Battle

 I saw soldiers fall like dead bodies, it was exhilarating, combat. It's not like the movies, to see a gut shot officer stagger like a newborn deer, mouth open and missing teeth, defecating themselves, killing silently, my world entire. 

I miss it, center mass, aim small, miss small, the pink mist of a head shot, the wailing of an attractive but veiled Afghan wife, I popped her too. Kids in the flower fields, the opium poppies, bright and wonderful, I came there to kill and I killed. I shot them, I shot their soldiers, I shot their men, their women, their children, their old and young, the sick in the makeshift infirmary, their doctors and nurses, I shot their peasants digging in their dirt, I killed their beasts, a cat on a beam, the quiet farm animals in the rain, I was told to give no quarter, no mercy, to kill them all, and I did.