It has been around a year since I came home, nothing has changed.
Nothing has left me. I can still see it, them, my friends, my enemies.
A few days ago I was at a 4th of July celebration down at Nixon Park. My brother Jason's son went with my wife Carrie and I, and asked a question I couldn't bear.
"What did you do in the Army?" I know he's a child but he really shouldn't have asked me that. That question brought on some bad memories, but the fireworks brought on even more.
I still hear the screams, the guns, the helicopters. I still feel the sand crushing beneath my boots, I still feel the rifle's stock bouncing repetitively against my shoulder.
my friends wanted me to come to a bar with them to "loosen up" as they said it. I can't loosen up, how could they expect me to? Way I hear it the war is still going on, day by day more of our sons and daughters die and for what? A word? Freedom, that's what roped me in. Thought i'd be fighting for something, for my home, for my family, for my nation. I was dead wrong. People say their life sucks, how about you visit a recruiter and set one foot in that place! Or maybe you're too much of a pussy to do it! I've been through Hell and back just so a few confused idiots can march on D.C screaming about a "patriarchy" or something stupid like that, why can't we protest for something useful for once in our damn lives?
I can't begin to tell you how much I friggin' hate rich people. Those idiots got 6 of my friends killed in an ambush outside of Al-Amari!
YOU ARE READING
Still A Soldier
Non-FictionThe story of a boy by the name of Alex Briarton who at 18 enlisted in the U.S Army and served in Afghanistan. he came home from the conflict unscathed...or so he thought.
