He walks on the dusty sand
Eyes darting beneath his night-vision glasses
As a grimy boot steps
softly into the
doorway
A child cries
lying in the corner
curled up in a tiny
ball
He walks over to
the sobbing child
turning her grimy
tear-stained face
up to him, pleading
He places his gloved
hands on either side
of the thin and bony
body
He raised the child
onto his strong shoulder
She buries her scratched and
bruised face into his bulletproof
vest, sniffling softly
He runs a thickly gloved
hand over her tangled
black hair.
She looks up at him
Curved chocolate brown eyes
Smiling silently at him
She puts her head back down
onto his shoulder
An armored boot raises
a cloud of dust
as he creeps out into into
the dusky morning
The sun bareky peeking
her sleepy face over
the bomb-battered ruins
of buildings that once
were....
His eyes travel to a
sign, broken in half
with faded letters spelling
Baghdad in loopy Arabic scrawl
As he reaches the outskirts
of the battered town
an explosion rocks
the dusty ground
He starts running
never looking back
The child clings to him tightly
Sensing his
f e a r
Then the rat-a-tat of
the machine guns sound
bullets whizzing past his hard helmet
He is almost to his Humvee, he can see it in sight!
But no! He won't make it unless he takes off the weight
laden on his back
He peels off his bulletproof vest
wrapping the little girl in his camoflauge coat
As he runs
bullets whizzing past his ears
something
hits him in the back
he drops to
the ground,
arm still around the
girl
He stumbles back to his feet,
blindly stumbling to his Humvee
He blindly hands the girls off to one of
his comrades
He then falls
on the dusty desert floor
His buddies lift him onto the
seat of the Humvee
His last
wheezing breath
escapes his
chapped lips...
----------------
A dark-haired young woman
walks to a gravestone
lying under an oak tree
She places a single
rose
onto the grave
Of the man
who saved her-
the crying little girl
not so many years ago.
