Who I am place, WAR

I am a warrior. I was born to the eighth generation of a family that measures the power of their men by their service in war. Part from our native side that makes the man count coup. And part from the white side that has waged so many different wars that it seems to be the only thing the men have in common. I became a warrior for it was what I felt I must do. Six years is an unfathomable commitment to a youth of 18 years.
I have been free of war for 2 years, yet, I have not really been free of war for more than a day. I am only a snapshot, a picture in someone elses mind. For the ones who have been close to me, are now, with me only at times when I can sense their presence. The war has cost me the lives of my only 9 friends. My brothers from other mothers. It also cost me my fathers last days, the love of my life, and the sanity of my mother who has yet to come back to us after being told of my death in a hole half a world away.
Did I forget my innocence? That is presuming I had any. After all who takes a job that trains him to kill and equips him to do so? Not a man with innocence. But over six years have passed me since my first tour in the barren mountains of hell, but I still wake up screaming and crying nearly each night. Not for the loss of my innocence, if I had any to begin with, nor for the wasted lives of my brothers, but for the true innocent of war, the children. To see a toddler holding the cold stiff hand of their parent asking her, begging her “mommy please wake up I am hungry and scared,” then two days later seeing the toddler lying next to her mom with the same color of death in both their faces.
I cannot explain where I lost my innocence or when, but I can give you a hundred examples of what it looks like, feels like, even smells like to watch innocence die.
In some way shape or form I am the taker of innocence. For freedom, I steal innocence. For revenge I steal innocence, for spite, anger, hate I steal innocence. How I live with this is the real war. The war that will never end. I stole innocence trying to find mine.
I am the innocence I destroyed in war. That's who I am.