美国大兵

以前我对美国大兵的印象是一个笼统的形象，他们身穿迷彩服，抱着冲锋枪，坐在装甲车上，穿行于中东某地烟尘弥漫的街道。在我的印象里，他们不是一个个鲜活的个体，更像一群机械战警，他们不会去思考战争究竟为什么打，只是机械地履行军人的天职。

直到有一天，我在《华盛顿邮报杂志》上读到这篇一位前伊拉克美军退伍军人写的小文，它打破了我以前脑海中那个笼统的形象。我第一次认识到，无论我们对伊拉克战争作何评断，在那些烟尘弥漫的街道上行走的美国大兵是有血有肉、有思想、有灵魂的人。

Joe Myers

33, Alexandria, analyst at the Department of Veterans Affa

Garrison and I would fight the Iraq war over a burger and beer. We were West Point seniors in 2004 as the insurgency in Iraq intensified. We eyed the television screen above the bar with somber interest, visually inheriting the images of looting, roadside bombs and Abu Ghraib.

Occasionally, we would jot our thoughts on a napkin. Things like setting up arcades to get Iraqi kids off the streets, or implementing a small jobs program, a “New Deal” for Iraq. Nothing novel, yet I treasured exchanging ideas with him.

Garrison was two years younger than I, but I looked up to him as the embodiment of every soldierly quality. He walked and spoke softly with a strength and dignity that could come from nowhere else but Nebraska.

He and I would both go to Iraq. I came back.

Months after his death, his widow was going through their strongbox. Amid the birth certificates and mortgage documents was a neatly folded napkin with scribblings of arcades and small jobs programs.

Kayla mailed it to me, and as I read her note, tears fell down my cheeks. Garrison had neither thrown the napkin in a drawer nor tossed it during a move. He had protected it.

Today that napkin rests in a simple frame next to a photograph of Garrison and me beaming on graduation day.

Two frames from lives not yet touched by war.