Disclaimer: I don't own anything. Just borrowing.
btw: i'm in desperate need for a beta. so, if anyone would like to help me out, i'd really appreciate it. thanks
Reason
He never wanted the clap on the back.
He didn't want recognition or promotions.
He didn't do it for honour, the country or money.
And for all the reasons he didn't do it, he forgot sometimes the reasons he did it for.
When he was younger, so much younger than today he had wanted to fly. All he had wanted to do was flying airplanes. His only opportunity had been the Air Force. Not enough money, not really smart enough for anything else.
And the Air Force had let him fly. When he flew high above the clouds, he didn't mind that he had to drop bombs. He didn't like it, but he didn't mind either.
Things changed when they started to train him for more. They pulled him out of his beloved cockpit and into special training. He didn't mind learning how to shoot at paper people. Eventually they would let him fly again.
So he even agreed to be send to a country he didn't even know the name of, just the operation code. He wondered a little bit when he had to jump out of the plane, instead of flying it.
He forgot about that mission as soon as he came home again. And he also didn't know the people that had died.
For a while he washed his hands a little bit too often, but before he could decide whether to think about it or not, they called on him again.
He didn't ask, they didn't tell.
So he went on another round. And for the first time he got a glimpse of why he was doing it.
After that he didn't wait for them to send him back to his planes anymore. He just kept doing what they told him and learned the fine difference between black and special ops.
He was sure his wife noticed the slight change when his dream faded away more and more, but she didn't ask and he didn't tell.
But when he spent too much time in the shower, she came and went down on him right there in the shower stall, just to get him out of it. And he still didn't come clean.
Because of a mission he missed the birth of his first son. He couldn't believe the love he felt when he had held him in his arms for the very first time. The little one changed a lot in him, but not enough.
He left again and came home again. For a few years it went on like that. He didn't like the leaving but he loved the home-coming.
And it got so much worse. His son played with one of his tools. He hated himself for thinking of them as tools. They were deadly weapons but to him they were tools.
His son had died and he with him. His wife didn't want to be married to a dead body, but still she didn't leave.
He left though. First he left the Air Force. And bit by bit everything else.
And then they knocked at his door again
And he agreed for all the wrong reasons, and for one right one; he was good at it.
He was good at being a soldier, at the aiming, shooting and killing, at the blowing up and everything else they asked of him.
They knocked again and he had figured it out.