I remember now, most vividly, the smells. Diesel fuel and electric fires give off sort of an acid, oily stink. No, more stench really, I guess, to be accurate. It is a pervading stench that envelopes and surrounds me. Overwhelms me. I was completely cut off, an island in a sea of black, choking, enveloping mist. The APC (armored personal carrier) was this smoking silhouette. It looked menacing, like the Chinese war-machine it was, until …showed first 75 words of 1724 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1724 total…own fluids, once again sharing a commonality with the corpses of so long ago. I had stepped down wrong, purposefully, and survived. I always would. Unlike my private, I had not lost my life, only my love. I ended my alcoholism right there--Not the disease, but the end I sought in it. I picked myself up, cried and set out to once again learn how to be a body. I remember the smell of her.