Wheely Unfortunate

Everyone hears stories, or reads them, about fallen warriors, or soldiers who don’t make it home. Some soldiers come back wounded, not only physically, but also mentally, leaving their souls to cry out for normality, to return to who they were once before. Some wounds cannot be seen, and some are not shown, many hoping to hide their despair so as not to burden those that they love and care for. Despite all of this, some soldiers, who have served on soil not known to them, fight for freedom for their home, keeping said loved ones safe, as well as the ones that deserve to live their lives to their extent. Some soldiers sacrifice everything for their friends, families, and their home. It’s why some never come home. And some have no choice but to come home, only to be barraged by others in pity or anger, or in simple disregard for the sacrifices made. The consequences for some of these people’s actions come at a dire cost… He wanted to be normal. He didn’t want to be trapped in a wheelchair, to be a freak as some claimed. To not be looked down upon, like the woman who was screeching at him was treating him. He didn’t want this. No one wanted this. No one wants this hell that seemed ever constant to him. ~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~ His squad’s unit was riding roughly over the gritty and jagged terrain, moving positions to relieve another unit who’d been on lookout all night. It was supposed to be an area already cleared by the IED Unit. For crying out loud, it had been tagged safe by the bomb team! However... They had missed one. The Humvee he had been traveling in burst into the air like a cannonball being fired out of a cannon. He could hear the screams of his comrades, hearing them echo within his mind as everything seemed to slow into an agonizing slow motion feature of a horror film. He could see the rose of blood and the gilded coloring of the melting components mixing together in a delicate ballet in the heavens. He could hear the wallop as his body landed against the ground, his body temporarily shaking like perfectly set up meat jelly. He couldn’t feel the pain, his brain barely functioning as he tried to process all that had happened in that split second, though it felt more like an eternity. The shock had a constraint on his mind, restraining him from moving, keeping him down for another age and a half. When the grip had loosened, and some form of cognizance found him, he found himself sitting up in a stupor, looking at the scene before him. His squad, his brothers in arms, the men he kept company with… All that he was able to see for the time being was their blood. Gradually his mind came more into focus, seeing bits of fabric, twisted and contorted metal with more than one hue due to the fire, the oxidation, and blood. His eyes slowly surveyed the land until he spotted one man, one single man, reaching over to him, his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. Before he could even move, to respond to his fallen bretheren’s silent cry of help, he saw the light fade from his eyes and knew, in that moment, he was gone. His head lowered, the fog of trauma closing in to bring him the darkness threatening to take him. The Humvee was no longer. There was fire dancing to its erotic song where the fuel tank was resting, the guiding light slowly fading to allow the sun’s passage over the already scorched sand beneath him. In the last little bit that his mind could operate, he managed to push aside the coming pain to grasp at his radio, his lungs filling with the needed oxygen. “Hotel… Echo… Lima… Papa… Unit Foxtrot... Alpha… Kilo… Echo… Two… Seven… Down… Baron… Reporting…” All he could hear was the mumblings of someone responding before his mind completely shut down, bringing him into the darkness of unconsciousness. When he had finally come to, he could feel the dressing over his head and the life preserving IV in his arm. He let out a howl of pain, a reasonable response after his nerves started to spark alive. A Medical team arrived only moments later to slowly take the edge of the pain away. It was then he was told he would be transferred stateside to receive better care for what had happened. For the tragedy that struck him and felled his friends, his brothers. A thought he didn’t want to think of any longer. With the help of the drugs now running through his veins, his mind was lost to the darkness once more, a sweet escape for him.

~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~

All of that had happened six months ago, or there roughly. He had lost track of time. It seemed like a never-ending hell to him. He had been discharged with a purple heart and several commendations. But that didn’t heal what he saw, felt, and heard… It didn’t make up for anything… “You’re just a fake! You’re phony! You need to get out of that chair and quit embarrassing yourself!” The woman’s screeching brought him back to the now. He swallowed wearily, closing his eyes, a temporary solution to the thoughts running through his head, and a temporary block from the woman. He wanted to bellow at the woman. Scream. Do something to retaliate. But for god’s sake, there were children here. He didn’t want to represent the Army like that. He didn’t want to off-put any potential soldiers by shouting and ending the woman’s apparent angry tirade.