"Shooting Stars"

I hesitate to post this because of the whole glorification-of-violence thing and the CNN-voyeur aspect, but... The US Army soldier and author of the blog MY WAR - Fear And Loathing In Iraq has a harrowing account of coming under fire in Mosul. His account of what it's really like when the #$%& goes down is telling:

"We past several men with a AK's running down a street, I pulled out my Berretta and fired a mag at them. We rolled back to the area where we all just dodged death, and we were taking fire from all over again. Again, I fired and fired and fired and fired and fired. At everything. We were taking fire from all over. I was just 360ing the 50 cal and shooting at everything. We were taking fire from all over, and every single one of us had our guns blazing. At one time I saw a dog try to run across the street, and somebody shot it. Again, at one time I had the 50 cal traversed and pointing all the way back of the vehicle and I was firing at some guys who were shooting at us up on a rooftop, and I didn't know I was shooting right above the guys heads who were in the back airguard hatchs on our vehicle. My roommate (Sgt from Idaho) tapped my arm, which startled the hell out of me and I quickly jerked back and looked at him and he yelled, 'Hey!! Get that gun to the 12!!! Let that one go!! Your doing good!!!' He later told me, when he tapped me on the shoulder, and I jerked back to look at him, I had this crazed look in my eyes that kind of freaked him out...

On the way to the FOB we passed a watermelon stand, all the watermelons had bullet holes in them. In fact, everything on that street had bullet holes in it. The cars, the buildings, everything. There were thousands and thousands of brass shell casings littered all over the streets. Our vehicle was also covered inside and out with brass shell casings and links...

I was chain smoking right now, one right after another. My nerves were completely shot and I was emotionally drained and physically exhausted. My hands were still kinda shaking. I was sitting up against the tires by myself on the side of the vehicle smoking a cigarette. I've never been through anything like that. I've never felt fear like that. And I've never seen anything like that...

Finally they told us to go back to our rooms. I went back to my room, thanked god, and passed out on my bed."

Two days later, the same soldier freaks out when he sees a white flash streak across the night sky... then realises it's just a shooting star.