No title (Part I)

He's young, between the ages of 17 and 22. A-political by nature, he hasn't reached the age where politics mean anything to him. He's a high school graduate, and may have spent a couple of semesters in college. He worked as a grocery clerk in high school, played varsity football and basketball, but found himself on the fringe of the "football hero" mentality employed by many teenage kids. He always found it kind of strange that students would idolize the speedy halfback, especially when many of them knew that same football player was rude and arrogant most of the time, due in no small measure to the age and status bequeathed upon these star athletes. Subsequently, our guy found himself friends with both sides of the student body. In no way was he a loner, but he wasn't a follower either. His grades were not as reflective of his intelligence as he would like, but they weren't bad. His stint in college was marked by periods of indecision and boredom. He needed something in his life that his current surroundings couldn't provide.

So he took a chance.

The Drill Sergeants - much ballyhooed and reviled - were to his liking. He thought the games they played were perfect for what they were trying to accomplish, which was to shape young men and into citizen soldiers; people willing to work, fight, and survive under the toughest of circumstances in the never-ending quest to preserve and protect the country and its residents. He didn't differentiate between fighting on another soil and fighting on his own soil - that was an argument better left to those who've never fought at all. In his heart he knew where he was headed and what his charge would be, and for the first time in his life, he knew he stood apart from others. He heard them on the T.V., saw them condemning everything on the talk shows. He often thought privately about the fact that those who criticize rarely stand up and fight themselves, and history had proven this time and again to be true. They preach about Constitutional Rights - and their claim to them - while others like our young man are the ones who actually do the dirty work to maintain them. It has always been this way, and there is nothing on the horizon indicating that will ever change.

Knowingly, our young man trudges on, finding himself in the most God forsaken hell-hole of a country he or anyone of his comrades have ever seen. Perhaps it is in the Middle East, perhaps the Near East. In any case, the task is clear. Pay attention, learn as much as you can - as fast as you can - and stick close to the man next to you. Goddamit it's cold, he thinks as he hunkers down in a makeshift bunker high in the mountains. What the hell is the name of these mountains anyways? A needle in a haystack doesn't come close to describing what he and his unit are trying to do. On the thousandth mission of the thousandth day, they once again patrol the hills looking for the tall man with the cane and the entourage close at hand. Our guy has been told the unit has come close in the past - agonizingly close at that - but as hard as they've brought the hammer down, they still haven't been able to ring the bell. Maybe today, he thinks. Maybe it'll be me that takes him down and causes everyone else to go home.

He knows even if he is the one to take him down, no one is going home quite yet. He knows the enemy is here for the long haul, bent upon nearly 2000 years of pent-up frustration and anger, fueled by hatred for all things not of their own, whether that be land, religion, power, or money. The combatants are eager to fight, willing to die, and without a time-table. The side our young man stands on is a cornucopia of differing opinions, most of them against the fighting, but lacking the substance of a practical alternative. His people do not want to die, do not welcome the fight, and in many cases, don't even see the justification of such a battle. Memories are short, he thinks as he hunkers down, attempting to get a little shut-eye. When was the last time I slept comfortably? With a chuckle at that thought, he drifts off.