Afghanistan
Afghanistan was another prominent reason.
It was going to be from the start. He knew it. He didn't regret it; at least not the act of enlisting in itself.
He saw everything.
Yes, he was primarily an army doctor – but if he was needed for something else, off he would go. He didn't regret that. No, he was glad he had done so. It at least gave him a chance to save the men and women who had, inevitably, died. He often remembered one specific incident.
It'd been one year, around mid-May. He'd been at a facility in the desert, restocking before he was sent out again. There was a woman – Ara, her name had been. He was called urgently to help her. She spoke quickly, translated by a frantic soldier. She had two bullet wounds in her side.
They didn't have enough transfusable blood, at that point, to save her. She spent her last remaining minutes warning them. Two soldiers from a different country – two soldiers she didn't know, didn't owe. They had just enough time to call it in. She'd told them of a planned attack; prepared to happen at any moment.
Many soldiers lived. They had enough time to get out. Enough time to get supplies. Enough time to properly defend the base and buy some time.
A single misplaced grenade from the floor above had done the trick. The beams collapsed and fell on the other two occupants of the room. Ara was instantly killed. Kienan, the other soldier, likely the only person John could rely on, had enough time to scream at him to go; leave him. And so John did. He was needed elsewhere.
He shouldn't feel bad. With the way the beam had landed on Kienan, it was surprising that he wasn't killed just as quickly as Ara. He had less than ten minutes, at the very most. There was nothing that John could have done for him.
The beam crushed his left leg immediately. He saw it from where he had stood. He and Kienan had known what chances he'd had and they both acted accordingly.
That didn't make it hurt any less.
Sherlock had asked about it once. Quietly, when they were out. It seemed like he didn't actually expect an answer. They walked from the docks on the opposite side of London back to Baker Street because they didn't have the money for the cab.
And John had let it out.
And the next month, when John's left leg was screaming at him after a particularly bad night, he'd lain on the sofa; another small attempt to get some rest.
He never saw that it was Sherlock, not Miss Hudson, whom had left him tea. That it was Sherlock who had elevated his leg above a sofa cushion. That it was Sherlock who covered him with a fleece blanket.
That it was Sherlock who would always be there.
