I had been serving my lord, Darth Vader, for one year before I realized I was sick of it. By that time though I was to entrenched to escape, to deeply in service to his lordship and the Emperor to be able fling off the restricting white armour and run to the Rebel's aide.
The funny thing was I never actually planned on joining the Imperial Army, but somehow the glamour that seemed to surround it and perhaps more so the fear of what would happen to me if I did not join led me to the Imperial Army. Lord Vader was not a lenient lord or indeed even a fair one. He did what he pleased and even more so, what the Emperor pleased. If you messed up once in the Imperial Army, you had messed up forever and sooner or later you would find yourself suffocating on the end of Vader's most useful tool (after flat out intimidation and evil), the Force. Two of my mates were finished off that way. I had even seen it happen once. I remember one of my Commanding officers lost track of the Rebels and Vader strolled in as easy as you please and soon there was another body lying around, waiting to be disposed of.
You got no benefits either. I imagine if they ever advertised for joining the Imperial Army the ad would go something like this:
Want Safety! Join Vader! Want Death, Resist!
Must Be Fit, Intelligent And Willing To Serve For Life. Benefits Not Included.
Of course if I had seen an ad like that I would have run off and joined the Rebel's.
At least the Rebel's had nice looking ladies. All the Imperial Army had were hostages (which you were not allowed to go near) and holographic images of decently if not completely clothed women which our Commanding officer deemed as unhealthy and locked up in his office. Personally I think he just wanted them for himself.
I actually did not mind because I had my heart set on one particular hostage: Princess Leia.
Unfortunately she was so far above me in rank that I felt as if I was looking up to her through a layer of clouds and I was not allowed to go near her except to guard the entrance to her cell which was how I knew she was there in the first place.
The only interaction we had ever had was when on the way back to her cell after what I assume was a particularily nasty interrogation session, she spat on my visor and said as she was marched past me, "It always amazes me when some people can stand by and do nothing when there is cruelty and thousands of peoples lives at stake." She was shoved into her cell then and I was not even allowed to go rinse my visor off.
My companion snickered at me and asked whether I liked my dames feisty, tough or spirited. I said I liked any sort of dame he didn't. Served him right.
Funny thing was I was not even mad at her for ruining my visor for her words had hit home. What was I doing here? I did not even like Lord Vader. I did not even think the cause I was serving was just (although I don't really think anyone in his regime actually did), for belive it or not I liked the sound of this, Luke Skywalker, the one running the Rebellion.
It was ironic then that the night I was just starting to get around to the idea of starting a revolution inside Lord Vader's own forces Luke Skywalker and his friend Han Solo came along and shot me leaving me fatally wounded as they did the thing I had never had had guts to do: Save Princess Leia.
It had felt very unfair that I had been shot. I would have helped them escape if I had been given half the chance, but then I wondered if they had indeed left me alive, would I have had the guts to turn my back on the Empire and Lord Vader or would I have folded like sand and turned them both in.
Perhaps then they had been right to shoot me. Perhaps they knew if I had not yet realized it, once a white helmet, always a white helmet. If they thought that then they would have been right.