The Tragic Bonds of War

摘要

There is silence tonight in the hospital. It is a silence made denser by the hearing protection we put on as the helicopters approach the landing zone. We knew the "Angel Flight" was landing, not because we could hear it, but because of the vibrations that were coming up through our feet and into our chests.Here at the 86th Combat Support Hospital in Iraq, we see death every day. Those who die, even here in a combat zone, die with a piece of us. They take a piece of our lives with them. We can work to fight the inevitable-for minutes, for hours, for days. But in the end they all take something of us with them. The Iraqi children who are burned by a kerosene heater, the mother who is shot by an unseen enemy, the contractor whose life is taken by an anonymous mortar, the soldier who dies fighting for her faraway home.