Here is the first part of my military based story reminiscent of something out of the Iraq Conflict. It deals with a squad of American soldiers who are caught up in a moral struggle where indiscriminate civilian deaths have caused emotional stress and other negative effects on the warfighters. I make no special reference to any locale here or any real world event. You make up your own true setting for the events that unfold. The segments are short and will come around as they are completed. I hope you enjoy.

The afternoon was a dry and dusty, except for the sweat running down my brow. It was not surprising that the temperature would rise well into 120 degrees, since it had gotten up to 70 just this morning. The base was no better really, as air conditioning was sparse to say the least. The electricity was not widely available either, so the AC didnt turn out to be a big deal since it didnt work half the time anyway.

The heat...it was almost unbearable, but patrols required that we wore all the regulation gear: water, food, sleeping bags, extra ammo and my favorite, the 50 extra pounds of body armor. It made our bodies all the more miserable and our minds all the more insane. I couldnt complain though. This stuff has saved some asses I know, and ill be damned if im the first to remove it.

As my unit walked down the street, we noticed kids playing soccer and having fun, despite war knocking on their doorstep everyday. We saw parents who looked back at us the same way we looked at them...distrustfully. We saw shadows of ourselves which seemed to radiate a secondary personality, a personality which I would rather keep in check.

The call came in at around 4:00 PM from a group of Marines pinned down up 2 blocks from where we were. I could hear and almost smell the terrible effects of small arms and mortar fire on the Marine positions, and my eyes suddenly shut..."Soldier, get that Fuc*ing machine gun up and suppress the enemy while we call in evac for the wounded! Its a goddamned nightmare here. That IED slammed us out of nowhere and I..."
"Hey, Sergeant? Sergeant? You daydreaming or something? Comon, we gotta move and help those Marines, theyre counting on us." The memory faded before it finished, and I started to move...