Charlie Mike

 I hit my thumb with a rubber mallet yesterday.  I wasn't thinking about the pain, I was thinking about whether the neighbor was watching me from her window.  Pain isn't a whole lot more than an up-armored convoy to a little embarrassment for most of us.  So when the man says that he stepped on an IED and all he thought about was his troops, I can be skeptical and wonder if that's true. But you know what?  I still have two feet to put in my mouth, and can trip over both of my legs as adroitly as I can my tongue.  All of which means I couldn't care one whit what this soldier was thinking when a bomb took his leg off.  I don't want him to bother me with it, and I have no interest in asking.

Because in order to find out what it was - in order to find out whether this paratrooper shit, prayed, or apologized to a passing mongrel after a quarter of his leg came apart, someone had to go track him down in a combat zone.

Me?  I'm afraid to pick up that mallet again.