The Steamboat Pilot & Today

The sun is blazing, and the humidity is high. It feels as if I have just stepped into a steaming sauna of sweat and fear. Here I sit and watch my fellow soldiers at camp. It seems the war will never end. My clothes are worn out to the point they are so thin they are almost transparent. My helmet is where I count off the many months I have been at war. It started at March, and now it’s back to February. I can only pray it will all be over soon. I have lost so much, yet gained so many memories and images: ones that I can’t get out of my mind. Every time I close my eyes it is the same gore and hate I see that I have been living with for almost a year now. Guns, Hum-V’s, and death are all around. I carry my now close friends as their blood seeps through their clothes on to mine. I tell them to hang on, but inside I know we’ve lost one more. It seems no one wins in a war, but everyone loses, whether it is friends or family, everyone loses something or someone in war. I can only count the minutes until I hope to get home and see my loved ones. I don’t want this to continue. When can I put my helmet, the memorial of lost soldiers, and the count down, away for good? When will it all be over?

Jaime Winter