CPT Jeff Leonard is a combat stress counselor with the California National Guard, currently in the sandbox, trying to help our troops deal with war. I’ve highlighted his writings before, because I think he brings an amazing degree of sense and sensitivity to what he does, and how he tells us about it.

He travels from camp to camp, and base to base, wherever he’s needed to talk it out with kids who’ve seen the elephant. It’s not easy and Christo Jesu, I admire this man. He’s one of the bravest men I’ve ever heard of, because he seeks out others just to share their grief.

Today he doesn’t have to travel very far.

God, I wish we would kill those bastards," I said as I passed Sgt. Carpenter and Pvt. Carnes, the chaplain's assistant. Carnes had been in our tent talking to Sgt. Carpenter and two rockets had just impacted somewhere nearby. "Those sounded like they hit somewhere on the FOB for sure. Sooner or later they are going to kill one of us."

Pvt. Carnes looked at me, nodding with a slight grin, and said, "You're probably right, sir."
…

"Thump," the wooden door on the front of our tent closed as someone entered. I turned and walked toward them and squinted my eyes down along the rooms trying to see who it was. The hall was dark and the light was behind the figure so I couldn't see his face very well but I could tell it was Pvt. Carnes. He was staggering as he walked as if he might collapse.

We froze as we all watched him walking toward us.

"Carnes? Are you okay? What's the matter?" I asked.

He didn't answer at first. Then his face passed the shadows as he neared me and the light revealed his tormented expression and his tears. "He's dead! He's dead!" he said, sobbing and still staggering toward me.

"Who's dead, Carnes? Who's dead?" I asked.

"The lieutenant, Lt. Browning. He's dead!" He burst into tears. He was standing right in front of me now and he leaned his forehead over the back of his hand, into the metal cross brace at the meeting point of the tent wall and roof pitch.

If there really is a deity, I hope he / she / it damns all those warmongering assholes to an eternity in a pit of fire.