I shipped out, geared up, and arrived right in the middle of the desert. When I step foot on that dirt, I have to really soak it all in. This is home now. There’s no running away from this one. Three months and I’ll be home. No doubt, this will be the longest three months ever.

“Welcome to your new home, rookie!” my commander says to me. We met in basic training already. No big deal. I’m with all my SEAL buddies now and they’re ready to kill. Me, on the other hand, I’m ready for the unexpected.

“Alright. No introductions necessary, I presume. Let’s move!” he yells.

We run into the briefing room, salute, and sit down and wait. There’s a lot of yelling going on. If you don’t yell, you’re not taken seriously. This is something I actually write down.

I sit down and nod to some of my fellow soldiers. Some of them I know. Some of them I don’t. “Good morning, pussies!” the officer in charge screams at us. “I see you brought your panties. Good thing, because we’re sending you right out in that desert to fight!”

I feel my stomach churn slightly, but overall, I’m ready for this. I’m ready to leave my world behind forever. The past is the past, right?

“For the past year, we’ve had our men encounter two small firefights. We’ve been successful on both fronts and have only lost a few men. I’m proud of our SEALs and all they’ve sacrificed,” he shouts. The rest of the men scream in solidarity. “But now’s the time to get serious. You know why?”

Everyone is silent. There’s not a sound in the room. You could hear a fucking pin drop if you wanted to. “That’s what I thought,” he says. “Well, as it turns out, one of our men has decided to go AWOL. The son of a bitch has taken it on himself to win the war. Naturally, as SEALs, we don’t take kindly to that sort of thing, do we?”

“Sir, no sir!” everyone yells, including me. I perk my chin up and look the man directly in the eyes. This is it. Our first mission. And it’s a fucking dangerous one. We’ll be exposed to militants all over this desert.

“We are one, SEALs!” he screams. We all cheer back. I’ve got a sinking feeling in my stomach, but it’s not because I’m scared. It’s because I know my life is about to change forever. What I’ll see, what I’ll experience, will test me. Well, I’m fucking ready. Bring it.

“But we do not leave a soldier behind! He’s decided to take off. So, now we gotta bring him home, boys. Here’s the mission directive.”

He shows us a thousand slides. Pictures of the city center. He describes the culture as carefully as he can. He gives us words and phrases we can use to ask the locals questions. He tells us all we’ll need to know in the matter of 30 minutes.

Moral of the story? We’re fucked if we aren’t careful. We’re completely surrounded. The enemy combatants are all in plain clothes. There’s no way to know who’s who out here. This place is a mirage. It’s a reflection of the self, and we’re bring our weapons into it. All because of a soldier who didn’t want to fight.

Well, the boys are pissed and I can see why. I bunk up with a man known as “Savage.” He’s not having it. He’s fucking angry, cleaning his gun with precision.

“When I find him,” he whispers to me as the lights go out, “I’ll kill him myself. I won’t need any Taliban or Isis to do this shit. I’ll slit his throat and be done with the mission. Then, I’ll do the real job and defend my country.” The gleam in his eye is harsh and threatening. It doesn’t frighten me, however. I just nod and fall back onto my cot.

Everything is uncomfortable here. There’s no telling what will happen. Oddly enough, I actually smile at that thought. This was exactly what I signed up for. Urgency. Now my life has purpose.

But when I reach into my pocket, I feel something hard and folded. I don’t remember putting anything in there and I was sure that at takeoff, everything was in my bag. But I guess I missed this. I pull it out slowly and unfold it.

In the dark room, far away from home, I look at the thick, glossy paper. It’s a photo with a handwritten note on the back. It reads:

I’ll cherish the night we had together. The way you ate me… I’ll never get that out of my head. Be safe over there. Promise me. I’ll be thinking about you, hero. Love, Dakota.

I turn the photo around and feel nauseous. It’s a polaroid of her in that red dress, right before we met at the beach. She’s glamorous, like a movie star.

I feel sick to my fucking stomach. A hero? Me? All I want to do is to go home and get away from people like Savage. He’s out to kill. Shit, they all are. And what am I doing out here? Looking at a picture of the girl I should have run away with.

What have I done?