Gunslingers

Afghanistan. Iraq. They were all starting to blend together, I wasn't going to lie. Half of the time, I wasn't really sure which of the desert countries I was in until we spoke with the locals. It just felt like sandbox after sandbox. Maybe everyone was right and I should get my discharge. It just was too much lately.

After this tour, I was going to talk to my commanding officer. Unfortunately for me, I was here for at least twelve months. This was our long tour; we'd get back at the tail end of 2010. Good news was that gave me plenty of time to write songs. Since Jimmy's passing, we wanted to put out one final album for him.

"You'll be careful?" Zach asked. I could hear the stress and fear in his voice. Johnny and Zacky were the only ones that were talking to me. Carol and Brian had folded in on themselves to the point where Laura was about to take care of a newborn by herself.

We all wanted to stage an intervention for Carol and Brian, but we always wanted to allow the two to grieve. Carol had lost the love of her life, her husband, and the father of her child. Brian had lost his brother and best friend. It was going to take time. We all knew that. And without Jimmy as a drummer, none of them had music to take their mind off it, not until we had some head space to process.

"Of course, I will. Zach, don't worry." I tried to make it sound like he shouldn't, but the all thought I had a death wish now.

"Matt, I mean it."

"I know."
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Dirt. Fucking dirt fucking everyone. That was my life. I wasn't quite as keen on the military as I had been when I joined. Back then, it was all about saving people and freeing the Iraqis of their oppressors. Now, I realized how wrong my original thoughts were.

We, as a country, had fucked up entirely in regards to Iraq and Afghanistan. When 9/11 happened, I had believed wholeheartedly in what Bush had done. I thought we needed to go to war, to go after the bastards who had hurt our nation. It was all gung-ho especially because they had supposed weapons of mass destruction. When the original invasion had ended, I was still all about fighting the good fight. Now... now, I realized exactly where we had messed up.

We had rushed in so quickly, we had left a vacuum. And the same thing happened years earlier. When Charlie Wilson had sent in his weapons, he had left another vacuum. We armed the fighters, the very fighters who attacked us, with their weapons. And then we left. We left them in a fight against each other. It was the United States who had caused this.

It sucked. It sucked a big one. What we were doing to these countries wasn't right. We were sending them into our war armed with knowledge we had taught them, but we weren't building back the infrastructure we had destroyed. And don't even get me started on what the soldiers were like when we came home. It was just one giant cluster fuck.

"Sanders, you're awfully quiet," my good buddy, Tex, said, 'I'm surprised you're here at all. We all thought you would have quit by now."

I glared at him. "Because of my friend?"

He nodded, sensing my boiling anger. "Sorry, Sanders."

Notes

Short update, but writing is hard sometimes.