Sample Audio with Text

Click to play the audio and read along. Read by Lyon Kennedy.

You ever hear a tank in the woods? I mean, I’m sure you haven’t. I was on a drop once and there were tanks and bulldozers. Dropped them on platforms with parachutes, and in the dark, in the woods, the sound of those engines like prehistoric beasts. That rumble, that roar hidden in the woods, it made my bones shake.

And, and we had these tanks move down narrow streets, and I mean, not every home was bad. There were still a lot of kids around, and I can only imagine what that felt like— a little kid with a 70-ton tank roaring outside their window.

There was a girl, a girl in a blue dress in Fallujah. I saw her lying in a courtyard, and her face was— it was just, just split open like taking a hatchet to a melon. Part of her face, part of her face was darker. Flies, a swarm of flies.

How the hell am I not going to be affected by that? To let her, just casually walk by and not do something. To know you couldn’t do anything, not even cover her with a blanket because all the fucking gung-ho dickheads, their dopey heads and glass eyes, see her as the enemy. How sick is that? Little girl who lost her face is a goddamn enemy.

I can’t get that girl out of my head. The hatchet girl. I can’t unsee that face. I didn’t even look away either. Everyone else looked away.

Some even joked, joked about a hot girl in the courtyard to other guys, so they came to gawk, the sick fucks.

Look, we’re all trained to kill, that’s the point. But some of these guys, some of them, thank God for the Army, because they relish combat. They fucking love it. I can’t imagine what these guys would do if not for combat. Demolitions, bounty hunters, contract killers?

I mean, these guys are sick.