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"What did you guys do in the Marine Corps"
"We were part of MARSOC It's a Special Forces command within the Marine Corps We were trained to do a variety of things We are like the equivalent of the Navy SEALs Our es, help to protect against the Taliban, try to negotiate with the Taliban and help further train their local police and military forces"
Paul's voice is low andinfor that one day Nix would tell me
"One of the reen on blue' attack"
"What's that?"
"It's basically Afghani forces attacking NATO forces It's usually people we are working closely with Say, for exae for months We ith the local police to help train thee Unfortunately, reen on blue' is when one of them attacks us"
That's horrible and beyond frightening "How do you ever trust anyone?"
"You don't You learn to look at everyone as if at any un on you At any rate, that happened to us One night on patrol, several of the Afghani police that we had been working with turned on us and opened fire A vicious gun battle ensued and three of us got pinned down Me, Nix and our buddy, Gary"
Paul picks up his beer and takes a s before he continues I feel like I a for the hts out of me
"We had to call in helicopter support to help us out, but the Taliban outnu toward our position We had no choice but to try to round so we could be easily accessible when the helos came in Unfortunately, all three of us had been hit I had been shot in h and I'm pretty sure that the bullet had hit the bone because I couldn't put any weight on ht in the sto really bad And Nixhe took one --"
I finished for him, " --to the chest"
Paul nods "That's right Luckily, the bullet he took was pretty high in his chest, going just below his shoulder Quick in and out so he was still pretty mobile At any rate, we had a quick discussion and it was decided that Nix would carry Gary out first while I laid cover fire That worked nicely Even though Nix had a bullet hole in hiround where a helo landed right away While they were tending to Gary, Nix caet me"
My heart is pounding I'h I know he makes it out "What happened next?"
"Nix came back, hauled my ass up over his shoulder and ran us out of there while I shotpractically upside down on his back I think I was giving sort of a Braveheart scream the entire time"
"But" I know there is a punch line co
"Butone of the Afghani's threw a grenade at us It didn't hit us directly but it was close enough that the blast caused Nix to sturound Nix was back on his feet, now dragging renade hit I res when it blew"
"I'm so sorry, Paul"
"Hey," he says softly and grabs renade took round so hard his brain was pretty scrambled, and of course, he had that bullet hole in his chest None of that stopped hi hed a lot less by that time"
I gape in horror at Paul
"Geez You and Nix need to lighten up a bit Both of you are too tightly wound"
I try to s miserably I clear my throat "Sorry What happened next?"
"Nix got ical hospital Then ere separated Nix was able to get medically stabilized a lot quicker than I was but we both ultimately ended up at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center"
I'm silent for a moment Nix flipped out when I found the ize to Paul It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that he's feeling like he did so in the rescue But after what Paul has just told me, I can't see how
"What happened to Gary?" I ask
Before Paul can answer, Nix provides isters above a whisper "He died on the helicopter"
I turn around to see Nix leaning against the entryway to the kitchen He looks sad Beaten down "And had I chosen to take Paul out of there first, he'd still have his legs Gary would still be dead, because he wasn't going to make it out of there anywaynot with that stos"
And there was the source of Nix's guilt He has been second guessing his decision ht and calm conditions, he'd reasoned out that he made a poor choice
I wanted to smack him
But before I can say a word, Paul walks around the counter to stand in front of Nix "Get your head out of your ass, man You're not the only one that ether"
"What the hell did you know? You were suffering from blood loss --"