Title:

The Dogfighter

Summary:

She was the slickest ace fighter he'd ever seen. She'd shot down so many Nazis it was hard to count. She'd waited for her chance to go to Japan, but it never came. She just kept shooting down Nazis.

When she was shot down, she had left a small arsenal of letters for a single man she'd fought with during the Battle of the Bulge.

Letter #4

To: Alfred F. Jones of the 101st Air Force

From: Gnocchi Borrelli of the 17th Air Force

Al,

Did it ever occur to you, or anyone else, that we've only been at war for three years, when Europe, Canada, and France (I'm rethinking writting this one down) have been at war for over five? It bothers me. Maybe it bothers you too, but I can't help but wonder how this all started in the first place.

I think it was Versailles.

It had to be.

Where else could all this have started?

I've been thinking a lot lately.

Does that bother you?

It certainly bothers me.

Al, all of this nonsense, Germany, Hitler, Dictators in general; they all seem to be ruling our thoughts right now.

You know, I met the sweetest, most wonderful German man the other day while I was giving out orders to the German POW's. He had brown hair, and green eyes, and the loveliest laugh you'd ever hear.

He kinda reminded me of you-the only difference was, you actually look like a German.

Imagine that, huh?

Gnocchi told him the other day that if people were classified to a nationality by the way they looked, then she was Spanish. She was very offended at how people cared about if they looked like they were from a certain country, or religion.

She had said:

"I don't care if you're purple, green, or blue! If you've got a brain and a birth certificate, then you're American!"

He, and all the other boys had laughed at this statement, but she snorted, looking very distressed about the topic.

"I'm being serious!" She had exclaimed loudly. "Gui!" The man sitting next to Alfred snapped his head to face Gnocchi as she tugged at her short hair. "Are you Mexican?"

The ebony haired man's face turned red at the statement as he shot up from the ground snarling,"Gnocchi, you bastard that's one sick joke, you know!"

The woman shrugged as a smirk of approval tugged at her lips. "Oh, so it's not alright for you to get angry at me for calling you Mexican when you're Italian, but it's alright to call an Austrian a German cause they look the same?"

All the men feel silent, and looked at their feet. Everyone besides Alfred.

"Gnocchi, why the hell do you care so much?" He asked, quite unamused with his best pal's recent spit-fire attitude.

Her green eyes narrowed on his blue ones, and Alfred felt a shiver go through his whole body as she stared at him. Gnocchi laced her fingers together, and rested her forearms on her muscled thighs, and she puffed a short burst of air from her mouth.

"Your all idiots. You realize that's why we're fighting, right? The Germans said that the Czechs and the Poles were German too, so they invaded their country. Now, they're not wrong, but, the Czechs and the Poles didn't want that. The U.S. is fighting cause Japan's a douche and wanted to knock us out for good. Germany doesn't like us because we're "capitalist pigs". Same with the Soviet Union."

She paused her oration to look at the sky, saying:

" Think about it- if we all didn't care about how we look; if vanity, pride, and prejudice didn't exist, do you really think we would have to be fighting right now?"

Her eyes drifted back onto Earth for a second, and she looked at each of the men there earnestly.

"Think about it, would ya?"

Gnocchi had been walking through a battlefield the next day with her bible and rosary, saying the Lord's Prayer, and muttering decades of the rosary. Alfred accompanied her, as he always did, and found that she skipped over no one.

If they came across a blown up Sherman, she would say five Lord's Prayer, if she came across a Tiger, she would do the same.

To her, it didn't matter if they were American, British, French, Canada, or German; they were all human to her, and that's all she need to know.

Gnocchi would mutter once over so often-

"Bless your souls, each and every one of you poor boys. You probably had gals at home waiting. Family, friend. Look... Look at what we've all done to you..."

Then, she would go quiet, her mouth still, as if she were sending a silent plea up to the Lord Himself, and she would make her way back to base camp. By the time she got back, it was as if the hadn't seen the mutilated corpses that were just a half-miles walk outside camp.

Alfred knew why-

She never let what she saw dim her believe in God. She prayed every night, morning, before going out on missions, before she did anything, she was praying. Then again, so was everyone else. Even if they didn't like to admit it, non of them would be where they were if they hadn't prayer to someone up there at least once while they were running in a blurry haze of machine gun bullets. They all knew that if you hadn't ever prayed before coming, you were damn sure to start before you left, or you didn't leave at all.

The only protection you had on the battle field was yourself, your friends, and whatever divine sort of mercy the Lord was willing to give you.

Alfred knew that.

So, he started praying with Gnocchi, even though he knew he wasn't gonna die in this war... He felt it, and it gave him an ounce, merely an ounce, of courage to keep going. It was ease to keep going actually-

It just wasn't his time yet, after all.

This man had a wife, and four kids, Al. He told me he had married a beautiful woman from Milan, and that their children didn't look German at all, but since he was in the military, the Nazis wouldn't -couldn't- touch his family.

He told me that it was better for him to die a Nazi that for his family to die on the gallows.

Al, Al, Al, Al, do you understand that this man is dead now?

Do you understand that this is life now?

That all I can possibly do for that man now if pray, pray, and pray some more for his soul not to be damned to hell like mine and everyone else fighting here? -And then, I have to go out and kill every German that might kill me, but who might also have a family waiting?

No one else seems to get that around here, so I have to put my faith in the intelligent head of yours and trust that you get what I'm saying.

If you don't, I don't know who will.

Signing off,

Gnocchi Borrelli