their proper handling. After I gained
his confidence, he fixed me with his
loving, firm gaze and said, “I’m going
to tell you something very simple but
very important. You can’t take a bullet
back once you pull the trigger.”
I smiled and said, “Yeah, Dad, I
know.”
He didn’t even blink. “No, you don’t.
I mean this. You can’t take a bullet
back. Once you pull the trigger, it’s for-
ever. It’s not a movie; it’s not a video
game. No matter how many times you
say ‘I’m sorry,’ ‘It was an accident,’
‘I didn’t mean to,’ that bullet Never.
Comes. Back. Do you understand?” He
reached out and squeezed my shoul-
der. “I’m not trying to scare you, but
rifles are for men, not boys. If you take
this, and we go shooting, you need to
accept responsibility every time youpull the trigger. Every bullet. Forever.”
I nodded my head. I remember
tearing up because the enormity
of what he’d said had finally gotten
through. I’d have the power of life and
death over other people. It’s an awe-
some and terrifying responsibility,
and the person I loved and wanted
to impress most in the world had en-
trusted me with this responsibility.
That night in Iraq, I performed
mundane little tasks as the last five
minutes of the lives of those strang-
ers in the truck ticked down. Check-
ing the safety, straightening the
ammo belt so the rounds would feed
correctly and not jam, securing my
earplugs, spitting out my gum. Over
the radio, I checked my clearance to
fire. The platoon leader broke in with
a yelling whisper: “Check fire, repeat,
check fire. DO NOT SHOOT.” T h a t w a s
weird, I thought. I popped back up to
check the truck. Still coming.
Suddenly, a loud burst of machine
gun fire erupted from the squad sit-
uated near the IED. Tracers arced
across the night sky toward the truck,
low, fast, and deadly. A few scat-
tered rifle shots barked out. Then
silence. The truck cut a sharp turn
back to town and roared off. Our
MRAP raced to where the truck had
turned around, spotlights piercing
the darkness, guns up and out. Two
men—dumped from the truck—lay
on the ground, one twitching and
bleeding. The platoon medic kept
them alive until a medevac helicopter“I’M GOING TO TELL
YOU SOMETHING
IMPORTANT. YOU
CAN’T TAKE A BULLET
BACK ONCE YOU PULL
THE TRIGGER.”102 dec 2018 )jan 2019