Fanfiction ruined my formatting and I bloody gave up before I tossed the laptop out the window so now you get to see the labour pains it has caused me.
August 8, 1944
Simonas Adomaitis: partisan
1917-1944
Vilnius
Darijus Lukas: partisan
1899-1944
Šiauliai
Marytė -: liaison
1928-1944
Kaunas
Lukas -: civilian
I suppose I should inscribe the names of the fallen in my company from here on out. They will be listed in the margins of the paper with what little information I can recall without endangering their families - if they have any. For some, I have changed their names and hometowns for the sake of honouring their wishes; they deserve as much.
Forgive me, I haven't the heart for proper greetings and introductions - the day has been long and painful.
We are lucky to have only lost three after intercepting a band of Reds who had found sport, like many of their comrades, in thieving away my citizens' possessions and belongings. They had been pillaging a village in Suvalkija for a greater part of the afternoon.
Given to corrupt methods of obtaining what they so desire, the Ivans harass and spit, they beat the elderly and frighten children. Such brutal tactics only ease when a household patron is present to dissuade them with a bucket of homebrew and the important documents that are demanded of him. It is a common activity - a trait of sorts - that the Soviets have adopted. By day they steal, by night they arrest. Many of my children have lost sleep over this nauseating aprehension that now has become a permanent plague.
And so, today we decided to educate this afore-mentioned ragtag group of Reds on the consequences of beating and plundering our elders and our wives, our mothers and our tiny futures.
They opened fire on us inside a rickety man's home, killing said owner in the process. His name was Lukas, if I recall from the half-opened pile of mail that was sitting on the kitchen table with his undisturbed noontime meal.
Such violence was unexpected; most of the thieves we had previously encountered were yellow-bellied and easily scatted off. I had not anticipated such an act as this abrupt and needless crossfire which killed the man we intended to defend. The guilt weighs heavily now on my conscience, for would it have been better for him to lose his furniture or his life?
In addition, little Marytė was only sixteen, and had tagged along with us for a visit into town to collect rations and information from the front. Her midday adventure proved to be of great misfortune.
We won our victory, but it is a loss all the same, amplifying the pounding in my forehead that has festered there for weeks now; I remember it well from '41, but now it has grown into a frequent and daily onset of the constant bloodshed. I wish to record the feeling of death before I become numb to it.
On a brighter note, a few local liaisons have found an amusing solution to the tangled mess that is becoming my hair recently (I haven't got the heart to cut it, see). I look silly, like a young woman, with my hair braided into a bun atop my head. But it's functional, and I think you would quite like it.
Sincerely,
Lietuvos
