God, The Things Our Minds Omit When We Never Thought We Could Ever Forget

When I was in basic training we had a soldier kill himself while on bivouac training, two weeks away from graduation. He put his M-16 to his forehead and blew out the whole side of his skull.

We woke that morning to what I thought it was another blissful dawn where Drill Sergeants would detonate flash-bang grenades or fire M-16 rounds off because they forgot their alarm clocks. We all started looking around at each other when we heard all the commotion that would have gotten us in huge trouble otherwise, and knew something was wrong.

The news spread fast through the encampment, I went to go look and saw his brains all over the place. God, the things our minds omit when we never thought we could ever forget.

(1) Reader Comment

AirmanMom
02/18/2009 at 8:12 am

The mind is amazing. We just spent the weekend with my brother-in-law and his wife. He is a VietNam Vet and some stories he shared of his four tours to Nam in the Marines, were horrifying. He also shared his memory of pulling their mother out of the car after the accident, and how she died in his arms. Somehow, with all this in our brains, we wake up and face a new day.
My prayers to you, to this young man’s family and to all who hold such horrible images in their brains.
~AM

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