4,000

4,000 Dead. 29,320 Wounded. 33,320 Casualties.

I look at these figures now and feel something different that most. I know more than my fair share. Some were friends. Most were acquantinces. All of them to some degree left a varying mark on my life.

Some of their images, brief thousandths-of-a-second views, are in my archives. I run across them from time to time wondering what they were thinking when I clicked the shutter (Maybe I failed in my job then. After all the job of any photographer is to capture someone's soul).

A figure of my own: 22 months. That's how much time I spent downrange. I spent that time searching for stories and wondering just what the hell was going on. (Trying to make sense of it all. Now, almost 24 months after coming home I still haven't. Maybe I will. Maybe I won't.)

All of it -- the helicopter rides, the long patrols at night in a Humvee barely armored enough to stop a 9mm bullet (!!!), the raids and down time -- was one big mind trip. And to know someone (a lot of someones actually) who died... it makes the mind trip jump right off that cliff. Getting your head around it is nearly impossible. To know someone you've met, spent time with, eaten with, played cards with, joked with, shared a bottle of water with in the searing searing heat... to know they're not coming home... it hurts. It doesn't matter if we'd only exchanged a few words in the chow hall or seen each other at the PX. They were people who deserve to be remembered.

At times as I write this I feel like a real ass. I've managed to let my first true professional love -- writing -- slip into a state where I find it diffcult to write anything intelligible. The muscle memory in my brain of putting pen to paper or finger tip to keyboard has lapsed into a gooey fat. It takes extrodinary effort in concentration to write words... to break through the goo to express how I feel. Maybe I've let The War get to me, to shut me down. Maybe The War did affect me and I shut down intellectually and emotionally to accept it all.

I do know this: some words need to be out. Including these. I feel terrible about the loss each family has suffered. I hope it ends. I hope it ends soon. I hope all of this was worth it.