Afghanistan

http://storycorps.org/listen/drew-pham-and-molly-pearl/#


Drew Pham (DP): I remember I called you and told you that I shot a man…and you didn't really know what to say so you said, "Well we'll deal with it when you get home."

Molly Pham (MP): I had a hard time responding to some of the things you would tell me.

DP: I did a lot of bad things. We killed this sixty or seventy-year-old schoolteacher. He was an old man and snipers shot him because he had a two-liter water bottle in his hand and we thought it was a rocket. I had to go and clean up the mess. I had to talk to his son and try and convince him that, you know, it was a mistake, I'm sorry.

So all this stuff happens, I come home and even though it was hard to fight in Afghanistan... here in the States, I don't even know how to talk to people. I don't think anything that anyone says anymore is important, or what they think or what they feel. Sometimes I want to take everyone that I know to Afghanistan and force them to see it. I want them to feel all of it.

MP: I remember when you first joined, I would tell you that eventually we would look back and it would be four years just like college was four years and that used to really help you -- that ability to look past and see how time always moves on and moves you with it. I don't know if that ever happens with Afghanistan.

DP: I don't think that this is ever really gonna be over for any of us. I mean honestly, like you, you really are the only thing that keeps me going.

MP: That's tough but I'm okay with that.

DP: I still don't know how to carry on a normal life with all these things, but at least I get to carry all of those things with you.