The Last Entry
By: Layni Symes
Tags: War, PTSD, Suicide, Diary

Dear dairy I fear this will be my last entry. As my loaded gun sits next me, I feel the only way out is one last gun shot to end them all. The all too familiar screams I hear in my nightmares never stop. The flash backs from my time fighting a war we would never win are all to real and terrifying. I still weep for the ones I couldn’t save. If I could go back to that war. 17th of July 1986 to be exact I would give my life for Matthew. He had a family to go home to. He had a kid, he had a wife! What did I have to go home to, a few family members I pushed away? That bullet should have gone through my head not his. The flashbacks have never gone away they have only gotten worse.

I went out into a death trap, into a war that couldn’t be won, for no other reason than to fight for my country and what do I return home to. Nothing… No big crowds cheering for us as we finally dock our boats. I fought an unimaginable, unwinnable war for my country, and they were ashamed of me. 521 of my friends died for this so call “great” nation and there ashamed of the ones who survived. I don’t want to cause pain to the ones I pushed away but I don’t want to feel the pain and suffer anymore.

Every day I relive the time we marched through that vast mine field, that was the day Peter lost his life, every day I still heard the terrifying explosion and I feel the heart stopping shock-wave and then came the scream. That howling scream, it wasn’t the scream of peter. It was the scream of the solider who stood next to him after pieces of peter rained down from the sky and landed on him. Luckily for peter by the time he knew what happen he was a fine pink mist.

Sometimes I wish I laid down in that flied and just rolled around until I hit one of those fatal land mines, or just run into the unrelenting gun fire. That would have been better then this shell shock hell I’ve lived since that war. I know helps out there for me, but I’m tired and exhausted I just want peace. The physical war may be over, but I’ve never stopped fighting. I brought home horrifying demons worse than the war itself. The demons never sleep there always shooting and screaming, and reminding me of the cries of my woman as I nearly strangled her to death for the 19th time since I returned home because she moved in her sleep. She was so helpless. I just wanted to sleep calmly in bed with my beautiful, loving woman. But I didn’t control my body those demons would take over. i nearly took her life one night it all got to much. She left me, I was left with no one and I don’t blame her or anyone who left.

Even looking at the gun that sits next to me I hear the echoing gunshots from that war. As I sit here the only thing I’m praying for is to not survive this. I picked up the gun and everything came flooding back from the first day in battle to the day we left, I Heard every single blood curdling scream, everyone last explosion, I heard every single bullet that was fired. I remembered things I haven’t remembered in years, memories I repressed, I remember names of people I called mates who died so horrifically I forgot that they ever existed. I remembered Richard he didn’t even get the honor to die from a weapon of war, he didn’t watch were he was walking and stepped in a deep hole, when he landed he landed on his left leg, the bone broke into a razor sharp edge, I remember the unearthly scream that came out of the hole he had landed in. His leg bone drove its way up into his body, through his intestines, stomach, lungs and finaly, cause of death was a puncture wound to the heart. as I am putting the gun to my head, I’m surprised at how calm I am. These years of torment and gunshots I just want to hear the terrifying sound of a gun being cocked, being aim, the trigger being pulled and the explosion of gunpowder that drives the bullet out of the gun and have it be real. I want a bullet to final go through my brain to kill all the demons. I only want to hear one more gunshot. One gunshot to end them all. So to who every find me and reads this I’m so sorry……..