Baring myself to someone I just met in seconds walking down the cold hallway, my heart pounded like a train and my breath panicked as I sloped in the leather seat facing the door.
It was not the doctor who made me feel uncomfortable, but the mannerism in which this specific appointment was set up. The first questions were basic, name, birthday and place of birth, but continuing the hunt they got more dangerous and intrusive. Excruciating fangs buried deep in my flesh answering questions of personal sentiment.
Looking away at the light blue wall, hung a Picasso of a painting. The doctor’s purple water bottle would have been wonderful eye play, but I was not a cozy, cuddly bear, but instead a stealthy wolf in the moonlight pondering her next move.
Not only am I bleeding at the bone this one dreadful hour, but this person I am enclosing this deep information to, I will never see again. It’s like writing a poem, a song, a play, falling in love and then never touching that sacred soul again.
HESCO barriers and constantine wire separated where I was positioned on tower guard to MSR Tampa, a main supply road in Iraq.
An Iraqi village was on the other side of MSR Tampa. Poverty scurried the land. People slept on roofs and on the streets digging in garbage cans searching for things to eat as bullet shells scuffed their feet.
Green sandbags piled up so I could reach the mount of the machine gun. There I stood guard, in my velcro flak vest, bulletproof armor as I watched convoys roll the dice playing Russian roulette with their lives.
Fireworks lit up the sky. The shrieking sounds exploded in my ears banging like a drum. Bang, bang, booms were the bombs pouring down like rain in Seattle. They were heavy on my heart and mind, but as a soldier it is my ethos to march, to fight, and protect.
This post is for my battle buddies who I deployed with to Iraq, especially Terry, Beau, Izzy, Christine and Willy. Each of you are like a finger of my hand gripping at life and squeezing it’s juices. I love and miss you guys. You will always be in my heart.
-Krista Dora
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