you should be happy and love
when i was in Afghanistan I was doing something a lot of people would not or could not do. I was serving, and earned respect from those back home. Something I never really had before. Being there I didn't feel like I was worth anything. I felt like no one or no thing would miss me if I were gone. I felt that a rocket today could be the memorial service of next month, and then anything I had hoped to do would be for naught. I find myself tracing deep routes through memory, pushing the grass down with the hopeless steps into past and regret. I learned to do this sitting on a mountain, running out of books and afghani bootleg dvds, writing and interweaving my experience with some imagined heroic fiction. listening to the fuzzy radio stations through a cheap boombox i picked up from a bazzar outside the gate, listening to the jackals bark into the night as I watched clouds move like white lace through the starry sky. I meant something to my howitzer, to the guys on the op's getting shot at in the distance, tracers shooting out like green and red laser beams. Days went by like a dream, but each one strong with its moments. a memorable time indeed.
Powerful stuff Matt, and I think your awesome for serving
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