An Investigation on the Events of July 17, 2006

We shall begin to investigate with sufficient scientific rigour the first few seconds of the events on July 17, 2006 (unknown time, presumed around noonday; location: A— Q—, I—). The perpetrator of the event (hereby known as “catalyst”), with a cargo of an unknown explosive element approached the checkpoint (hereby known as “event site”), and, after a brief scuffle, ignited his (examination of the flotsam and jetsam of the aftermath determined that the catalyst was male) cargo. Once initiated, the electrical signal traveled at near the speed of light (a specific speed cannot be determined due to the unknown material of the wires carrying the signal, perhaps copper, perhaps not) and reached the explosive material (at which time we shall call zero, the start of a new life for all).

The latent chemical energy of the explosives quickly ignited and converted to other forms of energy: sound (subtly spaced pressure waves), light (subtly spaced electromagnetic waves), kinetic, and others (unknown, string theorists must investigate). The photons (the frequency of which can be easily calculated assuming perfect black body radiation) generated from the rapid change of molecular composition were the first to emanate outward, striking the subjects, causing a negligible amount of radiation pressure (the unchecked photons stretched outward to the cosmos, mixing in with other photons and becoming indistinguishable with the light from Earth and the galaxy, stretching forever, a perfect record of the events of that day waiting for some alien intelligence to intercept and interpret) (also engaging their visual senses). Then the pressure waves arrived, applying the most amount of force, causing the subjects to visibly and extravagantly move from their original locations. The pressure wave also entered the ear canals and easily burst the eardrums, also tearing away the malleus (Latin: hammer) bone in some circumstances (other hearing apparati also disrupted in some way, including the Organ of Corti). In some cases this pressure wave was sufficient to rend large amounts of tissue, most notably in the case of the catalyst (having rended his body almost unrecognizable, also having stripped all pieces of outer garments off his body).

The head of the catalyst was cleanly severed from the torso and sent upwards with some initial velocity, with a substantial amount of longitudinal (lateral negligible) rotational velocity supplied by a one-time application of torque. The head (ellipsoidal in shape) lifted and spun, the angular momentum subtly lessening due to the change of mass as the blood (only moments ago sending nutrients such as oxygen etc to the brain allowing the mind [we shall not discuss the philosophical implications of such] to set in motion this series of events) exiting from the bottom of the head, and also due to the frictive properties of close proximities of matter-to-matter. The blood created a thin liquid stream in the air and when combined with rotation formed a near perfect spira mirabilis slowly growing in size and disintegrating, never existing for a perfect moment in time (being flattened on top [pull of gravity] and elongated on the bottom [same]).

Small bits of metal (nails, screws, other neutral constructive material), having been glued to the explosive material, shot outward, and, being forced to find some path of least resistance, flew with sharp point in the direction of travel (parallel to terra firma) until colliding with an object. Some of the bits striking walls and causing negligible damage (monetary value unknown [requires economic input]). Other bits striking human bodies and boring into them, piercing first cloth, then layer upon layer of skin until bursting into muscle tissue, blood vessels, nerves, lymph nodes, etc; the minute electromagnetic forces inherent in all things spawning friction, slowing the velocity until finally causing them to come to an uneasy and unwanted (unwarranted) rest inside the bodies (one of whom is the author).

Body pieces, having been flung upwards (other pieces we shall not discuss propelled downwards), followed a perfect (we shall not discuss quantum fluctuations) parabolic arc, slowly converting kinetic energy to potential until finally for a brief moment in time (infinitesimal) the vertical component (z in Cartesian coördinates [3D]) of the velocity vector equaled zero and the potential energy reasserted itself and caused the velocity downwards to increase linearly. The digestive tracts came down: plop. Appendages: plop. Unidentified bits of matter: plop. Finally, all forms of energy stabilized with the surrounding environment and for only a moment everything was calm, serene; each participant unwilling (or unable [due to absence of life-being or general unconsciousness]) (having never consented [perhaps incorrect as all parties chose a lifeline leading to time zero] to participate) to accept their role in the situation.

On the Banks of the Euphrates

Our patrol was supposed to be a normal one: circle around north of the city and return back, looking out for any suspicious individuals. In June, the heat of Iraq is oppressive. Everyone tried to wear the least amount of clothes possible and tried to open up avenues for a breeze to squeeze between our clothes and cool our overheated bodies. Our bulky flak jackets and helmets did not help much.

I was stationed in the rear of the patrol after screwing up too many times at the front on other patrols. My job was to periodically turn around and make sure nothing weird was happening behind us. I had already perfected the art of walking backwards without stumbling, no easy task when laden with sixty plus extra pounds.

Nothing particularly interesting happened until we reached the apex of our circular loop. A few stray dogs were wandering around and were causing trouble, threatening to bite me and others if we didn’t keep our eyes on them for too long. One dog was especially daring and slowly inched his way towards me every time I turned to face the rest of the patrol. I grew tired of the dog and tried to shoo it away by throwing rocks at him, but he never left.

Iraq had a serious dog problem. The local culture despised dogs, thinking them unclean, and thus they did not have them as pets. Perhaps they had an animal control system in place before the start of the war, but now there was none to speak of. Wild packs of dogs would roam the streets at night, barking and howling, ripping apart piles of trash haphazardly thrown in the street. There would always be a pack lounging around our base’s burn pit, hoping to catch a scrap before the whole mess went up in flames. These dogs were especially wretched; many were crippled and old, too feeble to move or attack. Some would growl at us as we threw out our refuse, but their bark was equal to their bite: nonexistent.

The sergeant leading the patrol came back and asked why I was holding up the patrol. It didn’t take him long to see the feral dog snarling only a few paces away. I asked if I could shoot the dog and put him out of his misery. The sergeant said no. Any weapon discharge could be seen as an act of aggression and start a real firefight between us and anyone ennobled by the shot. I didn’t really want to shoot the dog. My western sensibilities still had a hold on me and all I really wanted to do was scratch the poor thing’s belly.

The sergeant and I assaulted the dog with any rock we could find. He eventually took the hint and hobbled off, finally leaving me in peace. We continued on until someone near the front halted us again. I took my regular position: crouched on one knee angled slightly to the rear, so that I could observe what was happening up front and behind. I stayed in that position for a long time. The Marines in the front of the patrol were doing something, but I didn’t know what. Then it trickled back: the point-man had found an IED.

Improvised Explosive Device, a pedantic name for the most lethal thing a lone patrol could encounter on the streets of Iraq. This wasn’t my first time I had been on a patrol when we discovered something like this. Up to this point, they had all turned out to be a box of wires or some other misplaced tool. This one seemed legit, though. The suspected IED looked like someone took a mortar round and cut off the top half of the dome, leaving the guiding fins in place, then welded a piece of metal where the half-dome had been. If anyone wanted to design a decent IED, this was it.

There were no wires leading to it or antennas sticking out. We felt fairly confident that it would not go off unexpectedly. The question was: what to do with it? We certainly couldn’t put it back where we found it, and we didn’t want to take it back to base. We called the explosive experts and they told us they were too busy to deal with such a small thing. If we really wanted them to come it would take a couple of hours. We had already stayed in the same spot too long and didn’t want to wait any more. Our navigator suggested we hike out to the Euphrates River and throw it in. The sergeant agreed.

I didn’t have a map and didn’t know how far it was to the river. I assumed it was only a few minutes away. We turned down a dirt road leading between a fenced grove of trees and a lush green open field, a very rare sight in Iraq. I checked my water and saw I was running a little low. The sweat on my forehead continued to rain down unabated.

The natural pace of a patrol is very slow. Our job was to show the residents of the city that we were here and had guns, but not present ourselves as easy targets for snipers or anyone else. I was fired as pointman because I didn’t know how to walk slow. No one wants to stay out late on a patrol, especially when there is a nice flea-ridden cot to get back to. When I saw the open road ahead of me, my legs took control and I sped ahead too quickly for my sergeant to handle. I was sent to the back where all I had to do was keep a good distance between myself and the Marine in front of me. This natural slow pace is aggravating to someone with low water and no idea why a lengthy detour is taken.

No one tells the guy in the back what is happening. His is an easy job compared to those who have to make decisions. I didn’t know someone held in his hand a possible explosive device, or that the river was our goal. Most of this information I learned second-hand. All I knew was that when I turned around, no one was there holding a gun to my face, and that is how I liked it. We came up on the river, surprising some local fishermen in their boats. The sergeant took the IED and threw it directly in to the current, sinking it forever. Some of the Iraq army soldiers we were training in our patrol wanted to take a break and buy some fish. I wanted to take off all of my clothes and jump into the river. No one got what they wanted.

As we laboriously hiked back to our regular route I wondered about what we had thrown into the river. Suppose it was an explosive device. The water would slowly erode the casing, exposing the chemicals inside. With time they would dissolve into the water and float downstream. I had patrolled by the Euphrates many times and was constantly struck by the magnificent beauty of the natural oasis on its shores. Farmers grew crops using sophisticated irrigation techniques and modern equipment. Ranchers relied on the water to raise their cows and goats. For thousands of years, perhaps longer, this ancient river sustained generations of people. Now here we were throwing explosives into it.

This was in 2006, three years into the war and an infinity before it ended. How many explosives were thrown into the river, either by troops on the ground, the bombers in the air, or the newly established insurgency? It is hard to tell. The effect of all this pollution wouldn’t be noticed right away, maybe no one would connect the dots. That explosive material will find its way to the shore and into the crops. A thirsty donkey will gulp it down regardless of the strange metallic taste. Decades down the road, a young man like myself will jump in the cool river to escape the heat and a little bit of it will be absorbed into his skin. The casualties of this war are destined to increase through the ages.

We finally made it back to our regular route. By this time I was completely out of water and felt a little dizzy. The symptoms of heat exhaustion had been drilled into my brain and were now emerging from my dark conscious to flood my thoughts. Heavy sweating—this was less of a symptom than a daily fact of life—tiredness, cramps, a tingling feeling in the extremities. Was I feeling these or just imagining them? I looked at my fellow Marines to see if they felt the same way. Everyone had the same sweat-soaked grim face.

We patrolled a little more until other Marines spoke up; they were out of water, too. On average we carried one hundred ounces of water, slightly less than a gallon per person. I drank every last drop within an hour and still felt thirsty. One of the Iraqi soldiers suggested we knock on doors of the houses near us and demand they give us water. We didn’t have many options. We were still an hour out of base and no one was coming to pick us up. The first house we visited had a family inside. The Iraqi soldier spoke in a very quick and demanding Arabic and soon someone came with a cool two-liter bottle of water. Some houses were lucky enough to have a refrigerator, and sometimes the neighborhood was lucky enough to have electricity. We gathered the family together near the entrance of the house so none of them could try anything funny. The sergeant singled me out as the most exhausted of us all and told me to go inside and drink. Once in the house I reflexively sat down and took off my helmet to let my head cool. The family stared at me with wide eyes.

The sergeant yelled at me to get up and put my helmet back on. We weren’t supposed to show weakness in front of the townsfolk. Trying to stay cool is a weakness. Outside, the bottle of water was passed around and was soon gone. We gave the empty bottle back and patrolled on. With one less bottle of water, would the family be forced to drink from the Euphrates, or was what we just drank from there in the first place? The water helped a bit, enough that everyone was able to make it back to base without collapsing on the roadside.

After the debriefing I took off all of my gear and sat down with just shorts on. My buddy handed me a sealed bottle of water from a crate. We had a whole crate filled to the brim with bottles of water shipped from who-knows-where, and near it a pyramid of boxes holding weeks’ worth of food. Despite being in the shade the water was still around 90 degrees, but the temperature did little to dissuade me; I drank it quickly and mechanically. I didn’t think of how clean it was. I didn’t think of the pile of good food we had. I didn’t think back to my home and how it wasn’t in the middle of a war zone. I didn’t think about how safe I was going to be once I made it back, about the long life I am going to live. Instead I drank ignorantly as the sweat flowed down my chest like a mighty ancient river, collecting all of the dust and salt and whisking it away forever.

My Suicide Bomber

On July 17^th, 2006, sometime before noon, someone decided to take their life in defense of an unknown ideal. Five people's lives were changed forever with the pull of a pin. The suicide bomber, accomplishing his mission of martyrdom, would not survive to see the result of his actions. Two Iraqi Soldiers, serving their country as valiantly as any other Soldier across the globe, were killed instantly without so much as a warning. Two American Marines, one of whom was days away from returning to the States to see his newborn daughter for the first time, were severely injured and moments away from death before their counterparts saved their lives. The other Marine was me, a fresh faced boy of twenty-one, four-and-a-half months of that short life spent in Iraq and one year and one month in the United States Marine Corps. All five of our lives changed in ways the suicide bomber might never have considered.

My job, along with another Marine named Donny, a bald, tattooed, muscular, sarcastic man whose job in life was to annoy you to the point of laughter, was to train two Iraq Soldiers (jundies) how to safeguard the entrance to a hospital next to our base by patting down people walking in. Our main purpose was to stop weapons and explosives from somehow finding their way into the hospital, and also to check IDs for suspected insurgents. We also had to report any gunshot or explosive injuries, anything that could have been caused by the war. Plenty of people came to the hospital with common injuries--children with skinned knees, accidental knife cuts, etc. We didn't care about them. There were two entrances, one for the males and another for the females. The locals did not take kindly to foreigners patting down women for any reason, so they passed through the entrance unchecked. A logical person might ask, what's to stop someone from dressing as a woman, considering most women are clothed head to toe in concealing burqas, and walking in through that point? There were many other problems with the whole setup, but in cases like those the people in charge conveniently look away until something bad happens (usually at the cost of a life), then they decide to change it. A long walkway connected a road covered liberally with concertina wire to the checkpoint where we all sat.

It was a Sunday, and in the local culture, the first work day of the week. People were hustling around about their daily chores, and plenty of people were entering the hospital so we were busy. The heat of the day was stifling, an average 120 degrees Fahrenheit, so hot that even the breeze was no relief. Imagine a blow-dryer as tall as a human turned on full blast directed right at your face, then throw some fine dust into the current and that is the breeze of Iraq. As a result one of the jundies, Hamis, decided to sit under the shade instead of near the road where he should have been, giving people a preliminary pat-down before they came near us. We knew this was not okay (he was the first line of defense and an early-warning in the case someone decided to rush us) but it was hot and we could relate to him wanting to sit in the shade. The sight of two Americans dressed to the hilt with body armor and covered with every conceivable piece of ammunition sitting lazily by as if waiting for a car wash must have been rather humorous to the independent observer. There were no signs of trouble, no rumors of anything crazy, just a typical lazy day in a war zone. Then, an explosion.

The damage has been done. Moments after the blast I regained consciousness and tried to assess the situation. Along with the heat I felt as if my hands and face were burnt, and hot liquid was trickling down various parts of my body. I stood up slowly and walked around and gazed utterly bewildered at the scene. The archway welcoming patients into the hospital seemed to have been smashed by a sledgehammer from below and had cracked, exposing raw concrete and the rebar supporting it. The hard metal bench the jundies were sitting on was moved a few feet away. A dark black burn mark scarred the ground and there seemed to be some black mass shoved up against a tree. Don't look at it. It's not good. Don't look. An ambulance parked nearby was peppered with what looked like bullet holes near the red crescent moon. Four bodies lay strewn about in various levels of completeness. One of these bodies was moving slightly--Donny was bleeding from somewhere and his hands were moving, but he wasn't responding to my calls. Maybe I wasn't even calling at all. I couldn't even hear my own voice. There was a loud buzzing noise overpowering everything, mostly from my right ear. I stumbled about, trying to find help but my mental faculties were not in full swing. My body armor, the main reason why I was still alive, weighed me down and caused me to drag my feet. The human body does not respond well to an extra sixty pounds. The injuries I would soon find on me also did not help. I knew only a few feet away I could walk into view of another guardhouse on the base. It seemed so far though, so out of reach, despite being only a few seconds walk. My body just would not let me expend the little bit of extra energy that would bring me into view of the base to let them know there were still people alive. I finally sat down on the bench and looked down. My chest was covered in a dark red-black film with the consistency of molasses. Did this come from me? Something was coming out of my ears. I stuck my fingers in them and inspected the fluid and saw it was clear. At least it isn't blood. Later I would find out that this fluid surrounds the brain. My camouflage uniform was rapidly taking on a foreign tinge of red. Both of my legs and my left arm were bleeding, my left leg nearly gushing blood.

All around were pieces that used to be Maluk and Hamis, the two jundies. It was impossible to distinguish the body parts, which part belongs to whom. In death, all creatures look alike. Although I did not know them very well, plenty of people did, and they had built up reputations of being the nicest Iraqis in our group. Hamis' nickname was “Uncle,” because he had the face and demeanor of everyone's jolly older uncle. For a reason we could never figure out he always wore a black beanie cap on his head, despite the heat. A thick paternal mustache rounded out the cold weather accessories. Maluk was famous among us. He was about my age, with an unruly childish cowlick in his hair. Take off his uniform and give him swim shorts and a surf board and he would blend in to the too-tanned beach bums back home. He was always smiling, making jokes and transcending the language barrier, building up the rapport between our two forces better than any other jundie. If anyone had ever stood watch at the hospital they came back with fond memories of him. Now the final memory of them would be cleaning up their detritus--no famous last words, no insights, just a mess.

Someone ran by and picked up a pistol lying on the ground. I recognized the gun; Maluk had it on him at all times. He kept it strapped to his leg and let me play with it just hours before. Fearing that he was going to point the pistol at me and finish the job, I screamed at him to give it to me. Jib le! Jib le! Give me! Give me! My rudimentary Arabic came back. He stared at me with a strange look of surprise mixed with a nervous smile, then handed me the gun and ran away. At least my voice still worked. Something was wrong with the clip, and I knew it wouldn't work. Donny's machine gun and my rifle were gone; the radio I kept in my top left pouch on my chest was missing, presumably blown to bits; everyone except me guarding the hospital was incapacitated. I had no way to defend myself, no way of sending for backup, and no friendly face to guide me. Everything I had relied on so much up to then was swept away like straw.

Memories of training flashed back quickly in a jumbled mess. I was bleeding pretty badly and I needed to stop it. There was a pouch strapped to the back right side of my flak jacket containing items that could help me but I couldn't remember their names, only how to use them. My left arm wasn't working very well--something was stopping me from bending my elbow. The weight of gravity combined with a rapid heartbeat, fueled by gallons of adrenaline gushing into my system rapidly pulled my blood downward and through several jagged slits in my skin. My body movements slowed by the second. I was content to only look forward, periodically yelling “Donny!” in an attempt to get my friend to respond. He could only lie there, moving only slightly, his face frozen in a horrid grimace.

After seeing my injuries I knew something was wrong, but I couldn't feel anything. People always talk about being in shock, but then I guess I was feeling it. I felt like I should feel pain but I just couldn't. Something in my brain disconnected and I started crying out in pain even though I had no reason to. I remember thinking at the time: why am I doing this? Looking left I saw people arguing and pushing each other. Were these the doctors and nurses coming out of the hospital to see the devastation? I can only imagine the mind-bending horror of being a doctor in a war-torn country and then coming out of your own clinic only to see more bloodshed literally at the front door.

The tourniquet (that's what it's called) found its way out from under a bottle of iodine and various comically undersized bandages, much too small to cover the wounds that war creates,. I knew how to use a tourniquet, but unfortunately the engineers who designed this particular model had in mind a person with two functioning arms, and I was only able to wrap it around my leg right above the heaviest bleeding before coming to a reluctant halt.

Seeing Donny on the ground brought back memories of when I first met him only a few weeks before. He had a condition where almost no hair grows on his body, except for a few jet-back threads on his chin. His body was liberally covered with tattoos and he was in excellent shape. Shirtless, his smooth, pale skin stretched over taught muscles offered an imposing figure, but that was not Donny. He never shouted and only raised his voice to make a joke. Donny was serving his third tour in Iraq and wasn't very surprised by daily life. People who go on so many tours usually hate talking to people who haven't. They've seen and experienced things that will forever separate them from those who have spent their life in naïveté. What made Donny special was that someone who was surprised by the crazy daily life (me) could talk to him and he would answer all questions honestly and quickly, without being pretentious or aggressive, as is the norm amongst more seasoned vets. He had formed an unofficial group that would get together periodically and cook food we happened to scrounge up. Only the night before we cooked up a massive bowl of chili (much different and tastier than the usual slop) in a pot we stole from the cooks. He was a friend to all and an enemy to none. Now, seeing him sprawled on the pavement, hands in the air permanently clawed, fighting the inner demons raging in his head, I felt guilty. It's the new guy that's supposed to die, not the seasoned vet! He has a wife and a newborn girl, so much more to lose and he is the unconscious one--while I, with only my family and distant friends to care about me, sit here enjoying copious amount of consciousness, only able to stare at him in wonder and disgust.

My brain allowed me to reflect and digest some information as it slowly grew dim. Some bomb had exploded, that much was obvious. Was it a mortar shot from afar, a grenade, missile, accidental? For the last couple weeks our base had been fired on by mortars but there hadn't been any injuries. There was a very low chance, not impossible, that a gunner fired a perfect shot hitting right between the buildings flanking us. I looked on the ground to my right and saw a leg, detached below the knee without a stitch of clothing, not even a sock. Empirical evidence told me this was not my leg. A noxious smell permeated the area impossible to describe fully and impossible to forget, a mixture of exhaust or cordite and a generous portion of an unidentifiable smell, all strengthened by the latent heat and the sweat soaking my clothes accumulated over the day. Empirical evidence told me this unidentifiable smell came from the ruptured entrails of a once-living human. I thought quickly of the medals I would receive if I lived, the covetous Purple Heart, one of the most secretly sought after but most ill-earned award that military service has ever produced. I was relieved to know that even near death vanity is still a strong human characteristic, perhaps the most overpowering. I wondered if any moment tunnel vision would kick in and I would take the short trek towards inevitability...

Around the corner came relief. My fellow Marines heard the explosion and ran to my rescue. The rest of the story is quite boring, filled with strange medical terms such as perineal nerve, chest tube, wound vacuum, orthopedic--blah blah. Sufficed to say I survived. Donny also survived. The silly nurses at the hospital made the mistake of placing us in the same room. For the next month I had to endure constant pranks and streams of salt water shot out of syringes pointed at my face. Now many years later I walk around relatively fine. The final tally of my injuries: permanent total hearing loss in my right ear; the inability to lift my left foot or move it side-to-side; eight bits of shrapnel hanging out near the surface of the skin (the ever-present vanity will not allow me to remove these, considering how much fun they are at parties); a bone missing in my left foot; parts of my left bicep missing; partial loss of taste; and other strange side effects. The old joke “you should see the other guy!” is wildly grim but a sure-fire hit. Donny has many of the same injuries, making for a very comical scene: the two of us walking down a street side-by-side, exaggerating our limps and screaming at each other to be heard.

After the dust proverbially settled, the official story was that the suicide bomber walked up, was patted down by Hamis, and once he felt the explosives (which must have been very obvious considering the large amount he was packing around his mid-section) he hugged the suicide bomber, who then pulled the pin. We all thought fondly of Hamis and his sacrifice. His body absorbed much of the blast and no doubt saved his two Marine friends--but was that all he earned, just some fond passing memories? If he had been a Marine or an American in any branch, some high-up General would have written a glowing account of his story peppered with that brassy shine and he would be awarded a very large and prestigious medal, maybe even the Medal of Honor. As far as I know, Hamis wasn't awarded anything, neither was Maluk. I don't even know if they award medals in the Iraqi Army.

Sometimes I think I got the better end of the deal. My friends who stayed behind saw a helicopter fly away with two of their friends in it who they didn't know were going to survive. The mess I left behind wasn't going to be easy to clean up. Three minced bodies were sitting under a hot sun, along with the pints of blood Donny and I bled out. There is no janitorial service in Iraq: if there is a mess, the Marines clean it up. Imagine waking up in the morning and going about your daily routine, then only hours later having to scoop parts of people who you knew personally and had developed a relationship into a body bag. The stereotypical tough Marine breaks down and vomits on the pavement and adds more stink.

I can see my wounds. They are now landmarks on my skin along with the moles, hair, birthmarks, etc. Some wounds form in the mind after a seriously traumatic event. These wounds are often unnoticed and untreated, and will only grow in the brain until they become so large it's impossible to remove them despite centuries of psychological knowledge and years of personal therapy. Somehow, despite my brief exposure to this mess, I avoided most of these wounds, but I was lucky. My friends who stayed behind will forever remember that time, and as much as they pity me, I pity them even more. Periodically I will look down and see my longest scar stretching from above the knee down to the ankle and think back to cause of the event: my suicide bomber.

Who was he? I know nearly nothing about him. Sifting through the various pieces he left behind my fellow Marines determined that he was male. His age, name, home of record, occupation, were all erased. Only those who knew him before knew who he was, but I will never meet his friends or relatives, so to me he is but an event.

Why did he do this? He didn't stop just before detonation and enter into a speech so that those who were about to die would understand his motives. No note was left behind, and no organization bothered to phone the local news network to claim his victory as their own. Perhaps he was a member of a terrorist organization, and after months of indoctrination he was chosen to be the glorious martyr who would strike at the imperialist pigs and drive them from their home country. Perhaps he was a foreigner and had nothing to live for, and out of boredom enlisted in the first radical group he could find. Perhaps he was a law-abiding citizen working in the nearby cement plant, but after witnessing the death of a friend or family, struck out blindly at the nearest enemy he could see. His motives are forever sealed.

What then can we say about this person? These things we know: he had at least one mother and one father; he had lived long enough to see adulthood; and someone must have cared for him to some small extent as a child. What can be drawn from this information? He was a human being just like me, just like the person reading this, just like the billions alive today and the billions who have died and the billions who will be born.

My suicide bomber probably loved his country. He had grown up under propaganda, in a country still reeling from colonists, embargoes and wars. When the invaders came, the same people he was taught to revile, a strong wave of patriotism must have arisen in him. Pressured from all sides by religious figures, pseudo-friends, many people trying to find someone who would fight their battles for them, he must have been overwhelmed until finally he decided to do something about it. He must have been willing to lay down his life for a cause he fervently, but perhaps naïvely, believed in. Thinking honestly, we followed a very similar life-line. Decades of conflicts and near-misses left us on a hair trigger, ready to fight at any provocation. Terrorists had attacked my country and killed thousands of innocent civilians, my fellow citizens. Since high school I witnessed the initial invasion of Iraq, the Mission Accomplished banner, the first appearance of something called an Improvised Explosive Device, and a massive resurgence of violence with an enemy who didn't wear a uniform and could blend into the populace. Politicians, church leaders, relatives, all spoke of a sacred duty to defend our country because freedom wasn't free, and other catchphrases. Finally I decided to do something about it, and just like my suicide bomber, I was willing to lay down my life for a cause I fervently, but as I learned later, naïvely believed in. When I enlisted I asked for the hardest job, the infantry, knowing full well that I would be shipped out to Iraq or Afghanistan and I might not come back home. This made me proud, strong, separate from my peers. A rifle in my hand changed me from a regular joe to a Blood-Thirsty Killer. My suicide bomber must have felt the same feelings the first time he tried on his suicide vest.

I often think about him. His event is permanently imprinted in my psyche. I think about what could have happened. Suppose he had gotten cold feet the day of, deciding rather to hide from the heat indoors. Perhaps this leisure time would be spent in meditation and he would rethink his plans. What if the military decided to not occupy that particular city? Would he have traveled the extra distance to accomplish his task, or maybe run out of gas half way there and hitchhiked back home? If the proper materials, explosives, wires, detonation cap, all of the destructive and illegal devices had not been procured, would he have fretted and complained or would he have taken it as a sign that he was destined to live? What if America had never invaded his country? Would he be sitting at home right now with his family? What if thousands of years ago we as a species realized the folly of war and abolished it completely? These are the questions I ask almost daily.

I forgive you. I never knew you and you never knew me, but I forgive you. I am sorry for whatever drove you to your end. I am sorry for the history between our countries. I am sorry for the hateful indoctrination that must have influenced you. I am sorry I was there and the terror I must have represented. I am sorry that you saw me as a target, and not the peace-keeping force we were supposed to represent. If we ever met again, if I was transported back to that time and place of our first and only meeting, I would not lash out in anger. I would calmly ask you to sit down and I would talk to you, human to human. I would ask why you were doing this and if there was anything I could do to make it better. We would both undoubtedly have misconceptions about each other, but I am confident that in our discourse we would understand each other better. Perhaps we might even become friends. At the end of our talk, I would sit quietly back where I was before and allow you to do your business. But I know, after talking with each other, we could come to some common ground and you would not be forced to sacrifice your life for your cause.

But it's all over now, and I sit here and ponder how to make situations like mine a thing of the past. Some say it's not possible. Perhaps so, perhaps we are a species doomed to fight ourselves until the end of time. Until I have incontrovertible proof that all human beings cannot live without murder, I will struggle to end it all. The first step is to look into myself and see the pain and the latent hate, the same reptilian genetic material that brought my suicide bomber and me together, and to cut it out, forcefully, against all illogical notions of survival or fight-or-flight responses. To emulate the famous Chief Joseph, I will fight no more forever.