A/N – I want to make it very clear that I am flying ass-first into this ficlet. I have never served in the military, have only a passing knowledge of the conflict I'm writing about, and I'm not even sure if the timeline coincides with Animorphs canon appropriately. That said, I'm going to post it anyway…try to be lenient with me for any errors in this one. Enjoy!

#62 – Easy

The Following Is Property of the United States Army

Top Secret Clearance Required

Transcription of a recorded audio file found in the personal belongings of the late SSG Dobson

My name is Staff Sergeant William Dobson. One of the first unofficial lessons you learn in Uncle Sam's Army is simple – if something seems too good to be true, it is. If something seems easy or free, it's neither.

I forgot my lesson, and it ruined countless lives.

That's not part of this story. That story, the one about my time as a controller in the military, is available on bookstore shelves. It's called The Fight For Control. Go buy a copy.

This story here is more of a…personal confession. It's about how I let my own weakness get me infested. It started innocently enough, the way I imagine most clusterfu…um, messy situations, do.

It was my second week in Kosovo. Me and the rest of my battalion were there in a "peacekeeping capacity." It became clear to me after a short while that that meant we were there to kill one group of psychos before they could kill the other group of psychos.

Whatever. I was in the army. I pointed my boots where I was told, I pointed my rifle where I was told, and I pulled the trigger on who I was told. That's what they paid me for. My motto was to leave the politics to the politicians.

My company had only had our boots on the ground in Kosovo for sixteen days, but we'd already had our first taste of fighting with the locals. We were out on patrol and got word that some bad guys were gearing up to firebomb a hospital. We sniffed 'em out, made contact, and dug in against them. Two of my guys took hits, but all forty-two of their guys took hits. Bad hits. The fatal kind. We wiped them off the map.

The details of that fight aren't really important. I'm forgetting them anyway. But I remember very well what happened to put me in the pocket of an organization called The Sharing.

I was visiting one of my guys who'd been hit in the hospital. Yolo. I forget the kid's real name now, but after that first skirmish, we all called him Yolo. I even remember why – the badass volunteered to draw fire away from the main group by sprinting across fifty yards of open ground by himself. He grinned while he did it, knocking on his own helmet and screaming, "You only live once, mother (edited)!" as he took heavy fire. Even after he took lead in the leg, he was laughing and shooting as he was being hauled to cover.

Most people call that crazy. In our world, we called it badass.

Anyway, the first thing Yolo did when I went to see him was ask if I could get him out of the hospital and put on light duty. Technically, I could do that, but I asked him why. Told him to relax for a couple of weeks, eat some free ice cream, flirt with the nurses. He gave me this look like I was crazy and said, "No way, Sarge. I'll miss the party!"

He went on to tell me that one of the guys in our unit was a member of this group back home called The Sharing. The Sharing knew our unit was in the shi…um, in Kosovo. They put several thousand dollars in that particular member's bank account and told him to throw a bash for the grunts. Back then, I thought they were just doing it as a thank you.

Now I know exactly why they did it.

See, to attend these bashes – because they put on several awesome parties for the troops while we were over there – you had to sign this pledge. It seemed easy enough – all you had to do to get into these parties was promise to attend one of their meetings when you got back home to Cali. Trust me, Kosovo was one boring ass place when people weren't shooting at you. The chance to get away, drink some free hooch, eat good barbecue instead of mess hall chow, even meet some local ladies? Guys would have sold their soul for it, and here all they wanted was an hour of your time when you got back home. Hell, most of the guys probably would have gone to a meeting just to say thanks when they got home, even without the pledge.

The Sharing has been pretty well documented, now that the Yeerks have been kicked off of our planet. I don't need to tell you how they operated. It sucks to talk about, because looking back on it, they fooled me so easily. I'm embarrassed of myself. I'm ashamed. I'm guilty.

I didn't just get myself infested – I could live with that. My guys looked up to me. Even before the slugs took me, I went around praising The Sharing, talking about how great they were for keeping morale up a half a world away, blah blah blah. I got countless troops interested. I don't know how many. Lots.

I do have an exact figure on how many guys I was directly responsible for recruiting and infesting. My shrink says I wasn't responsible at all, that it was the slug in my head who did all that evil. Sure, that's true. But I let that evil in. I was more than willing to be used. So the sixty-six guys who were infested because of me…yeah, that's on me as much as the Yeerk who used me.

Forty-three of those guys are now dead. Sixteen of them have been section 8'd. Of those sixteen, nine have committed suicide. One went crazy and beat his girlfriend to death. Four of the sixteen are drug addicts. I don't have a whole lot of hope for the remaining seven.

Sixty-six lives I ruined, all because I wanted to party. Sixty-seven, really, because you have to count the poor girlfriend.

Sixty-seven lives, because I was weak when I should have been strong.

Sixty-seven lives, because I was gullible and stupid.

*On the recording, the sound of an army-issue .45 caliber pistol being cocked*

Saying sorry is pointless. Maybe this tape and what I'm about to do will show how sorry I am. Buy my book – all profits go to a charity that helps provide for families of dead soldiers.

It's not enough. But it's all I can do. I love you mom and Allie. Goodbye.

*On the recording, the sound of a single pistol shot, followed by silence*