Parents and children

I chatted online with my mother last night after sending her an email, admitting that I had been in a firefight. There's no point in hiding the truth from my parents because my dispatches sent out to KVAL, would expose the truth anyways. So online, we talked about this and that and she seemed to be taking things very well. After nearly half an hour of chatting, on and off as the Internet likes to shut down every ten minutes, she asked me, "What is a firefight exactly and where were you during of all of this?"
I responded,"It's when the Taliban shoots at the Marines and the Marines shoot back. And I was with the Marines," I wrote back.
"But where were you exactly?" she asked again.
I tried to explain further. "When the Marines took cover or hit the ground, I took cover or hit the ground, When the Marines ran across an open field, I ran across an open field."
According the Marines when we came to the housing area that I was the first one in, busting down doors myself, which is an exaggeration to say the least. I was at least the third one in.
"I just did what the Marines did," I tell my mom. I stayed as close as I could to the Marines around me because worse that getting shot at is being alone and getting shot at or even worse would be slowing down the patrol because they'd have to wait for me or even worse they'd have to come find me.

There is something about your mom that can make even the toughest break down. I couldn't talk to her during these employments it brought out a side of me that was afraid, afraid for her. I wanted to protect her from the ugliness and I couldn't take her kindness, I had a job to do and the veneer of toughness I had was so thin so fragile that I didn't want anyone to break it.

A full report of my first firefight will appear soon at KVAL.com...

This may be my last post for a while as we're heading to the wilds of the desert again.