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 Lillie Stanley -14, HRM
I killed a man today; I pointed my gun at his head and simply shot him. As I pulled the trigger, in that split second between my action and consequence, his eyes met mine. His eyes were weary and fearful, dead and alive. I didn’t know if I’d saved him from this bleak and hopeless hell we were all living or simply shattered a soul full of hope and promise.
He fell to the ground, without a sound. He lay there bleeding and silently begging for help and forgiveness, but nobody noticed. Everyone went on fighting around him, walking over him. How could this life be forgotten? I sat still, crouching behind my truck, telling myself I was brave and I was doing right, but, inside I felt like a murderer. I shed a single tear. That tear turned into two, and three and many. I was weak.
I thought about this man, lying just feet away from me, his life which I had unrightfully stolen away from him. I wondered if he had a loving family at home, eagerly awaiting his return which would never come. I wondered how much happiness and pain I’d robbed him of. It didn’t matter anymore though, now: he was just one more dead, unidentified soldier who’d soon be forgotten. He was the enemy, I told myself, and he deserved to die. But in the eyes of God wasn’t he just human, like me?
Guns were firing unmercifully from every direction. With every bang I heard, I felt sicker and sicker. I knew I had to go back out there and fight again, kill again. The camps we lived in were despicable and the food we ate was rotten. The training was brutal and nights were cold and lonely, but those things I could take. Killing and watching others be killed, and even dying myself, could I handle that, should I have to? I asked myself this as if I expected an angel to drop into this heinous battlefield to answer me, but that didn’t happen.
I reluctantly wiped the tears from my exhausted eyes, took one last look at the dead soldier, picked up my rifle and slowly stood up. Still shaken, I decided to give it one last shot. I heard many men screaming and guns blasting. The gruesome images burned my already burdened eyes. I held the gun out in front of me and with the last ounce of strength I had left, I walked back into the fight. The first thing that caught my eye was a shiny, silver gun pointed at me. I looked into its soldier's eyes and saw the same fear and regret I’m sure was in mine. I contemplated shooting him - instead, I got shot. And here I lay, on the ground, not far from the man I killed. Today I stood up for my country. Today I was a hero, today I killed a man, today a man killed me. |
