The Price We Pay

How do you prepare yourself to hold the lifeless body of another soldier in your hands as his blood soaked uniform is cut away? His face has been burned into my memory; I can see it as clearly as you remember your own family. From the neck up he seemed asleep, his face at peace, eyes shut but the violence of his injuries were so complete. To see this body, young and strong and lean torn and shredded, that is something I’ll live with for the rest of my life. He wouldn’t have been conscious long, which is a blessing of sorts. His skin was still warm to as I removed his boots and socks and tucked his feet in to the black body bag. On the table next to me lay his last ties to this world, a small silver chain, a platinum wedding band, a note book. I didn’t even know his name at the time.

I would like to give this experience to those left in this world who believe that hatred is still a useful expression of will. What has this solved? We won’t leave this country any sooner. This mans wife and family have lost something ultimately irreplaceable and what has this bought? Has it brought back the lives of those who we have killed? Is any one’s God pleased by this? I wish the feeling of holding this man on everyone and no one. It is a terrible lesson to have to touch the product of hate, to have your hands slick with blood and see the faces of those left behind. Is this the legacy we want to leave for our children? I don’t want to live in a country where the act of love is viewed as obscene but we don’t blink an eye at the tragedy of the evening news.

I don’t have anything for this. I can’t describe how it feels to drape the American flag another soldier lost in Iraq, how it looked; I can’t do anything right now. It just feels empty.

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A few hours later I walked with a small group of medics through a cordon of a thousand soldiers waiting to pay their respects in the cold desert night. It's unnatural to see humans like this and it was unnerving to be the focus of the attention of so many eyes you can't see. They stood on the road to the flight line at parade rest and said nothing. A full moon cast a murky shadow over the faces of the figures I passed and I thought, tomorrow night we could be standing here for any one of these soldiers, they could be standing here for me.