Telescope Eyes

Today my platoon suffered our first KIA this deployment. Sniper hit him through the side of the head as he was giving some Iraqi kid a soccer ball. Some of those children even cheered as the platoon loaded him into the PL's truck, his blood spilling everywhere. One his best friends, the RTO (radio-telecoms operator), had to hold parts of his brain in while he was escorted back to the COP to be stabilized and then airlifted to surgery. He died on that flight out of the COP, but everyone knew he was dead as soon as he got hit. You don't survive that kind of a shot.

The guys cleaned themselves of blood as much as possible, and then four hours later had to go on another patrol. The 21-year-old RTO had to sit in the back of the same bload-soaked Stryker that he had hours before just held his dying friend.