Take me home: A fictional story
By: Logan Hale
Tags: Fiction, Strong Women, War Stories, Young Writers, Fiction Writing

I woke up the morning of March 12th, 2024, just like any other. I opened my eyes to the sight of the red Stanford poster draped across my ceiling. I had been accepted to my dream school. I was ecstatic. My parents had always told me “If you want to accomplish things in your life, you must work hard, and eventually it will pay off.” My hard work did pay off. I was going to one of the best schools in the nation and my future was all in my hands. My senior year was coming to an end, and I was happier than ever, I felt invincible like nothing could stop me; This, however, was short-lived…

I ran downstairs and made myself a cup of coffee. I heard a knock at the door, and an envelope fell through the mail slot and onto the floor. A shiver went down my spine as I remembered the moment when my acceptance letter fell through the same slot and hit the same floor. I went to the door, and sitting at my feet was a very official-looking letter, with my name in cursive writing, and a strange symbol at the top. I took it over to the counter, ripped it open, and took out the paper. “Dear Miss Julia” it read. “We are pleased to inform you that you have been selected to come to join us in Afghanistan, to fight for your country.” My stomach dropped. More than just dropped, It felt as though I was free-falling off a cliff, flying through the air. I couldn’t breathe, my lungs stopped working, no air was coming in, I was just sitting there, alone in my kitchen, miles from the real world. The coffee glass in my hand began to spill over, as I lost all control of my limbs. Nothing. I couldn’t feel or hear, or see anything. “This can’t be real, this can’t be real, This. Can’t. Be. Real.” I thought… It was real.

I spent the next month talking to no one, not even getting out of my bed most days. I had gone from an all-time high to an all-time low, in just one morning. I couldn’t bear to even think I was living. Living a life where I, an accomplished girl with big dreams was going to be shipped off to war in just 2 months, and for what? To fight for my country, when there are thousands of other girls who would gladly take my position. It felt illegal. It felt wrong. We knew that WW3 was bound to happen sometime soon, and once that became a reality, the government decided it was best to enlist some females into the war, to ensure “equality”. I was irate. Was this really the right way to express that?! By sending us off to die?! The immense anger I felt inside of me wanted to walk right up to the white house, and tell them that he couldn’t do this to me, not me, ANYONE but me. But instead, I just sat there for hours, in the vast darkness of my bedroom, waiting for something to change. Those hours turned into days, and days turned into night, and before I knew it, a month had gone by. As the time before I needed to leave grew shorter and shorter, my anxiety grew bigger and bigger. For the remainder of that month, I spent hours contemplating what to do. Part of me knew I had to stay and fight and stand for the strong women in my country, but at the same time, I knew that there was a high possibility of dying, or getting lost, or never coming back. My life was normal and happy, but with the signature of one person, everything was crushed within a matter of seconds. I wanted to run or hide or leave, I even seriously contemplated it, packed a bag a few times, but just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I eventually swallowed this pill, and before I knew it, I was standing in a line to get my gear… I was going off to war.

It had been five months since I left home, and I had gone through gruesome training, every day, making myself stronger, and more prepared for war. We had traveled all over Afghanistan, from Kabul to the Bagram airbase where I had been stationed for 2 months now. I had made many friends, being the social person I am, but only one true friend, Candice. She was very similar to me and I trusted her like no one else out there. Candice was a short, Hispanic girl from New Jersey, with a thick accent, and a rich personality. We got along beautifully, and we were inseparable. In just a short period of time, we had basically become sisters. We had our disagreements, but one thing we could both agree on was that we just wanted to go home. That term home, or “take me home” became used a lot. We sang it in songs, we made jokes about it, etc; it became our phrase. We did everything together and basically kept each other alive.

I was at our main base camp in Bagram, Afghanistan, deprived of sleep, and somewhat dehydrated, as we were only supplied with a few canteen’s of water a day. I had just finished breakfast in the cafeteria with Candice, and me and a group of 2 other girls, including Candice and 8 other guys, were getting ready to leave Begram, and head for Ab Bala, a small village on the outskirts of the Bamyan province, which the US now had complete control over. We loaded up the truck and started the long drive over. Life was much different, as you didn’t need to depend on a cell phone anymore, but instead, you actually had conversations and would sing instead of scroll through Instagram. I mean what were we supposed to do, send snaps from the back of a truck in Afghanistan?! #mightdie! 4 hours into the drive, the sun was setting, and we were almost there. Ab Bala was in a small valley, behind a tall mountain. It was quite peaceful, actually. There was that side to the war. Contrary to popular belief, and past thoughts of my own, the war wasn’t all blood and violence. There was a peaceful, and serenity side to it as well. The villagers did not speak any English and most likely had no idea there was even a war going on. It was 01:00 am military time when we arrived. We quickly made our way to the base, to settle in for the night. We were all extremely tired, so we made our tents, unpacked a little, and closed our eyes, hoping that this wasn’t the last time we would say goodnight.

I woke up the next morning to the sound of our portable-coffee brewer, and Afghanistan children frolicking in the nearby stream. It was a beautiful day, with no violence insight, but at the same time, I felt guilty. We were invaders on their land, and we had been killing their neighbors, Afghanistan people, just like them. The entire experience felt out-of-body, and wrong for so many reasons but that’s just the way things were. We spent the rest of the day scoping out the town and learning the landscape, or just sitting around camp reading books, and telling stories, while passing around a flask of hot fresh-brew, bringing back memories of home. The taste reminded me of cold winter mornings, sitting around the fireplace, as my father read aloud the daily newspaper, asking for a sip, then running to the sink to spit it out, and washing my mouth to get the taste out of my mouth. It reminded me of the good times.

“Julia, snap out of it!” Candice said, tapping my arm, jerking me from memories of my past. “What?!” I said. “Listen…” I looked up to the sky; “vrrrrrrrr”. It was the sound of planes from a distance. No American planes were coming this way that day and they would have told us about it, so everyone immediately knew that it had to be the Taliban. The village went quiet as if everyone stopped to listen. It was a strange stillness, similar to that moment before lightning strikes, and you can feel your hair standing straight up and then “BOOM!” lightning strikes, but in this case, there was no lighting, instead jets, flying over the mountain, swooping down, dropping bombs like rain. The stillness was no longer still, and screams from every direction erupted. I grabbed Candice and ran to take cover under the cottage-homes in the village. I quickly slid under the closest house, but Candice was not with me. I looked back to see her lying on the ground looking at me, holding her leg. She stepped in a ditch, breaking her ankle. We locked eyes, and at that moment, a realization washed over me, a realization that life isn’t about going to a good college, and getting a good job, but instead, it’s about the ones you love and the value of life, and how in just a moment they can be gone… and just like that, In the blink of an eye, bombs poured down, hitting the ground, spraying dirt and chemicals into my eyes. I crawled out from under the house, and ran my way over to Candice, resting 30 yards from me. “Candice!!” I yelled, letting out a scream unrecognizable as a human. I kneeled down to my knees and looked her in her calm, golden brown eyes, as a tear fell out of my own. I couldn’t speak, I just looked at her, watched her take her last breaths. “Take me home,” she said as her eyes drifted off to another universe… “Take me home”.