, Captain Prince and Sgt. Baker in the 2nd rank, Corporal Johnson and Private Anthony in the 1st, and taking up the rear, Myself and Corporal Reevis. It was around 12 noon at the time, the blazing sun above shining never-endingly on us. The heat wasn't so bad after the first week, although you can never really get used to 45 degree weather.
Walking through the market it's hard to stay focused. The foul smells that waft through the air, of things long dead and rotting. The manure that lays about boiling in the sun and the sweat and dirt encrusted onto the skin of many of the civillians there. We continue on our way. Content to leave the town as soon as we can, maybe we left too soon, maybe we stayed too long. It's hard to tell...
As we left the central part of town things got quiet, a quiet that unnerves even the hardest of men and women alike. It's not right for a place so full of living things to be so silent... so void of anything. The silence would not last forever, as the sound of gunfire quickly burst into the air but stopped shortly after. Instinctively I looked to my right, where the sound had come from only to see Reevis' blood splatter across my face and to watch with blurred vision as his body fell limp to the ground. Reacting shortly there after I took cover and returned fire. I could still see Reevis lying there. His face half missing, his jaw blown "Clean" off from the 7.62 round from the AK-47. I never understood why they would say "Clean" off when it comes to shooting things... It's anything but clean as my bloodied combat vest and face prooved.
Fast forwarding further along the fire-fight I find myself out of ammunition. I see a boy, merely a child. He can't be much younger than myself at 16. In his hands, the ever famous AK-47, as lethal as it is sturdy. In the boys untrained hands however the magazine had jammed within the firing chamber. I don't know what took over me. Be it rage for the loss of a friend, or simply losing touch of my sanity but I ran forward, almost in a possessed state. Reevis hadn't gotten to fire a shot, and this child would get the chance to fire no more.
I drove the end of my bayonnette into the "Man" as his people saw him. Using the full force of my body and plowing him over. Blood gurgles in his throat, a sick twisted smile on his face as he struggles to remove the blade from his chest. I oblidge him and remove it, only to promptly drive it into his face. Checking the weapon he no longer harnessed. I find that only one burst of the magazine had been fired before jamming. It dawned on me that this was the reason for the silence shortly after Reevis' was killed. This was the person who was responsible for ending his life.
Yet again rage fills my mind, my thoughts get clouded and I take the butt of the rifle and begin to bash to boys face in. If Reevis wouldn't be identified by his family, neither would he...
Fast forward yet again to the end of the week...
I'm promoted for my "Valient efforts" for the "Protection and Bettering" of the Afghannie community... I was given a medal - A silver star - and a short speech from the Commanding officer in Kafe. Promoted, for slaughtering a boy and killing 4 other men.
It's not the killing that bothers me. Not the cruel act of twisted vengence that wakes me at night. It's the simple thought of guilt... not for the families I've probably ruined, nor for the atrocity commited.
It's guilt about Reevis. Why had I lived when he had died? I was only 2 feet to his side, I was as much a target as he was. Why was it him, who had a wife and 2 children, who died that day? Why not myself?
I often lose myself in thought, analysing every aspect of that day. What we could have done to avoid it. What I could have done better. What I should have done. It never seems to go away...
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Subject: Memory Lane 
