[Lurker]

I've spent hours taking in the world through a rifle scope, watching life unfold. Women hanging laundry on a rooftop. Men haggling over a hindquarter of lamb in the market. Children walking to school. I've watched this and hoped that someday I would see that my presence had made their lives better, a redemption of sorts. But I also peered through the scope waiting for someone to do something wrong, so I could shoot him. When you pick up a weapon with the intent of killing, you step onto a very strange and serious playing field. Every morning someone wakes wanting to kill you. When you walk down the street, they are waiting, and you want to kill them, too. That's not bloodthirsty; that's just the trade you've learned.

I'm pretty good with words, but I'm going to remember this the next time somebody asks me what I did when I was in the Marines.

L

[archy]

I'm pretty good with words, but I'm going to remember this the next time somebody asks me what I did when I was in the Marines.

If you use smallish print, it might be made to fit on the back of a business card.

Not the best example I've ever seen of seven sentences strung together, but certainly one of the best.