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Myor feeling I’m a soldier This is e do Aim and shoot Protect and defend Kill

The car is aler I ai out The sound echoes as a child runs toward ed I’hborhood in ruins Hot as hell, positioned behind a fallen wall, laboring under the weight of pounds of gear not designed for my body, but rifle at the ready

The child reaches , checking to see if soood When I return to my position, the boy’s tears have turned to blood The booround Knocks the wind out of me For a moment, I’m too dizzy to move

When I look up, the boy still stands there He’s stopped crying But the blood is all over his face Oozing from his pores like sweat

I try to speak to hi from every pore? I see it on his arms now

I don’t understand But the boy stares atThen I realize he’s dead as another explosion topples him in front of me

And, not for the first time, I realize that death is just inches away from me

Now, I’m in the mine-resistant vehicle with Perkins He drives I’m beside him—M16 at the ready An electric jolt runs up my back as the vehicle bounces down the dusty road If you can dignify the narrow strip of ground as such The strip of ground is packed sand, the sas

We’re on our way ho turns black

???

I jolt awake after the explosion I a for air My heart pounds to the same beat I feel in my head

What I wouldn’t give for a single night of peaceful dreaet out of bed and force myself to face another day

Chapter Twenty

I toss htshirt aside and wander toward the bathroom like a zombie Brush teeth, step into the shower The water washes the sweat away, but my anxiety is still there

As I go through the hts churn The past few days’ events flash by in my head I need to write them down—and use what I’ve learned to somehow connect the players on my flowchart