September 11th, 2001- An American landmark burnt to the ground. Mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers are lost forever. My father is one of them.
September 23rd, 2001- I enlist in the United States Marines.
October 7th, 2001- Operation Enduring Freedom begins.
March 3rd, 2007- I am deployed. Afghanistan is my new home.
November 4th , 2008- We storm Kabul. Back home, there’s chaos, too. Obama’s just been elected President. Crowds of supporters are storming the streets and parading in public places. Obama’s all smiles while I’m trapped here on this barren terrain. My girlfriends back home, I wonder if she was rejoicing in the streets, too. Tommy’s wife is waiting for him. We’re both scared, but we won’t admit it. We approach a nearby building. We know he’s in there. I storm the building first shooting at blank walls out of fear someone’s in there. The man behind me is cautious. Then, suddenly we see a small army of men. We shoot fiercely, transforming the building into a pool of orange and red waves. Men fall to the ground, their limbs now detached from their wounded bodies. A sea of blood escapes from their flesh, decorating the floor in crimson. And then I remember seeing him there. The man we had been searching for the past few months. Before that he had been nothing but a picture; a man we were to catch. And finally, he was in our grasp. We ceased shooting. Like the frame his picture once sat in, we surrounded him on all sides. He was ours. A man who had participated in my father’s death. And now, his fate was in my hands.
November 5th, 2008- Saif Al-Umari is finally ours. He is brought to the same place all other American adversaries have been brought to, Guantanamo Bay. The primary logistics base for the Atlantic fleet acquired in the year 1903, Guantanamo Bay has served as a symbol of American ideals for years. President Theodore Roosevelt signed an agreement with Cuba, leasing the Bay for 2,000 gold coins per year. The agreement was forced upon Cuba...