NOT ABOUT ME, By Thomas Bergh

I lay on the ground in a back alley in Iraq. Just moments before I was a young, eager nineteen year old boy, here to fight for his country. Now, a frightened- bloodied, child. Ash and debris fell from the sky around me… it was serene- slow motion- like snow fall, but gray and dead. The screams muffled and my tears fell in slow motion. I lay in the alley waiting to die.

The air is hot, the sulfur is strong; the streets are empty. I decide it’s time to move. I drag myself around the corner and call for my friend Guerrero who was just behind me before the blast. I see him, in the middle of the road, curled up like a new borne infant. He looked peacefully dead. My team leader Lameyer lay only a few feet from me- screaming for help, “I’m bleeding out!” he screamed. Anger came over me, my hand gripped the trigger and I began looking for someone to kill. Anything would have sufficed… even a child spectating would feed my hunger. My anger replaced the tears.  

Greg, a Jim Carrey look-a-like, ran out to Guerrero’s aid, While Arentz dragged Lameyer into a back yard. My immediate anger gone, I then worried on extracting our wounded and dead off the street. I ran to Guerrero's new position; a wall around the corner out of the alley and clear of sniper fire, each bound I took was limped but direct. I grew with each lunge, became wiser, older, ageing with every glance. It was not about me anymore, it was not about my hate. It was about the marines around me.

I ran between two wounded collection points, Getting wound information and relaying it to our command over the radio. Back and forth I ran- no regard to any weary sniper. Once everything was passed over the radio I turned my attention to Guerrero, who was alive to my amazement. He was leaned up against a wall, head drooped down, shaking. I leaned down and gripped his hand. “I’m here”, I told him. “I’m scared”, he replied. He lifted his head, His nasal cavity was free to the worlds view, He left eye was gone. He looked as though a butcher took a meat clever to his face, but Guerrero was in no pain. He looked at me with the one eye he had left and his grip got weak, I knew we had to get him and Lameyer out of the city. I popped flairs into the sky to let them know our exact position. They lit up the sky like the fourth of July. We knew the flairs would attract unwanted attention so we position the wounded to quickly be moved when our rescue trucks arrived.

Waiting for our rescue, still gripping Guerrero’s hand- you wouldn’t think I was a child. Blood stained my faded clothes. Dirt and sweat caked my face- My full-baby like cheeks now sunken and shaded, my eyes always forward and weary. It was clear I aged, I aged in the alley. In that alley I became aware of a greater cause. It wasn’t about me, it wasn’t about my country, it was about the Marine to the right and left of me.