The memory played like a movie on repeat in my head. My boots left footprints in the ash. Frantically looking around for my brother in uniform. "Help." A faraway voice called to my buzzing ears as I realized I was still seated inside a smashed vehicle.
Following the hoarse male voice I found my fellow man in camo underneath pieces of metal from the blown-up front end of the Humvee. The blast had bent his seatbelt causing it to come unlatched then thrown him about thirty feet from the vehicle like a stuffed animal in the discount bin down at Walmart.
I lugged the large crumpled car piece off of him. Surprisingly he wasn't hurt except for a few small cuts to his face and upper arm.
It wasn't safe. Usually, there were secondary IEDs in the vicinity of each other. We searched the empty field for the enemy but he was long gone or at least that's what he wanted us to think. He radioed for another vehicle to head to us by providing our last known latitude and longitude points. With not many places to hunker down and needing to stick close for the commander to find us, we kneeled down by the tire wheel now missing the tire with our weapons. Still attempting to protect ourselves.
When I signed up all I wanted to do was protect my home, America. Now I sat in the middle of 107-degree weather in a desert where my life was being threatened each second of every day. It didn't matter though the plan was to re-up in a short three months. The people back home, my mom, dad, siblings, and people I don't even know deserved to live in a safe, protected country.
I unzipped my backpack. Then pulled out my blue Camelbak water bottle and took a long swig to wash the dust that blew around creeping into every space down my throat.
As our commander came down the road following in our tracks I prayed he would be clear from any blast. The adrenaline level dropped as I took in a deep breath of relief. That's when I noticed a searing pain in my back.
That's the last day I walked, ladies and gentlemen. I was hit by shrapnel in my lower spine.
I did not only suffer physically on that day. I have nightmares where I see my Commanding officer's face as he tried to help me off the ground. I wake up every day to my family being my hero instead of the other way around. I also don't tell you this story for your sympathy or salutes. I suffer severely mentally as do many of my fellow men and women after stepping onto foreign soil in only minutes.
I sit in this chair today requesting that we do something to help the military mental health crisis in the good ole U.S of A.
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