There is no better word to explain a war then 'survive.'
They tell you you fight for glory, at first.
That wears thin the first week.
Then, when your team leader is killed, they tell you, 'you fight for your honor'
You don't tell them that in fighting this war you have already given up half of that honor.
After a month they have the gall to tell you you're fighting for the riches that await you.
Why do they save that for this far into battle? Who do they think you are?
So they change tacts a month later. You're fighting for your families.
Some of us don't have families, and your friends are way to strong to have something like this kill them. The words they say fall short of heartening.
The ones which have families begin fighting recklessly. The death count rises. They tell us this is good. We should feel happy they died for our country.
Our country? What good does death and blood do our country?
Those that can heal can't do enough. You need rienforcements. But there are none; you can only watch one person you are closest to fall.
Those that remain request rienforcements. We are told we are the rienforcements.
You sit with someone who was more then just a comrade, still trying to get that much blood back in them. So much blood.
They yell for you to move. The war is ending. The dead must be counted.
After all this talk of how we will be rewarded and remembered, of the grand deed we did.
In the end, those of us that did not survive are just a number, only later a name on a stone.
You will spend years wondering what you were waiting for. You will sink deeper and deeper into sake and gin, gambling.
The way you used to gamble your life.
It will hit you as you sit in your office, ruler of the land you fought to protect.
You will not know one of your two friends has died, you are aware of the others death.
You will realize that you fought to survive.
What you will not realize is that you survived too well.
You are now the sole surviver.