remains

• "On another occasion, we get sent out

  to tackle looters robbing a bank"
• "probably armed, possibly not"
• "Well myself and somebody else and somebody else"
• "I see every round as it rips through his life-

  I see broad daylight on the other side"
• "he's there on the ground, sort of inside out"
• "pain itself, the image of agony"
• "tosses his guts back into his body"
• "his blood-shadow stays on the street"
• "But I blink

  and he bursts again through the doors of the bank."
• "Sleep, and he's probably armed, possibly not"
• "Dream, and he's torn apart by a dozen rounds"
• "the drink and the drugs won't flush him out"
• "near to the knuckle, here and now,

  his bloody life in my bloody hands."
• purpose:

  • armatige explores the lasting impact of sending young people to war
  • based on a british soldier in iraq
  • discusses the repercussions of this later on