Veteran Mettle

I'm taking college classes these days, full time. It's good for me, it gets my head focused on things I'd naturally avoid. The kids on this campus are something else, alien-like. I was walking from my car to the library this morning when I passed a kid who was leaving the library. He was a small kid, maybe 17-19. He didn't look to weigh much, maybe 120, he was wearing his baseball hat like an asshole with a flat brim. He seemed innocent enough. I was walking and enjoying the crisp air in my nose and lungs. Without prompting or warning, my brain went to a time when we were back in Baqubah, Iraq. The short story is that we were one vehicle in a cordon made up of our own trucks and some trucks from another unit. That unit had Bradley's for vehicles, one Bradley took a catastrophic hit and the guys inside were severely injured. They needed to be pulled out and evacuated back to the nearest Combat Support Hospital (CSH or cash). We moved our vehicle up, the casualties we...