In the battalion aid station the two medics mopped the floor, the blood merging with the water into a thinned red liquid as they pushed it along the tiles, fanning it out in tiny waves. The threads of the mop heads were dyed pink from the blood, and the mop bucket was filled with the ruby red water. They did not speak to each other as they worked. They only mopped and kept their heads down. The chaos and the noise had come and was gone now. The helicopters had come and taken away the torn-up men, away to the CSH (combat support hospital). Now the only sounds were the slop-slop-slopping of the mops along the floor between and under the raised stretchers, the dripping of the bloody water being pressed out of the mops into the bucket, and the sounds of their own voices in their heads. "We did everything we could. Did we do everything we could? We did everything we could. Did we? We did. I did. I did everything I could. I did. I did."

CPT Jeff Leonard is a mental health counselor with a US infantry battalion in Iraq. I think even Army doctors and medics sometimes lose their objectivity in the debacle of Mr Bu$h’s ego-war.

The rest of the piece is here and it gives a small insight into the aftermath of death.