Desensitized

Again it happened. This morning we got hit by and IED. It happened in central Baghdad of all places. These insurgents are ruthless and will go to any means necessary, even if it means killing bystanders. That wasn’t too much on my mind at the time. In fact, the IED wasn’t too much on my mind either, weird. Are we becoming desensitized? Most of us acted like it was nothing. If this was our first week here we would’ve been freaking out, yelling, and loosing control.

We were heading back to base this morning when it happened. I heard a loud BOOM! At first I thought it was elsewhere in the city. I’ve here explosions all over from time to time and we just keep going about our business as if nothing happened. I turned around to look and see that there was black and grey smoke billowing from the side of the road. It was a big one. “IED! IED!” I yelled. I have noticed that we are a lot calmer now. We don’t lose control and start panicking. Everything remains in order and we seem to be in control and we also look like professionals. An IED, oh, it’s nothing. It almost seems like it nowadays. Heck, when we first got here an IED would cause gossip around the company. Now we don't even mention it.

I guess it’s like thunder and lighting when you’re a kid. When you’re little you’re scared of it and don’t know what it is. As you get older it’s just nothing new.