Disclaimer: This is the revised introduction page. Some of the chapters of this story had only some minor tweaks while retaining their titles; the rest is a product of the revamp I made. Hope you like them. If anybody gives a damn why I didn't finish this fic; simply because that I had a lot things to worry about; like college.

Note: The characters and events portrayed here (which by the way are MINE!) are entirely fictitious. Well, actually I based them on real peoples and real events and I just changed them. Any similarity of character, background and/or name is coincidental and unintentional.

INTRODUCTION

I was a soldier…

Even if just once, still I used to be one. Something that people today would be proud to say to the rest of the world. Especially during my time. Yes. I was proud. And I still am. Proud to have been the carrier of everyone's hopes and prayers. Into battlefields I marched on with my compatriots and friends; even though I knew I was going to fight a hated enemy of my country and not of myself. It was to serve my country; a call not everyone would take. There was no reason for me not to be proud of that.

Yes, I am a soldier. A symbol of strength, ferocity and valiancy. Though in the history books my name will never be mentioned, there is one place where I, like the others, was left in pages. It was in our hearts where our memories were open 24/7 for us to cherish. In that way, we cherish each other. In that way, we cherish what we fought for during the hell of 1944.

What did we fight for anyway?

We signed up and joined in a distant struggle so that we can make our families proud. We volunteered ourselves so as we can make our country proud. Proud. But was it for pride that we risked our youths for? Were we just looking for a change in our lives so that we can hope to be honoured forever by the generations ahead? That we can be models for the future peoples?

Well yes.

It was the youthful idealism that the young men of the Allied Expeditionary Forces fuelled us for it. For we believed that we can make a difference. We believed that our brothers who have fallen at Pearl Harbour must be avenged. We believed in justice. And it was the only thing that we saw that was lacking in the bloody months of 1944. Justice. The fairness which people should be treated.

But if you ask me; once we all stepped down from that ramp slowly lowering down in the beaches, once we all took that jump a thousand miles right up from the sky, once we opened the hatches to see or take a glimpse of the outside, it was all different.

Many of us realized that it was too late. They never thought that they signed up for this. They never thought that they skipped college for what they were forced to face. They weren't prepared to face it.

Reality.

And what's to be scared of in reality you ask? Simply that a soldier is killed, shot at, burned, bombed, executed. A soldier must kill or be killed. That's the truth about the role model that we were hoping to be honoured for. That was the reality for the kind of people we want our families and our country to be proud of.

But like I said, it was too late. Nowhere to go but forward and either side. No way to turn back. A lot of young men died without knowing about the choices that were presented upon them.

Yet, a lot of us had chosen to hold on. When people came dying around us, still we hold on. When bullets zip past our heads and limbs, still we hold on. When bomb blasts ring our ears, still we hold on. But hold on what?

Of course: to each other.

I heard one man said that it is hard to explain about the human will to survive; especially if he's surrounded by family. I can concur to that. Yes. It was my fate to die in World War 2. It was also their destiny to die like many of the people who fought side by side with them. And yet, here I am.

Come to think of it, this is the reason why we were all left in pages. We survived. We fought to the death and yet we came home to tell the tale about it. We lived through the harsh reality of a soldier's life and yet we found ourselves having the lives of senators, writers, fathers, husbands.

But all of that is impossible without each other. No. We could have all perished if we didn't hold on. For we didn't care if they were strangers. We didn't care of they were Irish, Jews or Poles. What we care about is that they are our comrades. People who would never let us down. People who we should never let down.

They were soldiers…

Call them heroes or veterans; but I'd rather call them 'friends'. Because these were the men whom I shared 2 years of my life with. These were the men who were at my side until the end. These were the men whom I grown to call my family. Not a family I like to raise. But a family I like to raise hell with.

These were the men of the 101st Airborne…

My name is Robert Lee Turner, and with them, I was there…