In Memory

Talking with a friend of mine, he made the comment that I intentionally block out a number of various memories. That my memory, as it stands, isn't the greatest, and I'll admit, at times it isn't. But for the things I choose to remember, it can be fairly sharp. But, as he was saying, I should stop blocking out specific parts of my life because I don't like them. He may be right, may be wrong. But his prodding of me to utilize my memory fully and not indulge in the action of blocking or repressing things that have happened brought about a very painful moment in my life, one that erupted to the surface rather blatantly, and for the past couple weeks, I've been unable to push back beneath the surface. So, with that...

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I'm running. We're all running. I'm energetic, watchful. My head snaps this way and that, looking, scanning. The packed dirt walls towering on either side cast shadows in the sun. Alleys that were full of children are empty as the scattered shots of weapons ring out. My mind is drawn to the fact that at a distance, it sounds like popcorn going off. Past a gap in the wall and then a second. I take up a position along it, looking into the field. Shadows flirt in the treeline and I fire. Suppressive fire, shooting at the points where muzzle flash breaks the darkness of their hideout.

I don't hear the call I'm so enamored of what it is that I'm doing. Aiming, firing, reloading, watching. Then I hear it, my name, being called. They want me because I have the combat stretcher. I ask where, get told, and begin to run. Back through the gaps, the heat of the sun and the peppering of dust flickering into the air as rounds lash against my bootheels. But I'm not thinking about that.

There he is, lying face up. The captain.

I begin to take the stretcher off. My sergeant is there, yelling at me. I'm numb. He's been shot around the neck, but not much blood. But he's unconscious. My rifle, my sergeant asks, where is it? I look at another man, also there. He has it, had taken it off me when he handed me his machine gun because he was a back-up medic. I shrug, tell my sergeant what's up, and pick up the captains rifle.

Life his body onto the stretcher. Radio in for the truck to come pick us up at the intersection. Have to move. Lift and carry. Back through the gaps, a body on a combat stretcher while dust is scattered up all about me as I run with three others to safety from bullets erupting all around me. Now I'm afraid as I raise my captains rifle one armed to shoot back into the field. I don't care where I'm aiming, because I can't aim. I just want them to keep their heads down, because if someone is going to take a bullet, it'll be me on the outside.

And through the second gap, still walking at a quick clip. My adrenaline is fading, being replaced by the empty pit in my stomach. His body gets loaded and I turn to a wall, pumping rounds down range. Anger is surging. Finally, I get tapped -- time to move. Time to run. I begin to run. It's not too far back to the COP. Two hundred meters and I'm home. Home. But there are figures on rooftops, firing. I'm firing, blindly. They're dropping, dead or for cover, I don't know. I don't care. I'm still shooting and reloading. My life depends on it. Others lives depend on it. I'm near the back of the first section moving in.

And I'm gasping for air like I can't breath when I finally return to the outpost, gulping at air like I'm drowning.

Swimming in a world of oxygen unable to breath, hyperventilating, listening to the medics as they attempt to keep him alive, listening to the gunfire receding in the distance as we mortar the fuck out of the enemy. And my arms go slack and I can't even hold my gun, and my legs are screaming, and my eyes are watering, and I can't breath. I'm gulping, but I can't breath. And I look over, and there's blood. Everywhere, there's blood. Soaking into the sand, the stretcher. It's everywhere and I can't look away, but I have to.

Sand I'll be digging up with a shovel and putting into a garbage bag.

And the choppers won't be here for fifteen minutes. Meanwhile I'm on the wall, lungs screaming for air they can't have, body aching for rest it won't see for months, and a yearning for a silence that won't happen. And I'm aiming down the sight of a weapon that isn't mine looking for enemies I can no longer see as they retreat. And I look down at my watch and it's only past nine in the morning. We'd been fighting for hours. Since seven. And everything feels like a there's a finality to...something. An eventuality that I will see but wish I wouldn't. He's dead...