The blazing Iraqi heat incinerated me, my flak jacket serving as my own personal oven. The pounding in my head was relentless, and it wasn’t just from the popping of the nearby AKs. I flicked a sand flea off my chest and took a swig from my hydration pack, but the few drops of water did little to quench my thirst. The dehydration, bug infestation, torching sunbeams, and constant sounds of gunfire ensured that the sandman had refused to pay me a visit for days.

My men and I were clearing houses. I was a fucking grunt in an infantry unit, the backbone of the Marine Corps. A human sandbag. I’d joined hoping one day to become a scout sniper—and more than ever wished I were prone on some building offing these terrorist motherfuckers before they assassinated my brothers. At least I was happy to have my friends by my side—Beau, Diego, Trace, and Rafael. These men were my brothers—and out here, the dirty water that bound us together was thicker than blood.

One more house. We’d already cleared two and this was lucky number three. This one was two stories and even had a fucking roof. I threw the purple magic cloud in the air to disorientate the enemy and the smoke grenade detonated. “Let’s go!”

Diego went in first, and we hustled behind him. The rancid air smelled like a putrid mixture of gunpowder, shit, and sour goat’s milk.

“Clear,” Beau yelled out after he checked the first room. Luckily, the second room was vacant also.

I sprinted upstairs, my men close behind me. As we turned the corner and entered the room to the left, the distinct popping of the enemies’ AKs went off.

“Get down!” I crouched in the corner of the room, desperate to get the fuck out of here. Alive. With all my men. Diego returned fire, clouding the room with gunfire and smoke.

And that was when I saw it flying through the window.

A fucking hand grenade. Right next to Rafael.

We were all about to fucking die.

“Grenade!” I screamed. “Get the fuck out.”

I’d always believed that you could never predict how you would act in a deadly situation until the Grim Reaper knocked at your door. Nothing could’ve been truer in that moment.

I was about to die. All my friends were about to be blown up by these motherfuckers.

Not on my watch.

Limbs shaking, tears choking in my throat, I flung my body down on the grenade preparing to shield my men from the blast.

Rafael tried to drag me away, but I remained still, praying for mercy and a quick death. I counted the seconds until my life was over—until I would meet my maker.

A stream of gunfire ricocheted through the building, headed toward Rafael, who had refused to leave my side. His heart-wrenching scream echoed through this shanty house as his head split open before my eyes, his brains splattering on my cammies.

“No!” I screamed. It was too late—despite my sacrifice, my best friend was dead.

Boom!

Agony ripped through my chest, my heart spontaneously combusting, as I let out a desperate scream.

The world was black. I thought I was dead.

But I wasn’t fucking dead; I could never be that lucky. I was alive, trapped in my own body. Cries desperately trying to be heard, tears burning my skin, every nerve in my body short-circuiting, lying in my rotting flesh. Metallica’s song, “One,” played on repeat in my head. The smell of ammonia and bleach filled the white room. Maybe I’d been committed to an insane asylum.

My only working eye made out the image of a man in a white coat walking into the room, a reluctant smile hiding the pity on his face.

“Sergeant Williams, I’m Dr. Evanson. You’re at Walter Reed Medical Hospital. You’ve been in a coma for three months; we didn’t think you’d make it. Congratulations, son, you’re a hero.”

It was a smile I would get to know intimately, for that same condescending smile would end up gracing the face of every politician asking me to pose for a photo, every active duty Marine praying they wouldn’t end up like me, every woman I propositioned.

It was a look that said simultaneously “Thank you for your service” and “This poor bastard.”