Unspoken Abandonment Read Online Free

rounds of ammunition, and an AT4 rocket launcher. There is no electricity in the OP, but there really is n ot a need for it; the last thing you want to do is light yourself up in here. One quick flash of light and a sniper w ill know exactly where you are.
    I a m starting to get very homesick, and this place is starting to become very real. I missed so much about home last night. It was so quiet in the OP, all I had time to d o was think, wonder, and miss everything. Each and e very person has had a bad day at one point or another, but you usually get to go home at the end, relax, and start over. There is no “going home” here; this is home.
    Other than the two explosions earlier in the night, it was complete silence. It was just me all alone with my thoughts. You never really appre ciate the little things in life until everything has been taken away. It is the details that make us happy, the little things. I would trade anything for the opportunity to enjoy a hot pizza, a cold beer, and a funny movie tonight. I never would have thought something so little could mean so much.
    February 27, 2003 :
    Tonight started off slowly. It was very quiet, no pedestrians or cars, and I guess you could even say it was boring. I heard periodic gunshots throughout the night; some were single shots and some were full automatic bursts. Most of them sounded a distance off, but a few exchanges were a little too close for comfort.
    After shift, at eight o’clock in the morning, two team members and I decided to g o out of the compound. Whenever you leave the compound , it is always a good idea to bring a local you can trust to help you get around and translate for you. It has to be someone you can absolutely trust, and we brought Massoud. Massoud basically told us that if shit hits the fan, follow him and we wi ll be fine.
    We went to an area of Kabul the troops call Chicken Street. It i s very densely populated and extremely poor. Approximately one third of the people in this area are homeless and struggling for survival. We drove to Chicken Street in a Land Cruiser, wearing body armor and armed with an array of handguns, machineguns, and assault rifles. The second we pulled into the area, people would try to open the Land Cruiser’s doors every time we stopped. Pointing a 9mm at them did no t faze them one bit; they still tr ied relentlessly to open the locked doors.
    We found the best area to park, though I did no t find it so hot, and we were swarmed by people as we exited the vehicle . They were all peasants hoping to get from us anything we were willing to offer. One woman in a burqa approached us, and she was crying heavily. She made a motion to her mouth with her hand as if she was eating through the burqa, and she then pointed to a small boy. The boy looked to be around eight years old and was laying on the edge of the road against the curb. H e was barely clothed, unconscious, and appeared very malnourished. As we got closer to him, he almost looked as though he was n o t even alive.
    As we shoved past the woman, she grabbed a hold of me. Massoud immediately responded by pointing his AK47 at her and shoving the barrel into her chest. Massoud pushed the rifle into her chest so hard she fell backwards to the ground. The woman began to cry even louder and it became more of a wailing sound. Massoud looked at me and told me the boy died two days ago, and to forget about them. Forget about them? How?
    We wandered the area and saw so many people selling things from either a makeshift cart or from a rug spread across the sidewalk. People were selling everything from daily necessity items, to food, to bootleg videos, and even knives and guns. There was commotion and noise everywhere, but all I could hear was the sound of that woman crying in my head.
    February 2 8, 2003 :
    It was a very quiet day today, thank Go d. It was kind of rainy all day, so I suppose that either forced people inside or kept them busy trying to stay warm and dry.
    I ha