One night you are home alone. You start drinking heavily. You can't stop thinking about your men you failed. The drunker you get the less you care. You bring out a pistol and stare at it. Do you pick up the [[pistol|death]] or do you pick up the [[cell phone|Life]] right next to it?

You are back in America, still in the military, getting back to being home. You feel normal, but different. You start to drink more. You are angry. You hate yourself. You hate everyone. You feel like you can't go on anymore. Why did they die and you [[live?|Help]]

You can no longer deal with the guilt from that evening. You place the gun to your temple, "POP" it's all over. \n\nYou are not alone, thousands of other combat veterans are dealing with the same guilt you are. Call somebody. Your life is important whether you realize it or not. You deserve to be happy. You deserve to enjoy the freedom your men, and the thousands of other service members, died for, and that you fought for. It is never too late to get help. If you have no one to call, call 1-800-273-8255 and speak to someone at The Veterans Crisis Line. You deserve it.

Survivors Guilt

As you fire your last grenade into the building across the street you see bright headlights heading towards you through all of the smoke. It's your men. Two tanks roll up to the scene and you think you have just seen two angels. The enemy fire immediately stops. You're saved. Now you have to pick up the burned man and get him to the combat support hospital. In the back of the vehicle the man is on a litter with his head in your lap. He is barely recognizable. He has no eyelids, his fingers are missing, he is screaming in pain when he stops. He looks you right in your eyes [[and says|tell my wife]]

Once your beacon is on, right before you prepare to move back out from behind cover to reengage the enemy you think, "this is it, this is where I die. Right here on this shitty street in the middle of nowhere Baghdad." Then you start to reengage the enemy. You hear your soldier yell back that he is "amber" on ammo. Knowing that you yourself are "amber" on ammo, meaning not a lot of bullets left, you accept the fact that you are going to die. But accepting the fact that you are going die only makes you more determined to kill as many of the enemy as possible before they [[kill you.|Angel]]

As your tiny red crosshairs reaches center mass of the target, you move it just a little in front of him. You lead him. Your finger tenses and "POP" "POP" explodes through the air. The target in your optic drops out of site. You lower your aim to find the figure slumped on the ground, you put your cross hair back on the center of his chest, "POP" "POP" two more explosions burst out from the end of your rifle. [[Instantly you refocus back on the target building.|back to pool]]

It's 3 days after the attack. You haven't slept, you haven't eaten, and you still can't process what happened. You keep thinking that they are going to come walking back through that door all patched up and ready to roll back out with you. They don't. You feel this for the next 11 months while you are still in the war zone. You think about the men you lost every day. You beat yourself up for not doing more, you “what if” every thing you did that night. [[Then you go home.|home]]

Your gear consists of a standard military Kevlar helmet with your night vision attached to the front and an infrared beacon on the rear. You are wearing your Interceptor Body Armor vest with a front and back armor piercing resistant plate that each weigh roughly 18 pounds a piece. Your vest holds seven additional magazines, 2 frag grenades, 1 smoke grenade, medical pouch, and radio w/pouch. You are caring a standard M-4 assault rifle with a grenade launcher, surefire tactical flashlight attached, and infrared laser-targeting device and weapons optic. [[Return to Start|Start]]

You realize that you will not let this guilt beat you. You pick up your cell phone and call your buddy. You tell him how you are thinking about killing yourself. He keeps you on the line while he notifies the authorities about your intentions. There is a knock at your door. MPs are there to take you to get the treatment you need. \n\n\nYou just took the first step on the long, bumpy road to happiness. Congratulations for having the courage to fight back.\n\n\nYou are not alone, thousands of other combat veterans are dealing with the same guilt you are. Call somebody. Your life is important whether you realize it or not. You deserve to be happy. You deserve to enjoy the freedom your men, and the thousands of other service members, died for, and that you fought for. It is never too late to get help. If you have no one to call, call 1-800-273-8255 and speak to someone at The Veterans Crisis Line. You deserve it.\n

The radio headset in your helmet goes crazy with multiple voices coming across the net. "IED!! IED!!" Your heart sinks. Who's been hit? You are trying to figure out what is happening when your Lieutenant comes across your headset telling you he is going to drop ramp and you need to [[Dismount left.|Dismount left]]\n

As you start your 100-meter sprint to your brothers in arms, you immediately receive heavy small arms fire from your left flank. You halt and fall back behind the cover of your own vehicle. You begin to return fire into the windows across the street at the hostiles who are engaging you with automatic gunfire. You are pinned down. No cover to get you to the burning vehicle, but you also have the burned man laying in the middle of the street in harm's way. You decide to first [[move the burned man behind cover.|]]

You are exhausted and hungry. The day started with a 12 hour clearing mission where you searched over 300 homes all while walking the streets with your [[ gear.|100 pounds of gear.]] \n\nUpon mission complete you were tasked with another escort mission through a different sector of your area of operation. The mission lasts a short four hours. It is around 8 pm and you are riding in the back of an up armored military vehicle headed back to your base after a long day of missions. [[You hear a pop.|pop]]\n

Yourself, one of your subordinates, and your interpreter, race off of the back ramp of your vehicle to the left side of the vehicle as instructed by your Lieutenant. You see a man running to you completely naked and engulfed in flames screaming for help. [[You jump on him to smother the flames.|smother the flames]]

A moment of panic and horror strike you at the same instance. The vehicle on fire has 4 of your men trapped inside. The IED hit the fuel tank and flames are shooting 30 feet into the air like a geyser. Your instincts and training kick in and you instruct your soldier to follow you to the burning vehicle to help with extracting any possible survivors that might remain trapped inside. [[You sprint forward.|contact]]

The sound is now intense, the most intense rumble you have ever heard. Automatic weapons, ammunition exploding in the burning vehicle you can't reach, and all you see in the green glow of your night vision is your infrared laser pointing at the flashes coming from the windows across the street. The sky around you looks like a scene from Star Wars, tracer rounds flying back and forth across the street and into the night sky. The dirt around you is kicking up and you keep hearing the "snaps" and "cracks" buzzing by your head. As you move back behind cover to reload your 5th magazine, you reach back and [[flip on your infrared beacon on your helmet.|pray]]

You know that if you use the personnel fire extinguisher on your vehicle, you will probably kill the man on fire. So you jump on him and start to pat out the flames with your hands. The heat is intense and each time you slap a flame out, pieces of charred skin attach to your gloves that are starting to melt to your hands because of the heat. \n\nAt first you don't know who the man is, until you see the tattoos on his arms and realize that this is one of your men. [[You look up and see it is your vehicle that was hit by the IED.|Burning vic]]

"Tell my wife and kids I love them." It's like a movie. You tell him he will tell them himself. You offer words of encouragement that he is going to be fine. The ride to the hospital is only 7 minutes, but it seemed like 7 years. Every time the vehicle slows quickly the man rolls off onto you. Each time you try to gently put him back on the litter and each time more and more of his burnt skin is left sticking to your vest. The vehicle stops and the back ramp drops. You take the head of the litter and someone grabs the legs and move the man to a gunnery manned by four military doctors. He is whisked away and [[that is the last time you see him alive.|carrry on]]

Matt Fieser

You and your subordinate run to your fallen comrade and pick him up. You grab him under his shoulders and your soldier grabs his legs. You move him as quickly and delicately as possible 5 meters to behind your armored vehicle. You tell your soldier to go to the front of the vehicle and to continue to engage the combatants across the street. You head to the rear of the vehicle and engage the targets from a different angle. As you are firing, you see a figure running out the back of the building containing the enemy. He is running through an open field, you quickly reacquire your new target [[in your optic.|fire]]