A thundering explosion rocks downtown Baghdad, your body recoils at the deafening sound, adrenaline courses through your veins driven by a heart suddenly hammering within your chest. No time to react; the air expands with punishing force as the concussion of a devastating shock wave races through the afternoon air. It roars in your ears, slams you to the ground, snatches the breath from your lungs shaking every structure, and blowing out every window in its unstoppable path.
As you struggle to your feet a searing rush of heat sends you back to your knees scalding your skin with its suffocating cloak. No time to think; shrapnel flies through the air like a million angry bullets simultaneously fired in every direction. Twisted chunks of white hot metal violently crash to the ground like meteors hurled toward the earth by angry gods determined to punish all in their path. Your ears are screaming, a ringing so loud you cry out but are unable to hear your own voice.
Now on your feet, all around is burning; acrid smoke chokes the air and burns the soft membranes in your nose and throat. In a surreal moment, a gentle Baghdad breeze momentarily clears the scene… is that charred and grizzled shape within the mangled wreckage a human being? But before you can comprehend the horror of what you've seen, another gust sends the smoke back across the morbid sight as though to shield the burning corpse from your gaze.
Your hearing slowly returns to the sound of frantic Arabic voices, Iraqi police and locals swarm onto the street to load the dead and dying into the back of rundown pickup trucks. Just how many misguided Iraqis offered up their lives in Allah's name? You count the legs, the arms... but they have melded in the inferno of the blast. Who knows how many human bombs sacrificed themselves as they conspired to kill you and your fellow soldiers.
You may not have lost your life that day, but back at home you sacrificed your way of living.
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Posted
Apr 25 2010, 02:57 AM
by
PTSD: A Soldier's Perspective