Diary of a Soldier

August 2010

I received a phone call. It was the national defense force. I was called in to fight a battle in Afghanistan. My parents were very upset and my mom cried a lot. I was going in, in one month.


September 2010

I woke up this morning. I packed my bag, put on my uniform and went to the kitchen. Everybody was gathered around the kitchen table. I sat down and my mom served me breakfast. I ate and we headed to the airport. I said goodbye to everyone. My mom was last. She refused to let me go, so I had my brothers to hold her. I checked in the bag and went to the plane. The next day, I was at the base in Afghanistan.


October 2010

Today we had our first assignment. We were going to a village and get in contact with the people in the surroundings. We had heard that talibans were in the area. Everybody gathered around and our captain gave us our orders. Now we headed out with the troops and the vans. There were a lot of road mines which made it hard for us to get by. When we reached the village, everything seemed calm. We made some contact with the villagers and they were not happy to see us. Some said that if they helped us the talibans would cut their throats off and if they didn't we would bomb their houses in suspicions of talibans being in the area. Also if we bombed the area, it would be only civilian casualty and the talibans would just get away. Our objective were now completed. We head back to the base.


November 2010

I woke up this morning and realized again I wasn't home. God I missed home. Today we had got intel about talibans being in a village not far from here and this time we were 100% sure. We were going to hit them and we were going to hit them hard. Our captain gathered everybody and explained the situation. We made up a tactic, but first we sent out one of our stealth planes to scan the area. Everybody gathered their equipment and soon we headed out. When we came close to the objective I saw the bushes budge and I aimed my gun straight at it. My companion said: "Relax man, there is nothing there." I said: "You are wrong man, there is definitely something there." and the next thing you know, we were being shot at. I threw myself as fast as I could on the ground and pulled a grenade and pulled out the safety key and threw it in the bushes. The next minute a explosion from my grenade made a terrible sound. We shot down the rest and two of our comrades got shot. One in the leg and the other on the arm. A third one got a scratch from a bullet on his shoulder and another had lots of holes in his clothes. I went to the bushes were I had thrown my grenade at. What I saw there chocked my head. It was four talibans laying on the ground, dead. We gathered their body's and weapons. We put the guns in the truck. We also called for a helicopter to take back the wounded.


December 2010

This was the last month and when this month ends, we get to go home at last. But it was far from over. We all gathered around and took a picture as a memory. Later our captain came and looked disappointing at us. Something was wrong. At first I thought that one of our wounded comrades had died, but it was not that. We said: "Today I received a phone call from the military police. They said that someone in this crew had called back to their parents and told them that when we killed the talibans, we laughed and made fun of the dead. That we at the meeting were making jokes about how the dead looked like and that we had killed a little girl back at the village. Then the mom called the military police. I am very disappointed at you, at all of you. You put my loyalty at risk. I am not going to give you any names, but lets not ever repeat this again." Then he turned back and left. Everybody was looking down and was ashamed of themselves. Before the last day me and my comrade received a medal for a good work back at the village where I killed four talibans with a grenade and my comrade shot down several of them. The captain gave us the medal and I looked at it and thought: "This is madness. I am being received a medal for killing? I am being received a medal for have taken another mans life?" This was all so mad to me, but out of respect I accepted the medal.


January 2011

It was the beginning of the month and we were back at home. We stepped of the plane and I took of my medal and threw it away. I collected my bag and went out from the exit. There was my family and I was home.


[Art of Pixels]