Home For Fall // Emison and PLL

Deployment: Day 14

Emily couldn't believe how much action she had seen in just two weeks of being in Afghanistan.

Everyday they gained new soldiers, and lost some more. Emily felt as if she were standing in a long line waiting to die.

Now that women were able to participate in heavy duty combat, Emily was always afraid her squad would be rotated into the field. She wasn't sure if she could handle having to take any more lives than she already had.

Four people. She had killed four people in her life. If the death toll continued, she feared she might lose her mind.

She sat in one of the large tents that was pitched to hold the chow room with a couple of the girls from her squadron.

They were always wearing the same things when they weren't necessarily needed. Their tan boots, digital camo pants, a tan belt, and a grey undershirt that had US Army sprawled across the front in simple black letters. The majority of the time, they had to have their hair pulled up into a tight bun. But when they were eating, playing soccer around the compound, or hanging out in the bunks, they just let it lay loose.

Emily poked around her food with the fork. It was mushy and red and didn't nearly resemble anything recognizable. Emily thought it could've been beets. Maybe it was. Who knew? They didn't care whether you liked it or not. You got a meal and you either ate it or you starved.

One of the girls in her unit whom Emily considered herself close to, Sophia, watched her. "What's wrong Fields? Got a bad case of the stomach bug?"

Emily scoffed. "Yeah, I wish."

"You're nervous, aren't you?"

"About what?"

"Being rotated. Look man, I get it. But that's why we're here. We're here to fight," Sophia said.

One of the other girls with dark black skin whom Emily recognized as somebody they called "Twig" looked up. "Yeah, Fields. Why join the Army if that's what you weren't prepared to do?"

Emily clenched her jaw. "I never said I wasn't prepared to do anything. You guys act like it's not okay to be afraid to die."

Another one of the girls, Allen, coughed. "You can't afford to be afraid to die when you're fighting. In the end, it'll just get you killed. Might as well not be afraid of it."

"Hey, don't scare the girl," Sophia scolded.

Twig barked out a laugh. "Don't scare her? She's in the fucking desert with a whole bunch of shit bags who blow themselves up for joy. I don't know about you, but that scares the hell out of me."

"Have any of you actually been in a situation where you've almost been shot out here? Or where you've had to shoot someone else?" Emily asked.

The table grew silent.

"Yeah, I thought not. Well guess what? I have. My first day out here, I watched good people die beside me. Good soldiers. I killed people. Whether they're bad or good, they're still humans. Forgive me if I'm afraid to die. I'm the only one who's come remotely close to it," Emily spat.

"Aw, baby girl, you break my heart," a deep voice said from behind her.

Emily turned around to see a tall burly man sitting on one of the tables playing with the blades of his pocket knife. She immediately wished she hadn't had said anything.