A letter from my little soldier. He's twenty-one. I guess he's not so little.

Ladies and gentlemen,I am writing this in Iraq, where the heat waves dance through the air like fumes from a gas station after a tanker has just filled it. I write this for a few reasons.1. Because I will not be ashamed about my emotions, and I will not act as though I am not a human being and these feelings dont exist.2. Because I have heard a lot of people thank me for my sacrifices but they have no idea what those sacrifices are.3. Because I am afraid that there is something of a writer in me that cant not write things like this.4. Because I want the entire world to know what sort of man I am, and how I feel about this.5. Because I wont there to be not a shadow of a doubt in any ones mind how I feel and what my intentions are.This is one of a few stories I have written based on personal experience. This one is different however. There are no exaggerations. This is a piece of my heart that struggled and fought its way out of my fingers and into black and white. This is the sort of thing I struggle with every day and I cant bottle it up and I cant just let it out and so here I am releasing it.This is the story of a soldiers love. Straight from the source. This is me. If any of this might offend you, or if you cant handle my being open honest and blunt then delete this right now. I am not going to say anything that I think anyone will mind, but... you never know. Well, here goes. It was hot. At least 123 degrees farenheit. The humidity of the water being evaporated out of the canals all around the outer perimeter wall. Sweat rolled down my back in rivulets. My uniform was soaked, and my feet squished in my boots when I moved.I stood up on top of the truck and glanced over the wall. The desert was still and quiet. The fig palms and reeds drooped, as though weighted. Not a single blade or leaf stirred. The animals seemed to have disappeared into the ground to hide from the oppressive heat. As I looked I took my sunglasses of to wipe away the sweat, and froze. The sweat that had collected in the shade of my eyewear chilled instantly. The hair on the back of my neck stood up. I turned slowly in a small circle my nose sniffing for the telltale hint of dust.As I turned I saw what I was looking for. The cloud was rolling towards us at an amazing speed. We had about 15 seconds. I jumped down and ran around the truck, screaming as I ran. "WALL!!! WALL!!! THERE'S A BIG WALL COMING!!!"I waved the get down signal to the people that heard but couldn't understand. as I ducked around the truck and dropped to the ground the wall hit us. The cloud of dust hurdled along driven by a wind that can only be described as slightly less uncomfortable than the seventh circle of hell. The putrid stench of rotted vegetation, dead bodies, and excrement smashed into me an instant before my nostrils were clogged with dust. Small pebbles pinged off of the trucks and ricocheted off of my back. Grains of sand tore at exposed flesh, making a layer of red mud all over. The wind instead of bringing some relief to the wretched heat was scalding hot.As I cowered there assailed by tiny rocks, dirt, and anything else the wind found to throw at me, my mind wandered backwards in time. Leaving my body there to be abused. I went back to my home. I was sitting in my mothers computer chair, with my feet propped up on a step. She was laughing and talking and I was quite engaged when she stopped and looked me dead in the eyes. She tilted her head looked at me in a very motherly way and asked me something that blanked my mind. "Do you love Hannah Mae?""I beg your pardon?" I replied in shock."Well I know you like her and she is really beautiful, and we all love her to death but do you really love her or are you just doing this because you think she is the best choice? I mean she is funny, smart, good with children, and drop dead gorgeous, but are you just doing it for all of that or do you really love her? Do you get butterflies in your stomach?""No" I said quietly. Her face seemed to fall and her shoulders droop a little. I smiled a little "I get goosebumps." She relaxed and smiled back. The memory faded to the back of my consciousness as a particularly fast moving rock hit me just behind the ear. I listened to the wind whistling through the armor in the truck, and thought back. Once again I thought about home. I was standing on the pavement next to my cousins truck. As I stood I held a girl in my arms. As I held her, she cried. As she cried my heart ached in my chest.A deep throbbing pain in my chest. In my few short years I have never felt anything nearly as dreadful as this.She cried because I was going away and I might not come back. She cried because the person who held her was going back to a place that made tough men cry and soft men dead. She cried because in the coming months she would not have me there to cry on when things went wrong. She cried for the time she would be spending alone.I don't know why but when I see a girl cry it moves something deep in me. I do not like it and I try to avoid it at all costs. If I were Achilles my weakness would not be my heel... It would be the tears of an innocent girl. Her crying made me break on the inside. It shook parts of my innermost being that I had sealed off from humanity lest I be dealt a crippling blow. It tore holes in my heart and lit my skin on fire to see her tears fall and know that I had caused it and know that I could do nothing about it.When I had finally said my goodbyes and left I drove stone faced as I had been all day. As I drove I thought about all the time that I had spent alone. I have always had friends, and I have always had my family, but there was a part of me that has always yearned for the love that I saw in my parents faces when they looked at each other. I thought about all the times I had cried out to god to save me from my self, to send me a companion that I could love and trust. I know that some say that god can fill the emptiness in our lives. I agree. However in the garden of eden he gave man a companion. If god gave man a companion then I am sure that god did not mean for us to feel so lonely.I drove and drove as all kinds of memories of being alone filtered through my mind. I remembered all of the times that I knew that the next day would not be a good day because I would not be sharing it with someone. I remembered all the times that I woke in the night from a terrible dream and there was no one to trn to. I remembered all the times I had fallen asleep with a damp spot on my pillow from silent tears of agony.As I drove those silent tears returned, and I cried. I cried silently, and straight faced because I have cried in those great agonized sobs, and I never want to feel that pain again. Yet there I sat in that truck in the most excruciating pain I have ever felt in my life. There was a great gapeing hole in my chest where my heart should have been. I sat and drove in silence listening to the sound of the tires on the road and ignoreing the large damp spot on the front of my shirt.I know any one would say that it wasn't like I was going away and not coming back. They would say that I was being ridiculous because it would only be a few months. Those people are not soldiers. When you leave someone for good you know that you are leaving and it is permanent. When you leave someone temporarily you know that it is only temporary. But when you are going back to active combat... You have no idea what will happen. You also have no idea if you will come back alive or dead. You don't know if you will be mangled or still in good form. You don't know if you will come back, or god forbid be captured. All you know is that you will be somewhere that you cant see, touch, smell or feel the person that you want to the most.Perhaps I am weak, or soft for crying. Perhaps I am not a very tough man. I will say this, after that day I was a broken man. Broken in that I was no longer invulnerable. I now had a chink in my armor. I now had a reason not to be the guy that jumps on a grenade to save his friends. I now had a reason to not be wild and reckless. I now had a reason to be more cautious and scared.My brother used to say that before I was born I was given an extra helping of stupid because they had run out of scared. Truth be told I have always been able to do things that scared other people. I cannot ever remember a time in my life that I was truly afraid of death. The thing that has always scared me was my lack of fear. I have done things and afterwards looked at what I did and been scared spitless that next time I would do something that killed me because I wasn't scared when I should be. But now I had something to fear.I had to fear sending a casket back to a girl who deserved everything I had to give. A sweet innocent beautiful girl who did not deserve to have her heart broken in such a manner. Even though I know she never would I had to fear that she would not want me if I became disfigured. I can honestly say that I know that I would not ever do that, however I couldn't blame her if she did.I was no longer my own man. I was no longer the lone wolf. Now I belong to someone. Now I have someone to protect nurture and love.And what had always been my greatest strength was now my greatest weakness.I had never been afraid and so I had always succeeded, even though I was afraid of my own lack of fear. Now my fear of my own nature made me cautious and careful and worried where I had always been confidant and bold. Now instead of a man with no ties and therefore nothing to loose had something. Besides what good would heaven do me without my angel beside me? The wind had started to die down by the time I completed this train of thought. Inside another 2 minutes the sun was out and everything was just as still as it had been before, except it had six inches of hot dust sand and rocks on top of it. We started to move around shaking sand and dust out of our clothes. Blowing good sized mud clods from our noses. Wipeing the mud formed by our sweat and the dust from around our eyes. As I stood there and looked at the chaos caused in just a few minutes by a relatively small dust storm. I hid my face so that the would not see the tears streaking the mud. I stood there and prayed to the almighty god of heaven and earth to protect me, so that I could do one thing.I just wanted the chance to come home and show her and the rest of the world that I loved her. Some of you may not think that this is sad. Some of you may think I am overdramatic. Just so you know I do this every day. So when you go wherever it is you go for the day, smile and hug a loved one. Tell them you love them. Hug them. Let you know how you feel, and don't be shy.Because somewhere out there is a soldiers girl who wont get hugged tonight. Somewhere out there is a sailors baby taking his first steps without his father there to pat him on the head. Somewhere out there a Marines daughter will wake screaming from a horrid nightmare only to find that daddy wont come no matter how much she cries. Somewhere out there is an Airman's best friend who wont have someone to talk to about his troubles. If all of you did something nice for someone, then those poor souls will have an easier time waiting for their men to come home.This is how it is from the perspective of the soldier. This is the story of one of those guys that didn't say much or show any expression. This is what it is like for the man who leaves the only thing in life that is truly more precious to him than anything else. No matter how straight faced they are. No matter how sharp and clean they look. No matter how crisply they walk away from you, just remember. We have been trained to do that without thinking, so that we do not show our broken hearts.To anyone who got this from me and a few who didn't because I did not have their addresses... I love you.And to any of you that see or talk to Hannah. You tell her that I said I loved her and missed her.God bless all of you, and cheer up a little.Tomorrow is going to be a better day.Daniel L. Herbert