The Nightmare

It starts off innocent enough; you are dreaming that you are back in the Sand Box, riding in your old HUMVEE through one of a thousand little villages. Today the ride is different; you see blue skies not the brown sky of dirt and dust; green fields of barley instead of the dusty scrub land on the right side of the HUMVEE and small kids yelling for candy on the left side. Your old crew is in the vehicle with you. Henry, your CHU mate is driving while SFC McKinney is up in the front passenger seat talking on the radio. Jose, the "Ma Duce" gunner is tossing candy to the kids as you pass by. Just as you start to relax, you spot a box on the left side of the road. You try to yell a warning, but your world explodes. The kids that were yelling for candy are being blown into hamburger chunks. The left side windows are smeared with blood and bits of flesh. You immediately jerk down Jose, but half his head is gone. Another explosion erupts just in front of the HUMVEE causing it to flip backwards onto its top. The smell of burning rubber and burnt bacon fill your senses. Pushing on the armored passenger door you finally manage to get it open enough to escape. Scrambling to get out of the vehicle, you see two Iraqi men start shooting at you from twenty feet away. You see and hear the rounds hitting all around you and ricocheting off the armor of the HUMVEE. You can see clearly the ends of the rifles. The fire coming from the ends scare you into believing that you are going to die today. What a waste of a beautiful day you think as you start firing your M-4 rifle. "ZING . . . ZING . . . Ratatatatata!" Your body armor is hung up on something that you cannot see. You are struggling with it as you fire on the two men that are trying to kill you. Finally, you see the one on the right flip backwards as his head explodes and showers his buddy with blood and brains. War isn't like the movies. It is a messy and terrifying ordeal. Just as the last bad guy that was shooting at you gets hit and goes down, another kid pops up with an RPG-7 Grenade Launcher. You get two shots off at him and your rifle goes silent. You do your quick reaction drills, just to find out you are out of ammo. "Oh SHIT!" You hear a whoosh and look up just in time to see a RPG grenade flying straight at you. You must have been screaming, because you wake up to find a nurse shaking you.
"Are you okay?" She asks. With your heart beating a hundred miles an hour, you just say, "Yea I'm okay! It was just a bad dream a nightmare." You feel like your heart is going to break out of your chest. The smells of the antiseptic hospital finally reach you and you know this is real.
As you lie in bed, you look around the room and see your artificial legs standing next to the wall, you wonder, "Was that the nightmare or is this it?"