It’s a tough letter to read
“A lot of people don’t understand what it’s like coming home from combat, after doing things for your country. We have to live with what we’ve done. I feel I forfeited any chance to see my daughters in the afterlife. When your ROE’s were to smoke check anyone with a shovel and an orange bucket, including kids, it was like the Wild West. And your enemy changes you. You grow a hate inside you that you can’t come to terms with. You watch your Marines die. You watch them get maimed, losing legs, arms, private parts, all the while knowing the locals knew where the IEDs and ambushes were, but they didn’t tell you during one of the many of the Shuras you sat in on.
“Usually, they were 15, 20 pounders, which would take out a leg or both, sometimes a hand and part of the arm, if you were carrying your weapon at a low ready. The worst was a 50-7 pounder that turned you into what we called “pink mist.” We backed a truck up and put the pieces in the back using a poncho, and the kid next to him who was in shock while dropping every ordnance we had from fixed, rotary wing, artillery, and mortars.
“You hate yourself because you lived. You hate yourself because your Marine killed himself when we got home and you couldn’t prevent it. You hate yourself because you get drunk texts from your Marines telling you they love you and thanking you for what you did for them over there. But they’re hurting because you had to give them orders to kill kids. You have to carry that hate for the rest of your life. It doesn’t go away. It’s actually gotten worse. You have nightmares almost every night. You hardly sleep. Your daughters die in really bad ways in your dreams and you fear it’s punishment for what you did and they may come true. But America doesn’t care now. You’re a statistic at best. You’re hated at worst.”