THEN:

The scar no longer bothered Chris Stanley. Once it had. For months he'd attempted to conceal its presence by wearing a beanie pulled low on his head. Time had taught the futility of vanity, why fight something you can never change? Acceptance was so much easier to live with.

Tracking across the top of his scalp and down both sides of his head, the scar regularly became a conversation piece. Some saw it as a hero's trophy others recognised it as a badge of courage. To him, it would forever haunt as a torment, a reminder of his time in a God forsaken country, a place where no American soldier belonged. In Clinton's opinion, Afghanistan was, and always would remain an absolute hell-hole, where life had no value and where death was oft considered preferable to survival. Where remembering carried a penalty and forgetting rewarded as a bonus. So much of the trauma he now experienced had its birth there.

He'd long grown tired of explaining the scars origin. In truth, he didn't know. No one knew. Reports stated Clinton Stanley had been despatched on patrol, alone and unscarred. He never returned. The Lieutenant was listed, Missing In Action, presumed captured. Searches yielded nothing. A week passed, presumed captured was downgraded to feared killed.

Then he was found, unconscious by a roadside severely malnourished and bearing a recently acquired wound to the head. He appeared nearer to dead than alive. Rescuers believed he'd not survive the night. Days later he was talking, in fluent Pashto, a language he didn't know and with injuries and treatment no one could explain.

In the absence of explanation questions arose, questions he couldn't answer. Clinton sensed their suspicions, they were justified. Soldiers don't just disappear and turn up a week later with near fatal injuries miraculously treated. Where had he been? Who provided the treatment? Many construed Clinton's silence as arrogance. It wasn't, ignorance more accurately described the situation. He couldn't answer what he didn't know.

"Where the fuck were you, soldier?" screamed the interrogator. He stood over Clinton, a hypodermic needle in his hand, an indication his patience was nearing expiration. "Start talking or I'll be forced to use this."

"I don't know." Why wouldn't they believe him? He was telling the truth. His one memory was heading out on patrol and then nothing. Nothing until he was found. Not knowing made it worse. Being dead would have been so much easier.

"Go on, honky," Clinton couldn't help himself. He attacked the man's colour. "If it makes you feel better, jab me." He jumped to attention and thrust his arm towards the Negro Doctor. The man's blatant threats triggered Clinton's already agitated state. He exploded. His outbursts were worsening. Stanley, particularly the just rescued Stanley was a ticking time bomb intent on detonation. The doctor plunged the needle into Clinton's arm. An hour later he was no wiser. The truth remained untold.

With the soldier's conditioning deteriorating surgeons reopened the wound. The skull had been fractured by a severe blow to the back of the head. In all probability he'd not seen his attacker. Doctors next studied the remedial surgery. The level of skill employed was faultless. Observation of the wound along with the pattern of stitching suggested the procedure had been undertaken by American surgeons. The only American surgeons in the zone worked in the Military hospital. Their records revealed no such operation. One fact remained indisputable, the scarring and surgery were recent, during his time in Afghanistan. Yet there was no record of surgery. Had it possibly been performed off base? Every on-base doctor at the time denied knowledge of the patient. The daily schedules contained no mention of surgery on Lieutenant Stanley. Had it been the work of an Afghan doctor, perhaps trained in the US? Or more likely one who graduated in Russia? The mystery deepened.


Afghanistan had so much to answer for. The scar reminded daily of his time there. Complaining wouldn't see it disappear. Surgery may one day conceal it, but that was in his tomorrows. He knew nothing of the head injury's origin, other than where it happened, Afghanistan. He did however know of the consequences, the blinding headaches, the memory lapses, the losses of his sense of smell and the inability to comprehend so many words. His vocabulary had halved. And worst of all, the damn anger, it triggered irritability along with irrational behaviour. Then he faced the never-ending medications. One tablet for this, another for that and yet another for something else, twenty-seven pills prescribed daily. The earlier thought resurfaced, death would have been so much easier. Why hadn't they let him die?

Memory retained only one recollection of the situation. The flashbacks occurred on an all too frequent circuit, growing more explicit each week. And he never discussed them. They were his personal secrets. Hospital records listed his medications and treatments but they knew nothing of his demons. He was still the same man. Well, almost.

The citation attached to the wall above his bed brought no pride. He was no hero. He'd just been one shit-scared young soldier, intent on survival. He read the citation. It prompted little recollection. His memory housed only the truth.

'Lt. Clinton Stanley was located near death around forty yards from an unsealed grave. The Lieutenant remained barely alive. At the base of a nearby grave lay seven companions, all deceased and identified as American Military personnel. Somehow, in the hours prior to discovery Stanley, believed to be deceased had been cast into a mass grave with seven other American prisoners. Unarmed and ravaged by hunger he somehow escaped and was later found by a passing patrol.'

History had defined his colleague's deaths as a result of battle. Stanley though knew the truth. He'd been there. It had been an act of mercy. Strangulation was kinder than starvation. Their hunger groans would haunt him forever. There was no resistance. His companions lapsed into silence, a permanent silence. Now, they resided in peace. The image of his seven military brothers laid side by side remained his one vivid memory. They were the heroes. Not him, he'd merely ended their suffering.

Then he returned home, feted unjustly as a hero. He fronted late night talk shows as the face of the all American hero. He was promoting a lie. He developed a pathological hatred for the media, and the military, and most especially of self. He was a fraud. He was no hero, he was a killer.

As always, rationalisation followed. Had he killed, or had he spared more suffering? The cries of pain vanished. Perhaps he'd only killed their suffering. In that sense he'd saved them from further agony. Was that wrong?


NOW:

It happened again. The scar remained. It served as a reminder to everything and as motivation. Cosmetic surgery was too expensive. His ugliness took on a permanency. Moreover it identified him. He needed a way of concealing it

From nowhere headaches attacked. Accompanied almost always by horrific nightmares, they devastated his sleeping patterns. He head was at war again, reliving his yesterdays surrounded by a vicious and unrelenting enemy. The enemy was no longer soldier, it was cancer. And the sufferer was his mother. She too deserved release. Could he do it? Would she do it for him? Of course she would. He had his answer.

A new debate surged, logic versus law. Surely easing someone's suffering wasn't criminal. It was kind and proper. It was love. We do it for animals. He found no counter argument. Clinton had long surrendered his innocent and naive belief in God.

Afghanistan had further indoctrinated him into the world of violence. It had seen the birth of a side to Clinton Stanley he neither liked nor understood. The thrill and adrenalin surge created in killing another individual repulsed him. Yet at the same time it provided the ultimate exercise of control. Henry Kissinger's assertion was correct, power is the ultimate aphrodisiac. Stanley knew he was ready to do it again.

He'd already selected his next victim, his mother. And logic supported that choice. He was simply distancing her from her pain. It was an act of love. But was it love of mother, or love of asserting the ultimate power.


He'd done it all before. And he'd eluded justice. He could, and would do it again. The thrill was building. And maybe, just maybe, he'd keep doing it.