Free Liam's List by Haleigh Lovell

Medevac. Then I got to my feet
     and took slow steps toward the destroyed tank.
    A fog of smoke floated around its perimeter.
     And the tank itself was incinerated. Burned to a skeleton. As I got
     closer, the earth was scorched and the air was thick with the smell
     of blood. I stopped in my tracks when my eyes settled on the
     mangled remains of my men. They were completely unrecognizable as
     human beings.
    My stomach turned and I felt myself
     heave.
    Although I wasn’t tasked to remove the
     remains of the dead soldiers, I did it.
    I did it so the younger soldiers in my unit
     wouldn’t have to do it.
    “ Hey,” someone said. I put
     myself on guard immediately, but it was just Julian. And beside him
     stood Merrick and Shelby.
    I saw the emotions play across their faces.
     There was anger, then sadness, and then a sort of numb
     desolation.
    Wordlessly, they joined me. And for the next
     ten minutes, the four us went about bagging the body parts.
    We didn’t speak, and we didn’t look too long
     at dismembered limbs.
    When the task was completed, we searched
     through the body bags for dog tags to help positively identify the
     men. But we already knew who they were. They were men from my
     company: Nathan Malone, Kyle Buchanan, Luis Navarro, and Greg
     Laswell.
    We lost four men that day.
    My chest was heaving. I tried to fall back on
     my training and lock down my emotions, but I was filled with too
     much rage.
    It oozed out from my every pore, and it
     coiled within me like a living thing.
    In the next moment, I heard the voice of my
     company commander, Dan Reynard. “Sykes,” he said.
    “ Sir.” I turned to face
     him, breathing hard.
    “ That car you shot at.
     They were civilians.” He paused. A fine line of sweat formed on his
     upper lip. “It was an Iraqi family.”
    My breathing
     stopped. Several emotions struck me in the
     chest, punching me in quick succession like a series of punishing
     blows: shock, disbelief, guilt. “I…I
     thought it was a suicide bomber. The car,” I stammered out, “it was
     going too fast. It was driving erratically.”
    “ They were probably scared
     for their lives.” His face was drawn and his brows furrowed low as
     he placed a hand on my shoulder. “Collateral damage. It
     happens.”
    His words drove a sharp wedge between my
     ribs. My throat grew so tight that it was hard to get out any
     words. In a mental fog, I turned away from him and began the short
     trek to the car.
    It was a red Honda Accord. And it was
     littered with bullet holes.
    My bullets. From my assault rifle.
    There, in the driver’s seat, was the man I
     had killed. In the passenger seat was a young woman, whom I
     presumed to be his wife. And cradled in her arms was a little baby
     boy.
    They were all dead. Gunshot wounds to their
     heads and chests.
    Time froze, along with my heart. The blood
     stopped flowing in my veins.
    For a long moment, I didn’t move. I simply
     stared at their lifeless bodies.
    Then my legs buckled, and I collapsed to my
     knees.
    Everything began to take on a strange,
     distant quality. The sound of a helicopter approaching, its rotors
     spinning, its blades whipping the air around them—it all got warped
     and weird, like everything around me was being filtered through
     water.
    It was some time before I even realized
     Merrick and Shelby were calling my name.
    Though they stood facing me, I kept my eyes
     averted.
    I couldn’t afford their sympathy and
     understanding.
    Not now, for it would crumble all my resolve
     faster than I could muster it.
    Suddenly, my lungs couldn’t pull in enough
     air and my head grew light.
    “ You need to breathe,”
     Shelby said. “Pull yourself together. Remember your
     training.”
    All my leadership training couldn’t prepare
     me for this moment. All I felt was regret, remorse, grief, and
     shame. I had killed an innocent family.
    Killing the enemy was one thing; success in
     combat meant killing the enemy by