It was- [Sam sucks in a breath and blows it out slowly.] They didn't care who got caught in the crossfire. They'd take hostages and use 'em as shields, trap buildings with IEDs, take out unarmed foreign aid workers if they had the chance. Everything we established that we thought made war humane was ignored.

[Not that Sam's ever thought war was humane or civilized or anything like that, but no amount of briefing could have prepared him for the ugliness.]

It's goddamn brutal out there. Just...this senseless violence that chews everything and everyone up and spits 'em back out. When my second deployment was up, I couldn't take it anymore. They were mothballing the project anyway, and I needed to get the hell out of there.