(2/3) “We had a company commander in Iraq—let’s call him Captain...

(2/3) “We had a company commander in Iraq—let’s call him Captain Johnson. He was in charge of all the medics. He set the rosters, scheduled the convoys, and coordinated with other units. He was also fucking his secretary but that’s less important. We were nine months into our deployment, and Captain Johnson decides to go out on a convoy with us one night. That wasn’t his job. His job was to stay inside his office. But that night he decided that he wanted to go. And during the convoy one of the trucks hits an IED. And guys are screaming ‘go, go, go’ over the radio, and we’re trying to push through the hot spot, and small arms fire keeps bouncing off our vehicles: ‘plink, plink, plink.’ It sounded just like the opening scene in Saving Private Ryan. I hate that movie because they got that sound so perfect. And as soon as we were out of the area, Captain Johnson has us stop on Samarra Bridge to repair the vehicle. And it was so stupid to stop there. Because that bridge was getting blown up every other week. And we’re sitting on that bridge, pointing our M-16’s into the dark, and people are whispering ‘do you hear that?’ And we almost shoot at our own infantry because we don’t know it’s them. And I asked Captain Johnson why he came with us. And he told me: ‘I have two sons at home. I need stories to tell them.’ And I hated him so much in that moment. Because I didn’t want this shit. When I signed up, they told me I’d be working in a hospital. I wanted to be safe, but I wasn’t allowed to be. But he had a choice, and he chose not to be. Just because he wanted war stories.”