It's 4:40 in the am I've been out of the army for a year almost and I still can't sleep past 4, no matter how late I stay up. If alcohol is involved it may be a different story but I tend to stay away from it as much as possible. It doesn't get along well with all the meds. My life if now consumed with dealing with my injuries unfortunately. Remembering to take medication on time. Debating on whether or not to deal with the VA to go see a counselor or just sit here on my porch smoke cigarettes drink coffee and continue to write this.......this seems to be working for now......I came back from my fist tour with a two bulged disks in my back, a fractured right hip and nerve damage in my right leg, from a road side bomb, IED. I didn't didn't discover my hip was actually broken until a year later when I was having an MRI done for the nerve pain. They found several fractures that had somewhat already healed but incorrectly. You see at the time of the IED I had been driving the vehicle, the gunner was killed and another passenger was criticality wounded. I don't even remember feeling hurt. I did have a very large bruis for a while but blew that shit off.......the gunner killed was a good friend of mine and it hit me hard. Some of us may have have to go through the death of a friend and I'm all of us must endure the death of a loved on from time to time, but no one should have to go find and pick up the missing body parts of your buddy to send back home to his wife and soon to be born son.......That shit fucked me up. Like I said before my first wife was in the army there with me doing the same shit. She was not on that same mission but things started falling apart after that. Our unit was clearing IED's from northern Iraq into Bagdad every day so that other convoys could travel through somewhat safe. We lost quite a few, and many were injured.......in the beginning my wife and I were allowed to share a room. Sounds great right? Not so much while your deployed. When things started going sideways between us because all that was going during or missions I decided to move to a different room. The only bed available was that of my buddy that had been killed. I took it anyway. For the next 6 months I sleep in that bed and used his locker, all of his things and uniforms had been long ago sent to his wife except for a small American flag he kept right outside the door........the day we were packing up to leave my roommate and I had cleaned or room from top to bottom, spotless. We were both standing outside the door waiting for our inspection from or NCO. When the time came he walked in looked around said " everything looks real good, throw you shit on the truck but don't forget your cover and name tape sitting on your bunk Hyde " . When I walk back in to see what he was talking about sure as shit their was a hat and name tape sitting on the middle of my empty bunk, but it wasn't mine. When I picked it up and read the name on the back of the hat it was Hobbs. My buddy that had been killed earlier that year. Because of all the shit I've seen 10 years of being army I don't know what I believe in anymore, but I do know that no one else could have put that hat in there. I still have it........