If you want to read the story from the beginning, click here. (https://wp.me/p2b25R-fw)

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I have been busy with the daily happenings. The countdown calendar I keep tells me how long we have been here in Khost and that I have a week remaining in my deployment. Captain Bowen officially confirms that my tour of duty will be over in a week. Another platoon will be replacing us. We have been here for six months. The new soldiers will go through the same experiences as we did. The element of discovery, dangerous living, a chance to display heroism, and the effort to maintain one’s sanity in a chaotic situation will continue. Those who are lucky will survive; others may not.

I have no idea whether I will be sent home or to another assignment. I am eager to see Lily again and to sit close to her to hear her voice. My chances of meeting up with her again depend on whether I am sent home to Virginia or to some other assignment.

A day before the end of our assignment, I am busy completing an action report on my laptop. Logan is sitting next to me, with one leg crossed across the chair arm, hitting a ball against the floor, and talking to me.

“I’m so looking forward to returning home, Arjun. My girlfriend and I are planning to get engaged very soon,” he says. He pulls a photo of his girlfriend from his pocket and shows it to me from a distance. I wish him well.

We hear shots outside. Sometimes soldiers in their free time clean their weapons and shoot in the air for practice. I think it is one of those instances. When the shots do not end, we know something else is going on.

“I’ll go out and see what’s happening,” Logan says and gets up.

A minute later, I hear a loud bang and a moan. I run outside. Logan is flat on the ground. We are under attack.

I run to Logan and hold his head in my arms. He is not breathing. Shards from an RPG (rocket-propelled grenade) are strewn on the ground around his body. He was too close to it when it exploded. I shout for the medics to come and take a look at him and do something. It is too late.

Others from my platoon gather around us. The Taliban have already disappeared. We carry Logan’s body to a shady place. The Army will take care of transporting his body back to the United States for proper burial.

I return to my laptop to attempt to finish what I was doing. I cannot concentrate. I bang my fist on the table so loud that it shakes.

“Why? Oh, God. Tell me, why are we in this war?” I say. “Why is it that the lives, the aspirations of so many young soldiers go to dust within a second?”

I have no answer. A soldier’s duty is to act as instructed. It is not up to him to rationalize everything. I remembered similar advice in the Bhagavad Gita.

I drop my head on the table and cry. A soldier is not supposed to cry, but I cannot help it.

I cannot imagine how the parents will react when the Chaplain and the Casualty Assistance Officer show up at their doorstep. A young life, barely twenty-three, just taken away in a poof.

I get a call from our Battalion commander that I am in line for a promotion to Captain. But before that happens, I am required to return to Stuttgart for a few months. The memo says:

“We have a backlog of unfinished tasks, and we can use your experience to work as a staff member to help us get over the crunch. You will be going back to Stuttgart for a while when you have finished your tour of duty here.”