War, Marriage, Death, and 1,000 regrets

If you knew that you had an hour to live after you got married, would you still do it?
If you knew that serving your country would lead to you putting innocent civilians in body bags would you still volunteer?

To safeguard the identities of those involved in this tragedy I am withholding dates and locations.
At one point during operation Iraq freedom, in a city hotly enmeshed in conflict between Allied forces and an endless insurgency streaming into the city from across the borders, there was a wedding.
Two local individuals chose to pursue their love and continue their lives in a city torn apart hour after hour by gun battles, mortar attacks, bomb blasts, air strikes, and an insurgency that gave the locals the choice to either aid them or risk gruesome deaths.
These two individuals got into their cars with the wedding party, went to their mosque and began commencing their nuptials.

Around the same time, local intel reports filtered down through trusted channels that there was a suicide vehicle-born bomb attack on one of the local Allied bases being arranged.
There had already been several recent such attacks and the aftermath of such an explosion was mind boggling to behold: shockwaves capable of tearing the faces off of entire concrete buildings, evaporating individuals unfortunate enough to be nearby, and leaving soaring death tolls should the right location be hit at the right time.
Immediate countermeasures were planned, and with a vague color and body style of the suspected VBIED (vehicle born improvised explosive device) being passed down to local units, recon ambush locations were set around allied bases, hoping to identify and stop the attacker before he could drive within lethal range of a gate.
Local fighting had been intense. Nerves were frayed and allied forces were forced to see every individual as a potential threat as the insurgents blackmailed local citizens into committing atrocities on risk of seeing their families butchered.

The ambush was in place, watching a local intersection with boots both on the ground conducting traffic and snipers in place in elevated locations.
Despite the city's infrastructure being completely undone, strict martial law in effect, hospitals blown into shells, streets littered with bomb craters, and sewers flowing through those streets, many civilians still had no other option than to continue going about their lives, a day at a time, and so traffic flowing to and from mosques and markets was a fact of life, despite it being one of the most dangerous cities on earth.
The wedding finished, and they loaded into cars and began driving home.
The local population had been well informed through local government of the appropriate measures that had to be taken to not appear a threat to local Allied forces and avoid being shot at.
Hand signals, signs, and boots on the ground had to be immediately obeyed, on threat of deadly force.
Warning flares, air horns, and orders shouted by an interpreter through a bullhorn would escalate to warning shots, "flash bang" stun grenades and then lethal force if not obeyed.

The wedding party reached the intersection with the overwatch, driving a vehicle that matched the description of the suspected VBIED.
I imagine that given the distraction of their love for one another on this most special day, and the words of their ceremony still ringing in their ears, they forgot for these few precious moments that they were living in the middle of a war zone.
Orders were screamed, escalation measures blazed, warning shots were fired, and the newlyweds panicked, flooring their vehicle directly at the allied position.
Disabling shots to the vehicle did not stop it, and concealed squad automatic weapons ripped through the vehicle, stopping it dead and killing everyone inside.
I was the corpsman, responsible not only for treating wounded marines but also for treating civilian casualties and wounded insurgents.
They were lined up on the ground awaiting my inspection when I arrived. Each of them had received multiple lethal wounds, dead even if their bodies didn't know it yet.
There was one young man, whose identity I don't know but always think of as the newlywed husband, whose face was broken by multiple head shots, and yet his mouth still moved in silent words.
Later I drove the vehicle with the bagged bodies to local Iraqi government officials to be handled according to customs of Islam.
I still dream of looking into the back and see them dead but with eyes wide open staring at me, pleading, asking.

This, my friends, is the real cost of war, the horrendous price that you will not hear about on the news.
This is the grief that we who wore the uniform must bear with us to our graves that wakes us up at night in a cold sweat.
This sculpture of 1,000 paper cranes is my gift to that newlywed couple who never lived long enough to get home or consummate their marriage.
This sculpture was never displayed publicly due to its controversial message so this, Steemit is how this memorial will be seen by the eyes of the world.
1000 cranes, each hand painted and sealed and mounted on hand woven wire armatures meant to mimic the reels of razor wire seen in combat zones surrounding every Allied base.
They arise from two body bags on the ground, finding their color as they fly in concentric spirals 14 feet into the sky.
May their memory fly even further: may their spirits fly to a place where love can grow in peace and war and grief are as easily shaken off and discarded as a flight of birds might leave the earth and take to the sky.