Still A Soldier

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From time to time, the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots.

Y/N's POV:

My eyes burst open as I sit up in a cold sweat. The clink of my dog tags rubbing against each other bounces off of the walls.

I look over at the alarm clock on my nightstand. The digital green lights read out the time 3:34 AM.

My hands make their way to my face. They cover my face as I rub the tiredness out of my eyes.

This is the fourth night in a row. The fourth night I wake to the same dream. The same faces. The same feeling of dread in my chest.

I should've never stepped off that plane. I didn't deserve to step off that plane.

I knew good men. Men who had people waiting for them to come home. Men who had families, wives, girlfriends, kids hell even dogs.

I didn't. I didn't have anyone waiting for me at home. No pet patiently waiting for me to walk through the threshold to play with them.

All I had were the men in my unit.

Looks like I'm not sleeping tonight. Not after that dream again.

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It's the same shit everyday. I pull myself out of bed. Rinse the sweat off of my body in the shower.

Get dressed in my damn Baskin Robbin's uniform.

Eat some toast.

Go to work. Get chewed out by some 40 year old land whale and her snot nosed brat.

My boss who claims up and down he's doing me a favor by letting me work there. A favor would be a .45 round in my head.

A favor would be allowing me to trade my life for those that lost their's in that shithole Afghanistan.

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I sit on the cold metal chair in a small room. A ring of other chairs is filled with other people. For the life of me I can't remember their names.

Group. That's what they call it. Guy down at the VA told me about it.

Bunch of veterans sitting in a room. Each with their own experiences. Some serving in different wars. Some fighting in the same battle without even knowing.

Everyday I say it helps. Everyday I lie and say that talking about the shit I did helps.

And everyday I lie about taking my meds. The poison that the VA helps us get. The meds that mess with our heads.

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A soldier sits in a hole. All alone. The night sky shrouding the hole. Making it even darker.

His NCO comes by and asks him what he's doing in the hole and to get out. But the holes too big to climb out of.

The soldier says he can't and that he's stuck. The NCO simply throws the soldier a shovel. Figure it out the NCO says.