The Lost Kid

I wish he was the only one, but I know there will be others. He was only a kid, lost not in the physical context, but in the confused, trying to find my place in the world context. He was seeking acceptance from his peers, from his god, and maybe even from himself. He’d been misled by deceitful cowards who saw an impressionable kid willing to buy into their evil belief’s. He was an expendable pawn in a battle that his side can never hope to win. He was a 14 year old kid who blew himself up outside of our FOB, killing four Iraqi soldiers and wounding many more.

Driving a car packed with explosives, he drove up to a checkpoint manned by the Iraqi’s. We will never know if they were his intended targets or not, but once faced with the prospect of being discovered with his killing machine, those soldiers became his target by default. He wore a ring around his finger. This ring wasn’t a symbol of his unity with another person or group. This was no ring to mark the shared interests or desires of others. It was a ring of death, representing everything that is evil in this world, everything that we and those Iraqi soldiers are fighting against. This ring is worn by few and fought against by many.

The ring in which his finger had grasped was on the end of a wire connected to a bomb. When his confused brain ordered the muscles in his arm to contract, he became nothing more than a cowardly murderer. The ring, once pulled, set off a sequence of events that may have lasted an instant, but they will reverberate throughout eternity. The wives and children of those soldiers killed will suffer the eternal agony of losing someone they love. The boy, and those that he served, will forever suffer the tortuous wrath of a hell with unmatched fury, a hell that holds no sanctuary for their desperate pleas of relief.

When the ring was pulled, the bomb and every muscle, sinew, and bone of the boy’s body was thrust outward in a thousand directions, carrying shrapnel within its vicious path. This shrapnel and every cell of this boy’s entity ripped through the soldier’s flesh, their unarmored bodies unable to repel the very evil emanating from the boy and his bomb. Guards stationed at their post said that they could see three of the soldiers being thrown over the concrete barricade dividing the road. Others said that they could see the bright flash and feel the concussion before hearing the blast. Limbs, blood, and other body parts were said to be in abundance on the street. Some of the body parts, possibly from the boy, came to rest inside our FOB.

I’ve said in the past that I have no desire to kill another human being, but I fear I would relish the opportunity to cut the hearts out of the cowardly fiends who persuaded this kid to do their evil bidding. The kid is not without blame either. He should be condemned as well for his part in such a cowardly act.

Some demented souls may say that his willingness to die was an act of bravery. Being willing to die for something isn’t an act of bravery. Bravery is having the will to live and fight for something you believe in, defying the naysayer who sits rotting on the sidelines of life. Those Iraqi soldiers were willing to live and fight for something we believe in. They were willing to live and fight for something good and died in the process. They should be honored for their bravery and sacrifice. I am proud to be fighting alongside them.

At the time of the blast I was in one of our shower trailers shaving. The sound of the blast was unmistakable and shook the trailer, despite the distance of its location 400 meters away. I can’t help but wonder what might have happened if one of us were to meet that boy at an earlier time. I wish I had been able to meet him and talk to him and become his friend. I could have shown him a picture of my wife and her beautiful smile. She could have sent him gifts and shown him the goodness that all of us have in our hearts for these people. I wish he could have met my driver, who with a smile on his face and an easy-going demeanor, would have quickly won his friendship and trust. We might have gained his acceptance and he could have easily gained ours. We might have reached past his low self image and made him realize his importance in this world. Some of them may not realize it yet, but each and every one of these children are important. The best part of my job is helping them come to that realization.