Chapter+23

Candy for Peace by Jose Zamora As I lay here, on what we call a bed, I can imagine the moon passing by. I try not to over analyze my mission here in Iraq. However, there’s not much to think about, but if I will live for another day. I try to get all the sleep I can but being so close to reality makes it harder. I realized I went to a local store earlier in the day to buy some pain relievers. I rapidly opened my drawer, take out the bottle and opened it and took out 3 pills, one more than the recommendation, and swallowed them. I started dozing off 15 minutes later, I finally got my rest. I can see the sun was being late today. So, as any other day I started the day by getting ready. I can see that some of the marines were still sleeping and waking-up just as I. It didn’t take much for me to get ready. As I was folding my sheets, soldiers were rushing for their own lives as for the general would give our mission for today. I sat on my bed patiently; I like to look at the other soldiers struggle with their own bed sheets. It was 4:47 am and there was only 13 minutes till the general came in. The general was always specific about time and never was late. We all lined up right beside our beds. The general came in as if he was ready to strike someone down with his hand. “Men” the general said, in a crossly voice. “Today you get an easy one. George Bush wants us to spread the love of America by candy. I guess you guys deserver a brake after what we had to do to get here. I’ll leave it up to Chris to hand out the bags. But know this; this is as low as you can go for a mission.” He left and we were on our own. As Chris was passing out the pounds of candy I went towards Devin, a friend I meet during the war. “Hey, Devin”, I said “Yea Dallas, what’s up?” He said “What a mission, huh?” “No, I’d rather be killing some Iraqis” “I guess, we got lucky then, being out there” “Hey Devin, can you imagine if the children weren’t children at all? They were dwarfs and we got attacked” I laughed. “You’re crazy. Possible but crazy” I guess all we have for now is our jokes. Devin and I team up to pass out the candy. We didn’t know what kind of children would be awake at this hour of the day. So, Devin and I want to a donut shop to get our daily breakfast. On our way we saw run down houses and rubble everywhere. We kept on waking and we started seeing children coming out of their houses. We pass out the candy swiftly to get rid of it and after the children let to their own business Devin and I walked on. “Hey Dallas” Devin said smoothly “Let’s go to a bar and get our self drink for a job well done.” “That sounds good to me” I said giving him a smirk.