Paradise Valley by Robyn Carr Read Free Book Online

wouldn’t have known it had anything to do with me. We moved on Haditha Dam, doing house-to-house searches, trying to root out al Qaeda insurgents, and one of the squads right in front of us was obliterated by a bomb. A truck bomb. There was only one survivor in that squad, and they were a tight squad. Tighter than ours. One survivor, Jack. Holy Jesus, I think I’d rather be dead than watch eleven of my best friends blow up. I knew some of them. Sonny was waiting for a baby, Gravis was engaged, and Dom was this little Italian kid who was just scared shitless all the time. He wanted to go home so bad, he cried. Cried. But his whole squad was holding him up, taking care of him, trying to bolster him and prop him up all the time. They never cut anyone out of their fold—no matter what kind of problem they had. The guy that made it, the one guy, he has a girlfriend back home, and he’ll get back to her, but he’s going to be messed up. But he doesn’t even get to leave yet—they’re moving him to another squad. Holy God, I hope they move him out of the worst of this shit—it’s horrible.
    They were right in front of us, Jack. Another two minutes, it would’ve been us. I can’t hardly sleep since that happened. A couple of my boys puked and one fainted, I think. He got back on his feet real fast and denied it, but I think he really passed out. There was so much screaming I couldn’t tell if it was me or the rest of them. It was all black and cloudy and then it was all blood. I wanted to die on the spot. I hit the ground because there was so much shooting I didn’t know for sure I wouldn’t take one from my own platoon.
    Right after the bomb and all the shooting, an Army Cobra came in and bombed the shit out of one of the buildings. Debris everywhere, really heavy stuff. Big hunks of cement and wood, flying like missiles through the air.
    This place is like hell sometimes. I’m sorry to write you this stuff. Don’t tell anyone—don’t get anyone scared or upset. My grandma and Liz can’t know this shit. We just have to keep them thinking positive.
    And then—if all that crap isn’t bad enough, I think I killed a guy. We couldn’t recover a body, but I saw a sniper and I nailed him. If he managed to crawl away, he didn’t get far because he left behind too much blood to make it out alive. I didn’t believe this could happen, because I was so far away, but I saw the look on his face. And for just one second I thought, why’d I get him before he got me? War can’t be luck. Not with the amount of training we put ourselves through.
    My squad’s all shook up. Hell, the battalion’s all torn up. Since I’ve been over here, I haven’t seen an American die—and then eleven of them went up in one giant explosion. Jack, it was the worst thing I’ve ever seen. And then I killed a guy.
    I’m sorry. I had to tell you. Don’t get anyone upset with this. Burn this.
    Jack, I’m not scared. Sometimes I get nervous, my adrenaline gets pumping real hard, it works on my brain a lot, but I’m okay. I don’t want you to worry that I’m scared and will do something stupid—I use the fear to keep me sharp. Some of the boys are terrified, but it’s real easy to see it isn’t going to do them any good to give in to that.
    I’m still okay. But I had to write this to someone who could take it, someone who’d understand, because it’s so freaking awful and if I keep it in my gut, it’s going to eat me alive.
    Rick
    Jack’s hands shook as he read. And reread. He had fallen into a kitchen chair. He felt his wife’s small hand on his shoulder and turned his eyes up to her.
    “What is it?” she asked him.
    “It’s from Rick. It’s not good. It can’t be shared with anyone, he says.”
    She held out her hand. “That doesn’t include me,” she said.
    “Mel, it’s very ugly.”
    “I need to know what makes your hands shake, Jack. We get through things together.”
    “Yeah,” he said wearily. He handed her