Trespass on My Mind's Territory

I stood there in a stupor, in a pseudo-trance like state while grief rose in my throat like bile obliterating any coherent thought that tried to trespass on my mind's territory.

Today is the day; I have seen evil take form, its contours accentuated by the annihilation I see before me. I cannot pronounce what is impressed upon me of the human race- umbrage, antipathy, resentment; an amalgamation of all of these, as I oft like to think of it. Words can barely express the convoluted tangle of feelings I had when I first exited the vast ocean of shallow, psychotically romantic hype fodder called humanity; humanity that doesn't have the nous to feel the veracity of agony brought forth by war.

Today is the day I killed.

There is stench everywhere - the unbearable stench; of death, of youth, of men, of dreams, infested with sham glimmers of heroism and valor. In the midst of all this, tied to a tree with commo wire is my best friend with a broken collarbone and rats crawling through his stomach, his limbs blown off by an RPG. He is alive. I sense life in him-life that is meaningless, life that faded into these very trenches until Nada is left of the youth, the gallantry, and the heroic reveries. I bend down, trying to comfort him and he whispers in my ear. I look up into his eyes, devoid of any emotion except anguish and excruciating agony.

I turn around and walk away. Before I had gone a few paces, I hear him call out. "Ralph!" I turn, walk back to him, squatting down beside him. He cannot see my tear streaked face; his neck is bent at a crooked angle because of the fractured collar bone. The silence reigning between us is the silence of irritum. I lean towards him, take his hand into mine - tongue tied.

*Crack*

The sound of the gun shot is drowned amidst the rages of K-9, 50-Cals, and M-16s as the horizon is illuminated by RGPs.

I said a silent prayer for my friend whose brain I had just blown into smithereens and walked away.

Today is my last day in Iraq.

To this day, I'm asked. Did you get decorated? And I say, No, You do not get decorated for killing your childhood friend. The medals, the shining stars mean nothing to me. Deranged, delusional, simple plain raving mad, I have been called all of these. My experience is not unique. There are hundreds of thousands out there who have are in the same frame of mind as I am, 3 years after I got drafted. I get up from my chair, place the coffee cup in the sink and go out. Dressed in finery, I see masses of people who have come to honor the veterans of the Iraq war. I smile inwardly at their naivete. It is hard for any of them to fathom the psychosomatic damage inflicted upon us, one that no honor can obliterate, the memories that haunt us night after night and the