Chapter 32
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I'm not sure who it was that was quoted as saying "War is Hell." I think it was either Grant or Sherman. Whoever it was, if anything, he was sugar coating it. The war had been bad enough so far, the constant fear of air raids, the orphaned children. countless people becoming displaced. But at least we had all been united in our common hatred of the enemy. Noone much cared that I was jewish. I had lived my whole life in America, had rarely attended temple services, couldn't even remember who the prime minister of Israel was. My drill sergeant called me certain words I'd rather not repeat, but he insulted everyone's ethnicity. But then, after Israel signed their non-aggression pact with the aliens, suddenly my loyalty was suspect. People that I thought were my friends, like Joker, avoided talking to me. Colonel Sadler had me and the other jewish soldiers learn farm work. It made sense to have more soldiers learn this, but we got the feeling that he no longer trusted us with guns. We were also assigned more night shifts, less likely to be given leave for any reason. I feared for my mother and Willow. She wrote that things were fine, but I assumed she was trying to protect me. Hopefully her neighbors knew that her daughter was fighting for their country.
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The presidential election was coming up. The voting age used to be 18. But now, it was lowered to 16 for soldiers and veterans. If you were old enough to fight for your country you were old enough to vote for the leaders who ran the war. President Duric was running for a second term, his main opponent was the hardliner Walker. Walker said that Duric was too weak for war, specifically how he'd tried to negotiate peace with the aliens. He also promised to legalize abortion, private gun ownership, and tobacco. The laws that prohibited these things had largely been ignored since the beginning of the war. He promised to do whatever it took to win the war, and that appealed to many of us. Campaigning was difficult, hard to campaign in states where the enemy occupied a fair amount of territory. Duric and Walker both campaigned over the internet, could reach their supporters and the undecideds fairly easily. Even before September Walker seemed more popular on the farm. Now, a lot of people seemed to think that only jews would vote for Duric. In truth, I was leaning towards voting for Walker, until he started making anti-semetic comments. He'd always say how "I know not every jew is a traitor, some of my best friends are jews." But he'd also say that we were far more likely to betray this country. I ended up voting for Duric, not that it helped. Walker won in a landslide. There was no fraud, no intimidation that I saw, it was just a climate of fear.
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Shortly after the election it got colder. Now me and the other jewish soldiers were given more guard duty, at night. And sometimes our coats were stolen before these cold shifts. Colonel Sadler was usually able to get our coats back, but it was more about intimidation than anything else. I was almost halfway done my tour of duty. I wanted to just complete this tour and go home, assuming it was still standing. But by the end of November I learned I was being reassigned. Lieutenant-colonel Hamilton would be my new C.O. All of the jews on the farm were being transferred to Hamilton's unit in Albany. Albany was facing heavy attacks, the aliens had carper-bombed a large portion of the city. Hamilton was leading a unit to try and retake the city, or at least to kill some aliens. I had known Sadler to be a good officer, tried to keep as many of us alive as possible. Hamilton on the other hand, we used to say that he got his rank as a birthday present. Turns out we weren't far off. His friends had arranged the promotion, but he needed a certain number of days in combat in order to be promoted as a full colonel and retire. And it quickly became clear he really looked down on jews like me. He had little problem with sending us to our deaths in order for himself to retire as a ful colonel. And this was the man in charge of my safety.