Nameless Soldiers
Soldier's Companion
We live in a time of nameless soldiers, taken to the battlefields like machines that can just be rebuilt and replaced, soldiers that care nothing of sentiment.
I shiver inside my sweater. It's black. I never wear black, the color of mourning. He holds me tightly, feeling that I am cold, only I'm just frightened for those who destroyed my home.
Life has always been valuable to me, but none so more as after he showed me just how easy it was to lose. Following that, just how little life means when there is no person inside the shell. It is better to have men who fight with conviction than men who fight because other men are fighting. That's my belief.
Long ago I looked into his eyes and saw a boy, trapped inside the recesses of his own mind, being frightened to show himself because he's not perfect. No one is perfect.
I remember before I knew him, and how different I was. I would never have been bold enough to tell him to kill someone. I would never have been brave enough to make passionate speeches about my beliefs.
I would never have been brave enough to make passionate love the way I do with him.
My strength gone, he gathers me in his strong arms and takes me inside the camp to rest. He brings me tea, food, his eyes so much warmer and very concerned. I assure him I'll be okay, but his worry is still there. He is always my bedside companion now that he is needed nowhere else. To tell the truth, he makes me feel safe. Without him with me in the night I would feel so lonely, so vulnerable. I can't imagine how I ever did it without him now.
They are all my friends, and I would trust any of them with my life without a thought. That's why they're here now, when they could be other places, enjoying themselves. I know they will be here to help me rebuild the shattered kingdom, because they care.
The world is at peace, but I know it won't last. The human race has too many reasons to fight to be as peaceful as they would like to be. They're not really reasons, as we like to think, but excuses. There is no reason why we can't have a perfect peace— except for the limiting factor, us. Fear is the emotion from which all other emotions developed. The closest offshoot is anger. Most of us, when we don't understand or don't know what's going on, are afraid. Then we get mad. The hard part is finding a release for that anger that won't put others in danger. There can never be an end to violence— it's too much of an instinct. If we let go of it, we would lose part of what it is to be human. There can be battles without war. That should be the goal, since it is easier to see.
It may sound cruel, but violence is only a form of population control. While we can master disease, animals and ill nutrition, we can never master ourselves. We can never outdo ourselves. There is only one of us.
Out there in the fields are nameless soldiers left to be forever. I don't know how many skeletons are buried in my lawn, further than the graveyard. There are so many with headstones I don't want to think about all that don't have one.