"Lord, grant…"
Eugene Roe, medic for Easy Company and, presently, a frozen popsicle in the Ardennes forest in Bastogne could not help but see the darkness that lay ahead. The void placed before his feet. Every time he closed his eyes it was all he could see: the void of nothingness slowly consuming him from inside out.
No, he couldn't focus on that. He had to stay whole. Complete. In one piece.
A fragment of a man couldn't put a broken man back together anymore than he could himself. He couldn't fall apart. Not now. Not yet. He had to stay whole for the men.
"Lord, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console…"
So he began to keep himself separate. On the outside of the circle of laughing faces looking in. Checking up but never staying long enough for them to see. He had to stay separate to stay together.
"to be understood as to understand…"
He would go from foxhole to foxhole. To those that needed an ear, a shoulder, a pair of shoes and give them all he could. He would gather what he would need to save them when they fell and ease there passing when there was no hope. He would give everything he could for these men. These men he loved more than he every thought he could.
These men he loved more then he ever thought he was capable of loving.
"to be loved as to love with all my heart, with all my heart."
He could break later; right now he had a job to do.