It's nighttime and I try to sleep through the thuds booming from UXO in the distance. I lay on my cot staring at a wooden sectioned off area staring at a picture I hung up of my son and I holding each other. Another sleepless night...

 I sit and imagine what it will be like when I finally get back to the states, but my mind races with so many thoughts I can't focus on the picture. I turn to my other side and stare at another sectioned off wall of wood. The tent flaps in the wind from the sand storm and almost in harmony another two bombs going off like a beat to a song. I close my eyes and it's like a photo book of images all at once flashes, each one different. "Mother fucker" I get up and go outside and into the bunker to avoid the dust and sand and light a cigarette.

 My night should have been over and I should be lost in dreams, but far from it.

There's way too much going on in my mind again.

I smoke my cigarette halfway and start to fell nauseas. Cough and then Dry heave. "why does this always happen before mission?" I think to myself. Throughout the year I've been on hundreds and still get sick to my stomach.  But I guess you never get used to it.

I think about home and the fight I had with my wife this morning. Of course we had to do this before I go out.

She recently had a friend magically show up in her life again that she knew ten years ago on vacation. Through an email warning me [ phone bill limit overages], I see that they talked more than 3 hours in one day and then text each other 217 times within that same day and the next. Paranoid or just Naive, but last time I check only gay guys and dudes trying to pull pussy give that much attention. I call it like I see it.

My mind wonders to the trends shes done earlier in the deployment with another man who was trying hard to fuck her. I caught on to that but she says she didnt realize it. Same trends show here and it's like deja vu. We end in a fight and a hangup on my part happens. Fuck My Life..I just made it worse.

The rest of the day now leads to this moment of insomnia, and what some would call insanity.

I try to think of something else, anything. Me swinging my son" and like turning a TV channel by sitting on it and not knowing, in my mind words show up of the report I read of a suicide bomber in Marjah outside one of the FOBs. The area Im going to next. More words pop up up of another report of an 8 year old girl used as a human bomb yesterday. I think to myself " tally is growing desprate"  I try to strike the thought through my mind and look at my watch.  "Damn an hour's already passed and I smoke 5 cigarettes already".

I go back inside of the tent, recheck all my gear, rounds and make sure my IPOD's batteries are charged this time around. I lay on my rack finally tied and then when I finally does off, the alarm goes off.

Reality kicks in, Time to go out again......