As I watched the new recruits, laughing and celebrating their first taste of combat one of them turned to me and raised his glass in my direction. I returned his greeting but not his smile, I hadn’t smiled for some time now.

I remember when I first arrived, there were 20 of us, all battlefield virgins. In our first few firefights we almost died and laughed about it afterwards. Dodging bullets by day and celebrating at night, trying to talk to some of the more experienced soldiers, the ones who just stared ahead with sadness in their eyes.

Our spirits dropped when we started dying, when the first of us was killed a month in, we all died with him. We toasted him afterwards, I’ve been at 13 such toasts now, I’ve died with these men 13 times. I don’t want to die 7 more.

I feel like i should go over to those raw recruits and explain it to them but I can’t bring myself to do it, I’ll just stare ahead and wonder who’ll die tomorrow.