Just Remember to Breathe (Thompson Sisters)

nonjudicial punishment. Do you wish to demand a court-martial?”
    I shook my head, and said, “No, sir. I did what I did. I’m guilty, sir.”
    He nodded. “All right. We’ll take care of the paperwork later. For now, to underscore the seriousness of this, I’m changing up the rotation. Your squad is out on patrol tonight.”
    Oh, God, I thought. The guys were going to hate me. We’d just got back from a patrol that morning. Kowalski’d been killed out there, and everyone was reeling. The vision of him throwing himself on the grenade to save that little girl was burned on my eyes.
    “Is there a problem, Paris?”
    I looked at the floor. “Sir, if I demand a court-martial, will the other guys still get punished? It’s not their fault. And… after Kowalski… everybody’s pretty screwed up.”
    “Yes. The rotation change stands. I’ve already discussed this with Sergeant Colton. Do we agree, Sergeant, that if your squad was being properly supervised, your soldiers wouldn’t be out shooting up electronics on the edge of the base camp?”
    Colton winced. “Yes, sir.”
    And that was it. That night we headed out on patrol
    A patrol we wouldn’t have gone on, if I hadn’t been such a fucking idiot. But, as I’ve pointed out now, I’ve got a history of fucking things up.
    She sent another email. I guess about an hour after we were out in the boonies on the road, on a night patrol into the mountains, a night patrol that would last until well into the next day. Roberts and I rode together in one Humvee, and he was pretty good natured about it, ribbing me about being busted back to PFC.

February 10, 2012; 11:32 PM
    TO: [email protected]
    FROM: [email protected]

    I don’t understand the silence. I don’t understand what I did that was so wrong. I’m hoping you’re just too busy to get my messages. I’m hoping you aren’t ignoring me deliberately, because it kind of hurts, Dylan. Don’t you think I deserve some kind of explanation?
    A
    I did. I’d give just about anything to go back and change it now. I’d give anything in the world to not have hurt her like that. And I’d literally give my life to be able to go back and erase the stupid, idiotic actions that brought down punishment on my entire platoon.
    The patrol lasted all night. We were basically just a moving target, driving around, in a crazy attempt to draw fire from the Taliban insurgents that still operated heavily in our area. But as usual, the hajis didn’t cooperate. It was a quiet night, very quiet. By sunrise, we were all tired and ready for some sack time. Sergeant Colton ordered the column to head back to base. We passed through a tiny village, and the guy who ran the road-side shop waved us down. The patrol came to a stop, and Roberts and I passed the time scanning the village for bad guys.
    This was just weird. We never went out on patrol without getting shot at. It just didn’t happen. I mean, the villagers here were pretty friendly … at least they didn’t try to kill us often. But the bad guys were always live in this area. I was tense, and I knew Roberts was, too. We all were.
    We were tied up in the village for about forty-five minutes. And during that forty-five minutes, the bad guys were out there. They were setting up a roadside bomb and ambush on the direct route between the village and our base camp.
    Sometimes I have dreams about starting out for the base camp from that shit village. I can tell what’s going to happen, I know it’s coming, and I want to just scream at Sergeant Colton, at Sherman or Roberts or even myself, and tell them we’re about to get hammered. I try to stop it from happening, but no matter what happens we keep going down that road. We keep going down the road until the explosion hits, and my closest friend in the world is shredded, his blood literally coating the inside of the smoking humvee, my own leg torn to shit by shrapnel, then the bullets flying as I fell out of the Humvee onto the ground.
    I don’t remember if I screamed, I don’t remember if I just sat there hoping to die because it was my fault we’d been hit—it was my fault we were out on that patrol in the first place.
    I wanted to die. Because if it hadn’t been for me and my stupid impulsiveness, Roberts would be alive. If it hadn’t been for me, his parents back in Alabama wouldn’t have had to plant their only son six feet under the ground because of some stupid war in a country halfway around