I always wanted to be a cop when I was young. To hold a gun and shoot down the bad guys. I never imagined I'd shoot down some good guys as well.

I never imagined I'd fall head over heels in love with the bravest, most amazing man in the world, have two beautiful children with him... and then lose him so soon. Never imagined such evils as a war that began with valid reasoning behind it and ended being all about oil and other resources.

I never--never in my wildest dreams--imagined making so many friends across the ocean... just to watch them fall one by one to enemy fire. Never imagined having the knowledge that any second I could step wrong and our kids would be motherless.

I was in school studying to be a cop--extra stuff most said I didn't need as well as other, more useful classes--when the war began. I was Mommy during the day and a student at night. I was exhausted, but at least I was happy.

And now? I'm still on the path to the police academy, but I don't ever want to touch a gun again. My parents keep saying this will pass--that I'll be very good at being an officer because of my time overseas--but they don't see what I see and they can't see me as I see me. I am not the tough soldier they see on the outside. Inside, I am an anxious, frightened little girl, hidden under a craftily painted clown mask.

Inside, I don't know how to be okay again--how to escape this dark world of flashbacks and nightmares.

Inside... I can't figure out my childish dreams. I don't remember why I had them in the first place.