22 ABY (After the Battle of Yavin)-
The modern galactic history class filed into the room, and took their seats. David Hersh, a veteran of the Clone Wars, and one of the most respected members of the Veterans for the Teaching of the Truth Society, sat in a corner while the young professor introduced him to the class of teenagers. Tall, skinny and with a shock of closely shorn grey hair, Hersh didn't exactly look the part of a war hero. But, he had in his medal chest an Order of Palpatine with Crossed Sabers, a Republic Cross, for extreme bravery and valor, three Crimson Tears, given to all soldiers who are wounded in the line of duty, and a slew of other, minor, system specific medals and awards.
The class clapped politely, and Hersh stood, slipping a laser pointer out of his pocket. A collective groan issued from the back, and Hersh smiled.
"I think this is one slideshow you kids will like."
He flicked a switch on the remote, and the lights dimmed. The projector hummed, and the image of a young man in grey fatigues clutching a blaster rifle was splashed across the wall. Hersh hooked a thumb at the pic.
"This is me, 44 years ago. I was 18 then, fresh out of basic. I was part of the Auxiliary Corps, formed as part of the Military Creation Act to augment our clonetrooper forces. My division was attached to the 212th Attack Battalion, under the command of Jedi General Obi-Wan Kenobi."
A hand shot up, and Hersh nodded to the girl who had raised it.
"Yeah?"
"Were you there when they called Order 66?"
"No, I wasn't on Utapau. They had called sent all the Members of the Auxiliary Corps to Carida, which is the pinnacle in military training, and had us conducting drills while the clones were killing the Jedi."
The girl bit her lip, and lowered her hand. "So then, you didn't kill any Jedi?"
Hersh chuckled. "No, they had us all on that one planet. I'm pretty sure it was because they knew we wouldn't all follow the order to do it, and that they would end up having to kill most of us as well. Now, killing Jedi en masse is hard, but killing Jedi and millions of well equipped soldiers, now that's damn near impossible, even for a bunch of near-perfect warriors."
A twi-lek male raised his hand, and asked,
"What was your job?"
Hersh pressed a button on the pointer, and motioned to the new picture; the same man, this time dressed in a suit of too-familiar armor and clutching a blaster carbine.
"I was a jump trooper, and my platoon was attached to the 2nd Airborne Company. We wore specialized phase two clone trooper armor, and carried blaster carbines instead of rifles, because they were lighter and easier to maneuver in the air."
A kid in the back with a slacker haircut, raised his hand and said,
"Why are you wearing a dress?"
The kid's friends snickered, and the boy was all smiles as Hersh opened his mouth to answer.
"Excellent question, I don't get asked that very often." Hersh said, a condescending tone in his voice. "They're called kamas, and they were originally used by the Mandalorians themselves, as armor. The Advanced Recon Commandos wore them to protect their crotch and upper thighs, which, if you look at the pic, are two areas the armor doesn't protect so well, in order to increase mobility. We picked them up because they helped protect our legs against backwash from our jetpacks."
"So, you took orders from a bunch of skirt wearing sissies?" the boy said.
Hersh grunted. He didn't take kindly to some snot nosed rich punk insulting his comrades in arms, and it happened more often than people would like to think, which was why he always had a separate file of pics, ones that weren't just him and his grinning buddies hefting their rifles and modeling their armor.
"You seem to have a point there son. In fact, I don't normally do this, but I think I'll show you some real war pictures, because you seem like the kind of guy who can handle that stuff. All the pics I'm about to show were are still captures from my helmet's camera, so this is what I was seeing on the battlefield."
"Damn straight." The kid muttered, and the entire class turned it's attention to the screen as Hersh brought up the new pics. An extreme close up of a super battle droid splashed with red blood filled the screen.
"This was taken during the Outer Rim Sieges. The droid had just killed three men, and if you look closely, you can see a bit of brains from my friend Jimmy's head up there, on its left shoulder." Hersh waved the laser pointer over the small spot of gore so the kids could see. "Those laser cannons were damn nasty at close range, and Jimmy was just in the wrong place at the wrong time."
He advanced the pics, and an image of a clone trooper that had been severed at the waist was displayed. "This was a sergeant from the 501st legion, see the markings right there? Now, I know holos show the guys lying on the ground, clutching their own entrails after they've been split, but with high powered lasers, it just doesn't work like that. This guy's guts were gone before he hit the ground. All you see is the huge red stain where his legs used to be." He clicked the projector once more, and an aid station was sprayed on the wall.
"This was our principal aid station during the Battle of Boz Pity. As you can see, there are men with all kinds of wounds, ranging from simple blaster nicks to much more complicated and deadly ones, like multiple compound fractures and sucking chest wounds. See that guy right there?"
He moved the laser onto a clone who was laying in the dirt, surrounded by three frantic medics in bloody armor. The wounded man was missing an arm, and his gore drenched chestplate had been tossed aside like a dirty bandage. One medic was in the process of cutting his black bodysuit open, while another applied pressure to his open wound. The third was trying to get an IV established in this good arm.
"He died about thirty seconds after this picture was taken. The medics just scanned the chips in his neck, and left him lying there, leaking blood. They had to move the aid station the next day because the dirt had turned to mud. Red mud." He left that last bit open for interpretation.
The entire class shuddered at the idea of the amount of blood need to turn so much dirt into mud.
"Now this next pic-" Hersh began, motioning to an image of a pile of dead civilians.
The teacher stood up, mashed his thumb on the projector's off button, and said loudly, "All right then, I think that's enough of that. Mr. Hersh, why don't you tell us what your life has been like since the war ended?"
Hersh grinned knowingly and nodded. "Sure professor. I didn't quit the army for another 23 years, eventually being forced to retire when the Empire as I knew it was pretty much destroyed at the Battle of Endor. The New Republic's been kind to me though. Since I served as a military advisor for them for a couple years afterwards, I get to count my years in the Imperial Military toward my pension, which leaves me substantially more well off than most Imperial vets. Anyway, I took the job of lecturing you guys cause I wanted you to know what war was like. I didn't want the kids of today thinking it was some game, hell, that's why I signed up, I thought it'd be like a giant lasertag match, except you get paid."
That elicited a few chuckles from the class.
"Anyway, I always get one or two kids like our friend with the ridiculous haircut back there," he waved his hand toward the wiseass kid in the back, "And so I bring those photos with me to every lecture, just to drive in the point that war is not romantic, it's not a game, and it does kill, even though that particular mainly killed clones and droids."
The class nodded slowly. It was like throwing water at a brick wall, Hersh thought to himself. Most of it just runs to the ground, but some of it seeps through the cracks and manages to get inside.
"Also, one more thing. Don't ever let anyone tell you that those clones weren't human. I know, looking back on the war from almost fifty years later, you can afford the luxury of making assumptions. But those men were the best damn fighters I've ever had the pleasure of serving with, and they were more human than some of us in a way." He chuckled as he remembered something.
"It's funny, they were so naïve sometimes. All of the ground pounders were bred in the millions, but the elite ones had to be given a little more leeway, thoughtwise. So, they developed personalities of their own. Like, I remember our captain, Vree, was the nicest guy you'd ever meet. He'd always greet you with a smile, when his helmet was off anyway, and he never said a bad word about anybody. They gave the more elite clones dried sweetfruit as a reward for doing well in training, and Vree had saved his, because that stuff never goes bad. Anyway, I remember he always had this little leather satchel full of sweetfruit, and you could always tell if he liked you, cause he would offer you a piece if he did. Now, you have to remember that the clones were fed these powdered rations that had no taste, no smell, and were precisely measured so they had the exact amount of calories the clone would need to function that day. So, sweetfruit was an extremely rare thing for a clone to possess, especially in such bulk quantities. So to be offered a piece of something that he could never, ever gain back, well, I think that was just one of the greatest honors in the world, greater than all the medals in my case at home." Hersh's eyes watered, and he reached up to wipe them.
The professor stood there, speechless, and then cleared his throat. "Umm, well, class, say thanks to our special guest."
The class broke out into applause, and Hersh nodded gratefully. "Anytime kids, anytime."