The only thing war will ever do (and do well), is decrease the world’s population of young men.

As we all know, everyone feels fear. How it’s handled is what’s different between people. You look into the eyes of anyone on board the plane and see it. It’s ever-present.

The only thing worse than fighting in a war, is fighting in a war within a war.

The side of the base, that only hours before had been the site of a company of artillery pieces, is now gone. All of the men, the machines and even the very earth they stood on – are gone.

When you have so much to live for, fear is more predominant than ever.

Something people don’t think much about when they write a soldier in a war zone is how much diversion can refresh the soul.

I want to forget this awful place. Yet, at the same time, I never want to forget the many lessons that enabled me to mature quickly from just a skinny kid with a scraggly mustache, into a young man working so hard to seem older than his few years, as he evolves into early manhood.

There are hundreds – no thousands of guys waiting to get on that magic flight back to the world. I’m just a grain of sand in the desert of people with a single thought: home!