quick background on the photo...for those interested...
June 2003: South of Bhagdad. I was a heavy machinegunner. My squad was escorting a convoy of fuel trucks. We came under fire from a mortar squad. Saddam's regieme had already fallen, but there were a few holdouts here and there. We peeled off to address the squad. After the mortars were taken out, we were on our way back to the main road to rejoin the convoy when we drove over an anti-tank mine.
I was thrown from my turret. My legs were tore up pretty good (I landed on my feet, but I was doing about 50mph when I did it) and I was bleeding like a stuck pig. I could hear my driver calling for his mother, but nothing from the rest of my squad. My driver died before anyone reached us, and I passed out. When I came to, I was already back in Kuwait. A week later, I was in a hospital in Maryland, a month later, I was being medically retired from the Marine Corps. In the photo - in the photo, I am the second from the right...I am also the only living person in that photo.
For more than a year after I came home I wrestled with guilt. Why the hell was I still alive when the men in my charge were not? Why did I deserve to come home to my family while all their got was a folded flag? I felt like I had abandoned my fellow Marines. I wanted nothing more than to go back and finish the job I had started.
I still feel that way from time to time.
