August 17, 1944
"We will liberate Paris, if it's the last goddamn thing we do."
"Sir, yes, sir!"
"We will fuck these Nazis straight to Hell."
"Sir, yes, sir!"
"We will show the world why America should be feared. Can I get a fucking hoo-ah, gentlemen?"
"Hoo-ah, Sergeant!"
"I can't hear you!"
"HOO-AH, SERGEANT!"
These things I hear. They're meaningless. Propaganda, similar to the Nazis, yet different. But propaganda all the same. I can't stand it. War is not a game, it's not a joke; this is a lesson one has to learn through experience. And I have learned through experience. I've seen beautiful earth pocked marked with craters. Friends, men that have kept me alive through sheer torture have been decapitated, fucking pulled apart, right before my eyes. I've been stationed in Germany, France, Russia. Different, yet the same. Two things remain constant. The holes in the earth and the dead. The dead litter every one of them, every single one.
This is not how I was told war would be. I imagine it's not how anyone thought it'd be. Glorious, life-affirming, idealistic. What a joke. When I look back at who I was before I enlisted, it's like reading a boring story about someone you've never met. Useless. Unrelatable. Irrelevant.
War changes men. That's what they don't tell you. I am not who I once was, never again will I be. I'm 20 years old and for the last two years, I haven't slept soundly once, haven't had a meal that wasn't just the mechanical motion of consuming food for energy. I can't be like Sergeant Winchester. I can't use humor to get through this. It seems insulting, but men cope how they will. Who am I to judge?
Cas snaps his journal shut as Sergeant Winchester strides over.
"Private Novac. The fuck are you doing, writing in a journal? You writing home?"
Talking to Sergeant Winchester is the last thing Cas wants to do at the moment, but he doesn't have much of a choice.
"No, sir, just writing to write, sir."
He stares at him deadpan, dragging on a cigarette.
"Doesn't make much goddamn sense, but all right. Walk with me."
Cas pushes himself off the ground, straightens his uniform, and lights a cigarette. He didn't always smoke. Despite what most people believe, he finds it to be common sense that inhaling smoke is unhealthy. But war changes men, and cigarettes help to calm the nerves. To some extent.
"Cas, can I be honest with you?" Sergeant Winchester asks, tipping his hat to a Major passing by.
"Of course, sir. I'd appreciate it if you were, sir."
The clouds above Paris blanket the sky, casting a gray gloom on the camp. Cas likes the weather, finds it comforting. Boston autumns were like this; perpetually overcast; a wind that chills to the bone; it feels like home, or the closest thing to.
"You can drop the 'sir' shit, Private. Save that for higher ups." Sergeant Winchester flicks his cigarette away. "I don't know how the hell we're going to save these Frenchmen. Patton's good, but I don't think he's this good. I think we're crawling into our death beds, tucking ourselves in."
Cas remains silent, the words sinking in.
"Got anything to say there, Cas?"
"Well, Sergeant, I-"
"How many times do I have to save your fucking life for you to call me Dean? I hate the formalities. It's like you're a sheep, baa-ing for me. I have a name, and it isn't Sergeant. Save that shit for the higher ups, son."
His harsh words serve only to silence Cas further. How does someone respond to something like that?
"Speak now, or forever hold your peace."
"Well, Sergea—" he starts. "Dean. I think all we can do is keep our guns loaded, our eyes peeled, and try our best to survive. It seems to have worked so far."
Dean looks away and when he looks back, his eyes are granite stones, rock hard. He's looking at Cas, but not really. The memories of combat, of friends and family lost dance across his face almost visibly. He's been here since the beginning, a lot longer than Cas, and he's seen far worse. His brother—Sam? Cas can't seem to remember his name—was killed by a sniper's bullet less than a month ago. Dean was there when it happened, not five feet away. Cas wasn't there, but he hears enough from other soldiers. It took four men to stop him from running out into the line of fire. They say Dean didn't stop screaming for an hour, then didn't speak for three weeks. He ate a bare minimum, refused to wash his uniform, coated in his brother's blood. He did nothing but smoke cigarettes, clean his rifle, and enter combat, all in silence.
"Nothing's worked, Cas," Dean says. "We've just been lucky. Dumb luck. That's what keeps us alive, and sooner or later, it runs out. Then we die. If you think it's any different, I don't know what the fuck to do with you, I really don't."
Dean looks at Cas a moment longer, as if about to say something, then turns on his heels and storms off. Light droplets of rain begin to fall, fading into a torrential storm. Cas has never been superstitious, but it's difficult not to see this as a foreboding sign.
Cas slips in journal into his jacket, starts for his tent, thinking again of home. But he's not done here.
He has a long way to go before he's home.