CREATIVE WRITING: The Thinking Combatant.
It was a searing hot and dry day. I still hadn’t acclimatised to the overwhelming heat yet and even after four days I couldn’t believe how intensely bright the sunlight made the desert sand seem. Sunglasses and shadows were my new best friends. I felt as though the air just wasn’t dense enough and at forty-three degrees celsius the heat was easily the highest I had ever experienced. If only I was wearing shorts and a shirt instead of combats, body armour and kevlar helmet. Camp Bastion’s air strip was a furiously loud and busy place. In the waiting area it was only too easy to tell whether the soldiers around me were coming in or going out by their facial expressions, by their kit and how they carried themselves. Some pairs of eyes stared a thousand yards away into nothingness. Their minds were further still. My face harboured the obvious signs of an outward Chinhook flight; fresh faced, clean-shaven, pasty white skin, focused and receptive of all around. However eager and con...