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| The War | Started by: FakeMan on Jun 12, '09 20:53 |
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'And when he gets to heaven, To St. Peter he will tell: "One more soldier reporting for duty, sir, I've served my time in hell."' Prologue to War Fear is an awful thing. It rises up at you like a beast in the dark. It racks you from head to toe with every beat of your petrified heart. It rumbles over you and engulfs you like a breaker. It can cause some men to stand stock still and shiver and whimper like a frightened dog, or force some men into acts of courage, acts of compassion, or acts of brutality. It is the most base of human instincts. It tells you to run away, to find somewhere safe. Why do we confront it? Simply for one reason: we must. The Attack It held a purpose. A purpose invented or a purpose real, it mattered not in the light of our greed, our lust for blood. Ungainly and awkward, the ship of war bobbled its way through the chaos of the night like a foal born into a firestorm. Its flat bottom held little root in the meandering swell, anticipating the arrival of the opposition's heavy guns with all the confidence of an anxiety dream. In the war room we stood, the men who had been entrusted into this floating block for the journey to shore. For many of us, it would be our final journey. We hunched, crowded together like ninepins, soaked to the skin despite the lack of rain. Some were praying, others quietly standing alone, others literally pissing their pants. The first barrage, the first round of shots, came screaming in like a full stop in the middle of a sentence, rudely tearing limb from limb, charring flesh and shattering bone. Even if you survived first impact, the carnage and anguish which surrounded you meant no bookkeeper would give you odds. So you kept your head down amid the chaos, you ignored your friend's screams. You do your job, you're here for a purpose, not now, Dear God don't let luck desert us. Thirty seconds now, second round approaching. Get locals. Pick targets. The whistling stinging the ears, the light blinding the eyes. Twenty. Ten. Five. I'm not a religious man... keep me safe... And then you were there, you were upside down. Wet, cold, and your entire world blown apart. Every little lie that you had constructed for yourself, every little myth was blown away by the incomprehensible realisation that at any moment you could be torn apart by any multitude of objects, taken out by one who was an enemy or one who was a friend, you weren't too clear on the distinction anymore. Bullets whistling through the air could silently kill you, and you cant see it coming. You can't judge it. That's the scary part about this situation. Nothing you can do will ensure your safety. It's this realisation of the impotence of your fear that drives you forward. Now you become clear. You aren't a man any more, you're a machine, built to survive. You run for cover, you act, you don't think. You kill. In between the blood and the flying dirt and the bullets you lose yourself. After the shouting and the orders and the bravado of it all, you will still do your best. You might not do your best because you believe in what you are fighting for, but because you simply must. Do or die. Life or death. Grab yourself by the balls Johnny, and wrench yourself forward, because if ya don't, you're gonna die. I'm running now, across the street and towards their place, hearing their guns still spewing their orange flames of hatred and rattling the insides of you. Final attack, this is it, it's us or them, take him out, take him out. A quick second later and a deft flick of the hand and the place is useless. Follow it up though, check for anyone left inside. There! Some ones moving! Kill him! You're not so fuckin' great now are ya? Stupid fuck. Who gives a shit? He's a nothing. He's no good. I'm better. It's a good thing this bastards dead. Move on, next up. React. Continue. Kill, check, hide, repeat. Aftermath It only lasts a moment. It's like jumping off a pier. Exhilaration followed by shock and numbness as the realisation hits you, we've won, we've won. Taking another mans life is like that, but only in retrospect. In the heat of battle it flies by, you don't even notice it. But you get that feeling still. The feeling no one can avoid. A dying man's gaze landing on you, the pain in his eyes. It doesn't make you feel like a man. You feel like a coward. You've taken something you didn't give, it wasn't yours. It's not combat, its slaughter. Then you leaders clap each other on the back and congratulate each other, but take their time to remember the lads that didn't make it. War isn't honourable. It's brutal. It reduces us to Gladiators fighting for our glorious leaders. Entertain and you're a hero. Fail, a coward. We turn to animals. We forget ourselves? Is there another means to the end? I don't know. Are we pawns are heroes? Victor or Slaughterer? One things for sure: we only do it because we have to. We are not animals anymore, and often the job of the leader is not to lead, but to convince us that we have to. |
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| I'll remember this for when I later serve under Eisenhower. | |
| Reply by: Patrick_Bateman at Jun 12, '09 21:32 | |
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| nice plagarism | |
| Reply by: Alessia- at Jun 12, '09 22:34 | |
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Oh, nice. It's a shame I don't care. |
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| Reply by: SalvatoreMaranzano at Jun 12, '09 22:48 | |
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