Post by Darko on Jul 19, 2015 19:00:05 GMT
Here are the three pieces. Interestingly, a common theme has arisen - war crimes. None of the writers coordinated that, it just happened on its own which is fascinating. Anyway, keep in mind these were written in only one hour and fifteen minutes. Judge them on overall quality. The poll closes in 4 hours. I will reveal who wrote each piece afterwards. They will be awarded 1st, 2nd and 3rd accordingly. PLEASE comment below which one you voted for and why, the writers' will no doubt appreciate feedback.
1) The Ends Justify The Means
I walked down the hall slowly, chains clinking with every step. The armed guard they’d given me was poor conversation. They’d taken everything I’d had to be proud of. My medals? Gone. My insignia? Gone. My beloved peaked cap, my sash, all gone.
Instead I wore the uniform of a common soldier. No longer “General Hawking,” I was now just “Edward Hawking” and I was lower than the lowliest private in their army. There is no scum like a defeated foe.
I’d say the courtroom was silent, if I wanted to be dramatic, but you know real life isn’t like that. There was a buzz of noise that grew much louder when the bailiff pushed open the double doors and I stepped inside, my face a blank mask.
Reporters and westerling officers alike crowded into the courtroom. The flashes of cameras, the snaps of shutters, the scribbling of pens and of course the murmur of voices all built into one, huge, judgmental noise.
I was led to my seat in front of this medal-bedecked western general, who glanced at me, and then waved the bailiff over. They exchanged words. I couldn’t hear them, but I knew the gist of it.
“Is this the man?” the general was no doubt asking.
“The bailiff would reply “Yes sir”
“Are you quite sure? I expected him to be more intimidating.” The general would say.
The bailiff, like the dumb but loyal hound he is would only answer “Yes he is sir.”
As I formulated that conversation in my head, watching their lips move, I noticed with some satisfaction that they appeared to be saying those exact words. The bailiff turned around and left, and the General held his hand up, appealing for calm.
When the room had quieted down, the General stood and spoke.
“This Court Martial is now in session.” He sat down, a little slower than he’d stood. “Will the first witness please come to the stand?”
Like everyone else, I turned my head, and watched the first witness get up. Thomas. Loyal Thomas. He wore his East Army military uniform still, with all his medals and insignias attached, and didn’t even look at me as he passed me and entered the witness stand. He ignored my blame-filled stare and nodded at the judge. I couldn’t blame him. It was him or me, and I had no one above me to implicate but people who’d already been hung. Or they’d eaten a gun when we’d lost the war.
“Captain Thomas Darius, fifteenth light tank division, East Army, Reylid Republic.” announced the herald, and the stenographer jotted this information down.
“You say,” began the judge, “That you heard Colonel Hawking give the order to shoot women and civilians?”
“No sir,” said Thomas, “But I he approved the order from General Veers sir.” I turned my eyes away.
Thomas had been my adjutant. One of my better officers I thought. I might have called him a friend.
“On the morning of Mitmendaag, Rain’s Height, our division was ordered to cross the White Scarp and enter the town of Heathsford. Where a substantial group of western partisans had taken refuge. After a half hour artillery bombardment, we moved into the town…”
I remember entering the town after it had been taken. It was a small town. No more than ten thousand people. We had twenty thousand men in our division alone. The battle probably took half an hour at most.
I rolled into town on my cruiser and surveyed the damage. It was substantial, I’ll admit. There were bodies in the wreckage, and smoke tumbled out of a few blasted-out buildings. The tanks and infantrymen had all the town’s residents gathered in the square with their hands on their heads. The men were confiscating weapons and tossing them into a pile. Someone was crying. Somewhere else, a long, high scream rose into the air, and was immediately followed by a medic’s calls for painkillers.
I had the leader of the recidivists brought to me. One Martin Leycone. A young man by all accounts, dressed in a shabby coat with a few days growth of brown stubble and shaggy hair. Thomas presented him to me, with a grin. “This is the leader of the recidivists, Colonel Hawking, Martin Leycone.” he said. I nodded at him. “Good man. Nip off for a bit why don’t you? I’d like to have a talk with our man Leycone here.” Thomas ripped off a salute and left me with Leycone and a single guard. I patted down my pockets for a moment, and offered him a cigarrete. He waved it away. “I don’t smoke, sir,” said Leycone. I nodded curtly at him and put one in my own mouth. The smoke helped me clear my head. What’s better, I find out it masks the smells of the battlefield. Of gunpowder and lingering death. Of dead men who shit themselves.
I took a few puffs, and then turned to face him. “Mr. Leycone,” I said. “What on earth possessed you to do this?” I indicated the rubble-strewn street as a huge tank rumbled past, wheels squeaking.
He watched it go by. When it had passed, he turned back to me. “You did this, colonel. Not I. You brought this destruction.”
I frowned slightly. “Mr Leycone I like to think of myself as a not unreasonable man, but surley you couldn’t have expected to fight off tanks and planes and artillery with a few civil war surplus rifles and a couple of grenades, did you? Why did you do that? That is what I wonder.”
Leycone shrugged. “What’s any of this about? Politics.” Down the street, the tank had stopped, and some wounded men were being loaded onto it’s back.
“Politics.” I scratched my chin thoughtfully. “I see.” I glanced around again, taking just long enough that I was sure he couldn’t miss me taking in all the destruction, and then turned bak to him. “So this political belief of yours. It’s worth this kind of violence for? Worth fighting for? Is that what you’re saying?”
Leycone shook his head. “Not a lot a lot of causes worth killing for, Mr. Hawking. But there’s plenty that’s worth dying for.”
Now I too was silent for a moment. He and I were both silent.
I nodded without saying anything. “You know what happens now then,” I said.
Leycone shrugged. “You and your men gun my people down like dogs. I’ve seen it before. You Eastmarkers are all the same. You think that your ideology allows you the freedome to do what you want. You think that just because some man on a throne tells you to evict my people from their homes, burn our crops, raid our towns, rape our wives and kill our sons that you now somehow have justification to do it.”
I was quiet for a long while. Leycone had never even raised his voice.
Eventually I said “The ends justify the means, mr Leycone.”
“I don’t know what’s more depressing,” said Leycone, looking me dead in the eye. “That you were told that by your king, or that you really seem to believe it.”
I didn’t deign to respond.
“What is your ends, anyways? When does it end? When does the killing end? The war? The strife?”
I stared off at the tank down the road, loading wounded soldiers on it’s back, and pursed my lips.
“You speak like you know hardship,” I finally replied tartly. I hooked my thumbs into my belt. “You speak like you know what it’s like to try and eke out a living in a land where the winters last over half the year. Where half the crops we plant come up dry and dead. You speak like you know what it’s like to live In a land where, just because you lost a war half a century ago, you’ve been herded into the most inhospitable place on the continent to go die off. You speak like you know what it’s like to be an Easterling.” I turned to him. “You speak like you know what it is to be a victim of genocide.”
Leycone looked around. “Then what are you doing to us here?”
I stepped back, and signaled for the soldier to lead the man away. “We’re finding some land that isn’t dead.” I scowled at him. “You paid us in bitter coin. Now it’s time you spend some of that yourself.”
“So two wrongs make a right then?” demanded Leycone, as the guard seized his shoulders. “Is that what you think?” He was finally losing composure. I admit I felt a guilty pleasure in seeing that stiff resolve crack, even just a little.
“I think that we’re just doing to you in half a decade what it took you fifty years to accomplish,” I said curtly. I flicked the cigarette away onto the cobbled stone street, where it fizzled out in a small puddle.
I heard a cough behind me, and turned around. Thomas, my adjutant, was standing there.
“Orders come from up top sir,” he said, handing me a note. I knew exactly what it would say. It would say the same thing as every order form up top did every time we took prisoners.
For a moment, I watched Leycone being strong-armed into the crowd, and my men start ordering everyone to lie facedown on the ground in orderly lines. It was standard practice by now.
And I couldn’t help but wonder, as I watched them do this, what would happen if I refused the order. If I let themselves go.
Did I truly believe the dogma? The propaganda? Yes, the impoverished east was finally striking back at the opulent west. Yes, we were taking our ancestral lands by force. Yes, it was our new ‘great crusade’ to catapult our people back to glory. Yes, they had done us a great wrong.
But had Leycone? Had his brothers in arms? Had anyone in that town, the men, women and children we were preparing to methodically exterminate actually do us any wrong? Did I believe that?
Then I came to my senses. It didn’t matter what I believed. If I said I wouldn’t, then I would vanish in the night. No martyr’s death for me. No grand sacrifice in the name of solidarity with my fellow man. Just a long ride in a freight train and a bullet for the back of my head. Perhaps for my family too.
Imagine this was you. Now I challenge you to do the ‘right thing’ in my place. If you did, no one would remember you. No one would see your noble sacrifice, while you pissed yourself to death screaming in the woods while the secret police hacked your limbs off and put a bullet in your brain, then dumped your remains in the incinerator. No one would remember you as your wife, your children, your father and mother were given the same treatment.
It was better to simply say “the ends justify the means” and take our lands back, and exterminate those who had stolen them.
It was better to commit murder than be murdered.
Because god help us.
We were just following orders.
And my orders that day, were to execute every recidivist in the town. So my men walked the rows, putting a bullet in everyone’s head, while I stood by and watched.
Could I have done anything else?
Could you?
Needless to say, I told the judge and jurors none of this. They’d never let me speak in my own defense. They, the righteous few, had the power of life and death over us monsters.
And in the end, maybe I’ll deserve my fate. Maybe, tomorrow morning, when I’m marched outside and the bellowing crowds cheer as I choke out my last few breaths on the end of a length of hempen noose, and my legs kick and the life flees my body, as I, and one hundred of my fellow officers are killed like dogs, I’ll deserve it.
2) The Price of War (the horror and consequences of war)
The convoy of armored vehicles rumbled to a stop outside the ruined convention center, heavy shelling and attacks had devastated the district, few vehicles other than the six-wheeled troop transports used by the Allied Expeditionary Marines could still traverse the roads of Anora City. Four teams of Eight marines unloaded from their transports, PFC Mathew Conrik was among them. He was 22, fresh off the transport from the AEM training facility at New Yarren, he was nervous, this was his first field deployment. "Alright marines listen up." Captain Oswald barked over the comms, "1st squad, take watch, 2nd squad start unloading the supplies, 3rd squad, move in, 4th squad, take the back entrance." He ordered with practiced efficiency. No one spoke as the squads followed their orders, Mathew fell in line behind Sergeant Torus as 3rd squad moved towards the front entrance. They were here to deliver supplies to a make shift refugee camp in the convention center, thousands had fled from the bitter war between the Ecatha and Shinyan governments, ethnic tensions and religious differences had culminated in a brutal war of extermination between extremist groups on both sides, the Alliance had intervened to protect refugees and civilians.
The soldiers entered the convention center cautiously, someone should have been waiting for them inside the lobby, should have. The lobby area was empty, aside from a pile of rubble from the partially collapsed floor above it. "Something's wrong." Torvus said over the comms, "Someone should have been waiting for us."
"Check the rest of the building, and watch your backs." The Captain replied. Torus motioned for the squad to split up and fan out. PFC's Yang and Kenneth took up positions by the lobby exit, Sergeant Torus took PFC's Willard and Damon and headed for the East Wing, Corporal Carson led Mathew and PFC Stone to the West Wing.
Gripping his rifle tightly as they approached the entrance to the West Wing, his nervousness was showing. "Just breath Mat." Stone advised as they took up breaching positions. "On three." Corporal Carson said, holding up his right fist, he counted off three seconds silently, and Stone kicked the door smashing it inwards. Conrik was the first through, he did everything just like he was taught, two seconds from breech to entrance, rifle raised and sighted. "Clear." He shouted.
The hallway was empty, makeshift walls and split and divided what used to be a large open area into a series of rooms, ten feet long and six feet wide. "We've got blood here." He called out over his shoulder, observing a large stain on the wall and floor. "Looks like a blade wound judging by the splatter, right handed backswing put the stains on the walls, victim bled out on the floor." He observed, recalling his lessons from the academy. "Not bad kid." Corporal Carson said, "Split up, check every room." The trio made their way down the hall, methodically checking each room in turn. Blood stains here, fragments of clothing there. "Looks like the place was cleared out of useful items." Carson observed after the fifth room.
"I agree Corporal." Stone said, "Where's the food? The water supplies? Clothing? Everything that could be used was taken, nothing left but bloodstains and trash."
"We got a body here." Mathew called, interrupting their discussion. The trio crowded into the sparse room, the body laid in the corner, Carson took the lead, crouching over the body. "Female, early twenties, looks like she's been dead a few hours." He gently rolled the body over onto it's back, revealing a trio of bullet wounds in its chest. "Her clothes have been ripped up, looks like she was raped, looks like she was Shinyan, probably killed by those Ecathan bastards." The Corporal pulled a small packet from his belt, unfolding it into a tarp to cover the body. "Sergeant we found a body here." He called over the comms, "Looks like Ecathan militia got here before we did."
"Confirmed Corporal, keep looking." The Sergeant ordered.
"Yes Sir." Carson said before turning to Mat and Stone, "Let's go." The trio kept looking, moving from room to room, floor to floor. They searched for nearly two hours without finding anything, nothing but more blood, bullet holes, and shredded clothing. "I don't think there's anything left to find." Mat said aloud.
"Just a few more rooms kid." Carson said, "And then we'll... What the hell?" A large window laid smashed and broken at the end of the hall, unlike other windows, this one appeared to be smashed intentionally. The trio cautiously peaked out onto the ally below, and instantly recreated doing so.
Mathew vomited, overcome by the horror 3 stories below them. Dozens of bodies had been pitched out the window, men, women, children, dead, charred and blackened. Some still faintly smoldered, sending faint wisps of black smoke into the air. "Sergeant." Carson said struggling to get the words out, "You're, you're going to want to see this."
"What the hell is wrong with these fucks?" Mathew asked, glimpsing over the edge again.
"War is hell." Carson said.
3) The Ends Justify The Means
There were many questions as to the “why”, the only answer I was able to provide was the “how”.
Just like when a mother would ask as to the “why” when her child had died a brutal death there were many who asked the same here.
A mere dozen meters away from me my comrades were in the process of lighting fire to the town centre of what used to be a village, another couple dozen meters in the opposite direction a handful of civilians were being lined up to be executed by firing squad. I was merely sitting in the mess of it all and remembered how all of these actions were caused by none other than me.
Barely an hour ago this village was still standing, the same men who were looting dead corpses were getting to know said corpses and those burning the houses were repairing the roof of the majors house. The tranquillity all ended when the shots rang, we assumed that the barbarians were once more throwing more bodies in the meat grinder and rushed towards our foxholes, to the contrary of our assumptions we met the dead body of our comrade not on the outskirts but right in the centre. His head had been lobotomized by what must have been a shotgun and a puddle of blood was slowly growing around his body, the mayor having received word of the occurrence rushed towards the site of the accident with his translator.
The mayor asked me what had occurred but I didn’t open my mouth, I merely pointed towards the lifeless body of my comrade as my other hand went to my sidearm. “Auf Wiedersehen” were the only words that silently left my mouth as I pulled the trigger, the mayors blood joined the ever growing puddle of red and this gunshot meant the beginning of the end for the rest of the village’s inhabitants.
Without any more words coming out of my mouth my comrades started rounding up the villages inhabitants mercilessly executing any that resisted and another group went to looting.
Under the guise of searching the houses for the killer they intruded upon the living space of these people and started destroying their livelihood, as I prepared to join the group who was busy rounding up the partisans in civilian clothing a young women desperately broke free from her captor and started begging. “пожалуйста пощадите мою дочь” she pleaded and cried while desperately pointing at a young child who was next to her, none of us understood her nor cared to attempt any form of communication, with a short burst of submachine gun fire she and her daughter joined the death tally.
As I finally managed to join the team in charge of the rounding up and faced the first batch of many, the squad machine gunner had set up in preparation for a quick execution. “Oberschutze, ausführen.” Upon those words being uttered from my mouth a deafening sound erupted from the machinegun’s barrel and 30 civilians fell, all dead or mortally wounded. This was to be repeated another couple of times until all were dead.
As my attention once more shifted, this time to the commander of the local SS command attached to this area I was filled with a great sense of disappointment in myself, although I had succeeded in avoiding senseless slaughter like this many times the time had finally come for me, I too had become a monster.
His hands landed on my shoulders and with a smile he said the words “Der Zweck heiligt die Mittel.“ I was filled with disgust by his words but equally I recognized that it was all we had now for if we lost the war then all our lives were forfeit and if we lost these words then all that was left of us was a bunch of barbarians, as bad as the ones we were fighting to begin with.
And so leaving the smouldering ruins and stench of death behind us we once more marched on, further east towards our own and our enemies death, further east resting upon the futile hope that the promised end was truly worth it all.
1) The Ends Justify The Means
I walked down the hall slowly, chains clinking with every step. The armed guard they’d given me was poor conversation. They’d taken everything I’d had to be proud of. My medals? Gone. My insignia? Gone. My beloved peaked cap, my sash, all gone.
Instead I wore the uniform of a common soldier. No longer “General Hawking,” I was now just “Edward Hawking” and I was lower than the lowliest private in their army. There is no scum like a defeated foe.
I’d say the courtroom was silent, if I wanted to be dramatic, but you know real life isn’t like that. There was a buzz of noise that grew much louder when the bailiff pushed open the double doors and I stepped inside, my face a blank mask.
Reporters and westerling officers alike crowded into the courtroom. The flashes of cameras, the snaps of shutters, the scribbling of pens and of course the murmur of voices all built into one, huge, judgmental noise.
I was led to my seat in front of this medal-bedecked western general, who glanced at me, and then waved the bailiff over. They exchanged words. I couldn’t hear them, but I knew the gist of it.
“Is this the man?” the general was no doubt asking.
“The bailiff would reply “Yes sir”
“Are you quite sure? I expected him to be more intimidating.” The general would say.
The bailiff, like the dumb but loyal hound he is would only answer “Yes he is sir.”
As I formulated that conversation in my head, watching their lips move, I noticed with some satisfaction that they appeared to be saying those exact words. The bailiff turned around and left, and the General held his hand up, appealing for calm.
When the room had quieted down, the General stood and spoke.
“This Court Martial is now in session.” He sat down, a little slower than he’d stood. “Will the first witness please come to the stand?”
Like everyone else, I turned my head, and watched the first witness get up. Thomas. Loyal Thomas. He wore his East Army military uniform still, with all his medals and insignias attached, and didn’t even look at me as he passed me and entered the witness stand. He ignored my blame-filled stare and nodded at the judge. I couldn’t blame him. It was him or me, and I had no one above me to implicate but people who’d already been hung. Or they’d eaten a gun when we’d lost the war.
“Captain Thomas Darius, fifteenth light tank division, East Army, Reylid Republic.” announced the herald, and the stenographer jotted this information down.
“You say,” began the judge, “That you heard Colonel Hawking give the order to shoot women and civilians?”
“No sir,” said Thomas, “But I he approved the order from General Veers sir.” I turned my eyes away.
Thomas had been my adjutant. One of my better officers I thought. I might have called him a friend.
“On the morning of Mitmendaag, Rain’s Height, our division was ordered to cross the White Scarp and enter the town of Heathsford. Where a substantial group of western partisans had taken refuge. After a half hour artillery bombardment, we moved into the town…”
I remember entering the town after it had been taken. It was a small town. No more than ten thousand people. We had twenty thousand men in our division alone. The battle probably took half an hour at most.
I rolled into town on my cruiser and surveyed the damage. It was substantial, I’ll admit. There were bodies in the wreckage, and smoke tumbled out of a few blasted-out buildings. The tanks and infantrymen had all the town’s residents gathered in the square with their hands on their heads. The men were confiscating weapons and tossing them into a pile. Someone was crying. Somewhere else, a long, high scream rose into the air, and was immediately followed by a medic’s calls for painkillers.
I had the leader of the recidivists brought to me. One Martin Leycone. A young man by all accounts, dressed in a shabby coat with a few days growth of brown stubble and shaggy hair. Thomas presented him to me, with a grin. “This is the leader of the recidivists, Colonel Hawking, Martin Leycone.” he said. I nodded at him. “Good man. Nip off for a bit why don’t you? I’d like to have a talk with our man Leycone here.” Thomas ripped off a salute and left me with Leycone and a single guard. I patted down my pockets for a moment, and offered him a cigarrete. He waved it away. “I don’t smoke, sir,” said Leycone. I nodded curtly at him and put one in my own mouth. The smoke helped me clear my head. What’s better, I find out it masks the smells of the battlefield. Of gunpowder and lingering death. Of dead men who shit themselves.
I took a few puffs, and then turned to face him. “Mr. Leycone,” I said. “What on earth possessed you to do this?” I indicated the rubble-strewn street as a huge tank rumbled past, wheels squeaking.
He watched it go by. When it had passed, he turned back to me. “You did this, colonel. Not I. You brought this destruction.”
I frowned slightly. “Mr Leycone I like to think of myself as a not unreasonable man, but surley you couldn’t have expected to fight off tanks and planes and artillery with a few civil war surplus rifles and a couple of grenades, did you? Why did you do that? That is what I wonder.”
Leycone shrugged. “What’s any of this about? Politics.” Down the street, the tank had stopped, and some wounded men were being loaded onto it’s back.
“Politics.” I scratched my chin thoughtfully. “I see.” I glanced around again, taking just long enough that I was sure he couldn’t miss me taking in all the destruction, and then turned bak to him. “So this political belief of yours. It’s worth this kind of violence for? Worth fighting for? Is that what you’re saying?”
Leycone shook his head. “Not a lot a lot of causes worth killing for, Mr. Hawking. But there’s plenty that’s worth dying for.”
Now I too was silent for a moment. He and I were both silent.
I nodded without saying anything. “You know what happens now then,” I said.
Leycone shrugged. “You and your men gun my people down like dogs. I’ve seen it before. You Eastmarkers are all the same. You think that your ideology allows you the freedome to do what you want. You think that just because some man on a throne tells you to evict my people from their homes, burn our crops, raid our towns, rape our wives and kill our sons that you now somehow have justification to do it.”
I was quiet for a long while. Leycone had never even raised his voice.
Eventually I said “The ends justify the means, mr Leycone.”
“I don’t know what’s more depressing,” said Leycone, looking me dead in the eye. “That you were told that by your king, or that you really seem to believe it.”
I didn’t deign to respond.
“What is your ends, anyways? When does it end? When does the killing end? The war? The strife?”
I stared off at the tank down the road, loading wounded soldiers on it’s back, and pursed my lips.
“You speak like you know hardship,” I finally replied tartly. I hooked my thumbs into my belt. “You speak like you know what it’s like to try and eke out a living in a land where the winters last over half the year. Where half the crops we plant come up dry and dead. You speak like you know what it’s like to live In a land where, just because you lost a war half a century ago, you’ve been herded into the most inhospitable place on the continent to go die off. You speak like you know what it’s like to be an Easterling.” I turned to him. “You speak like you know what it is to be a victim of genocide.”
Leycone looked around. “Then what are you doing to us here?”
I stepped back, and signaled for the soldier to lead the man away. “We’re finding some land that isn’t dead.” I scowled at him. “You paid us in bitter coin. Now it’s time you spend some of that yourself.”
“So two wrongs make a right then?” demanded Leycone, as the guard seized his shoulders. “Is that what you think?” He was finally losing composure. I admit I felt a guilty pleasure in seeing that stiff resolve crack, even just a little.
“I think that we’re just doing to you in half a decade what it took you fifty years to accomplish,” I said curtly. I flicked the cigarette away onto the cobbled stone street, where it fizzled out in a small puddle.
I heard a cough behind me, and turned around. Thomas, my adjutant, was standing there.
“Orders come from up top sir,” he said, handing me a note. I knew exactly what it would say. It would say the same thing as every order form up top did every time we took prisoners.
For a moment, I watched Leycone being strong-armed into the crowd, and my men start ordering everyone to lie facedown on the ground in orderly lines. It was standard practice by now.
And I couldn’t help but wonder, as I watched them do this, what would happen if I refused the order. If I let themselves go.
Did I truly believe the dogma? The propaganda? Yes, the impoverished east was finally striking back at the opulent west. Yes, we were taking our ancestral lands by force. Yes, it was our new ‘great crusade’ to catapult our people back to glory. Yes, they had done us a great wrong.
But had Leycone? Had his brothers in arms? Had anyone in that town, the men, women and children we were preparing to methodically exterminate actually do us any wrong? Did I believe that?
Then I came to my senses. It didn’t matter what I believed. If I said I wouldn’t, then I would vanish in the night. No martyr’s death for me. No grand sacrifice in the name of solidarity with my fellow man. Just a long ride in a freight train and a bullet for the back of my head. Perhaps for my family too.
Imagine this was you. Now I challenge you to do the ‘right thing’ in my place. If you did, no one would remember you. No one would see your noble sacrifice, while you pissed yourself to death screaming in the woods while the secret police hacked your limbs off and put a bullet in your brain, then dumped your remains in the incinerator. No one would remember you as your wife, your children, your father and mother were given the same treatment.
It was better to simply say “the ends justify the means” and take our lands back, and exterminate those who had stolen them.
It was better to commit murder than be murdered.
Because god help us.
We were just following orders.
And my orders that day, were to execute every recidivist in the town. So my men walked the rows, putting a bullet in everyone’s head, while I stood by and watched.
Could I have done anything else?
Could you?
Needless to say, I told the judge and jurors none of this. They’d never let me speak in my own defense. They, the righteous few, had the power of life and death over us monsters.
And in the end, maybe I’ll deserve my fate. Maybe, tomorrow morning, when I’m marched outside and the bellowing crowds cheer as I choke out my last few breaths on the end of a length of hempen noose, and my legs kick and the life flees my body, as I, and one hundred of my fellow officers are killed like dogs, I’ll deserve it.
2) The Price of War (the horror and consequences of war)
The convoy of armored vehicles rumbled to a stop outside the ruined convention center, heavy shelling and attacks had devastated the district, few vehicles other than the six-wheeled troop transports used by the Allied Expeditionary Marines could still traverse the roads of Anora City. Four teams of Eight marines unloaded from their transports, PFC Mathew Conrik was among them. He was 22, fresh off the transport from the AEM training facility at New Yarren, he was nervous, this was his first field deployment. "Alright marines listen up." Captain Oswald barked over the comms, "1st squad, take watch, 2nd squad start unloading the supplies, 3rd squad, move in, 4th squad, take the back entrance." He ordered with practiced efficiency. No one spoke as the squads followed their orders, Mathew fell in line behind Sergeant Torus as 3rd squad moved towards the front entrance. They were here to deliver supplies to a make shift refugee camp in the convention center, thousands had fled from the bitter war between the Ecatha and Shinyan governments, ethnic tensions and religious differences had culminated in a brutal war of extermination between extremist groups on both sides, the Alliance had intervened to protect refugees and civilians.
The soldiers entered the convention center cautiously, someone should have been waiting for them inside the lobby, should have. The lobby area was empty, aside from a pile of rubble from the partially collapsed floor above it. "Something's wrong." Torvus said over the comms, "Someone should have been waiting for us."
"Check the rest of the building, and watch your backs." The Captain replied. Torus motioned for the squad to split up and fan out. PFC's Yang and Kenneth took up positions by the lobby exit, Sergeant Torus took PFC's Willard and Damon and headed for the East Wing, Corporal Carson led Mathew and PFC Stone to the West Wing.
Gripping his rifle tightly as they approached the entrance to the West Wing, his nervousness was showing. "Just breath Mat." Stone advised as they took up breaching positions. "On three." Corporal Carson said, holding up his right fist, he counted off three seconds silently, and Stone kicked the door smashing it inwards. Conrik was the first through, he did everything just like he was taught, two seconds from breech to entrance, rifle raised and sighted. "Clear." He shouted.
The hallway was empty, makeshift walls and split and divided what used to be a large open area into a series of rooms, ten feet long and six feet wide. "We've got blood here." He called out over his shoulder, observing a large stain on the wall and floor. "Looks like a blade wound judging by the splatter, right handed backswing put the stains on the walls, victim bled out on the floor." He observed, recalling his lessons from the academy. "Not bad kid." Corporal Carson said, "Split up, check every room." The trio made their way down the hall, methodically checking each room in turn. Blood stains here, fragments of clothing there. "Looks like the place was cleared out of useful items." Carson observed after the fifth room.
"I agree Corporal." Stone said, "Where's the food? The water supplies? Clothing? Everything that could be used was taken, nothing left but bloodstains and trash."
"We got a body here." Mathew called, interrupting their discussion. The trio crowded into the sparse room, the body laid in the corner, Carson took the lead, crouching over the body. "Female, early twenties, looks like she's been dead a few hours." He gently rolled the body over onto it's back, revealing a trio of bullet wounds in its chest. "Her clothes have been ripped up, looks like she was raped, looks like she was Shinyan, probably killed by those Ecathan bastards." The Corporal pulled a small packet from his belt, unfolding it into a tarp to cover the body. "Sergeant we found a body here." He called over the comms, "Looks like Ecathan militia got here before we did."
"Confirmed Corporal, keep looking." The Sergeant ordered.
"Yes Sir." Carson said before turning to Mat and Stone, "Let's go." The trio kept looking, moving from room to room, floor to floor. They searched for nearly two hours without finding anything, nothing but more blood, bullet holes, and shredded clothing. "I don't think there's anything left to find." Mat said aloud.
"Just a few more rooms kid." Carson said, "And then we'll... What the hell?" A large window laid smashed and broken at the end of the hall, unlike other windows, this one appeared to be smashed intentionally. The trio cautiously peaked out onto the ally below, and instantly recreated doing so.
Mathew vomited, overcome by the horror 3 stories below them. Dozens of bodies had been pitched out the window, men, women, children, dead, charred and blackened. Some still faintly smoldered, sending faint wisps of black smoke into the air. "Sergeant." Carson said struggling to get the words out, "You're, you're going to want to see this."
"What the hell is wrong with these fucks?" Mathew asked, glimpsing over the edge again.
"War is hell." Carson said.
3) The Ends Justify The Means
There were many questions as to the “why”, the only answer I was able to provide was the “how”.
Just like when a mother would ask as to the “why” when her child had died a brutal death there were many who asked the same here.
A mere dozen meters away from me my comrades were in the process of lighting fire to the town centre of what used to be a village, another couple dozen meters in the opposite direction a handful of civilians were being lined up to be executed by firing squad. I was merely sitting in the mess of it all and remembered how all of these actions were caused by none other than me.
Barely an hour ago this village was still standing, the same men who were looting dead corpses were getting to know said corpses and those burning the houses were repairing the roof of the majors house. The tranquillity all ended when the shots rang, we assumed that the barbarians were once more throwing more bodies in the meat grinder and rushed towards our foxholes, to the contrary of our assumptions we met the dead body of our comrade not on the outskirts but right in the centre. His head had been lobotomized by what must have been a shotgun and a puddle of blood was slowly growing around his body, the mayor having received word of the occurrence rushed towards the site of the accident with his translator.
The mayor asked me what had occurred but I didn’t open my mouth, I merely pointed towards the lifeless body of my comrade as my other hand went to my sidearm. “Auf Wiedersehen” were the only words that silently left my mouth as I pulled the trigger, the mayors blood joined the ever growing puddle of red and this gunshot meant the beginning of the end for the rest of the village’s inhabitants.
Without any more words coming out of my mouth my comrades started rounding up the villages inhabitants mercilessly executing any that resisted and another group went to looting.
Under the guise of searching the houses for the killer they intruded upon the living space of these people and started destroying their livelihood, as I prepared to join the group who was busy rounding up the partisans in civilian clothing a young women desperately broke free from her captor and started begging. “пожалуйста пощадите мою дочь” she pleaded and cried while desperately pointing at a young child who was next to her, none of us understood her nor cared to attempt any form of communication, with a short burst of submachine gun fire she and her daughter joined the death tally.
As I finally managed to join the team in charge of the rounding up and faced the first batch of many, the squad machine gunner had set up in preparation for a quick execution. “Oberschutze, ausführen.” Upon those words being uttered from my mouth a deafening sound erupted from the machinegun’s barrel and 30 civilians fell, all dead or mortally wounded. This was to be repeated another couple of times until all were dead.
As my attention once more shifted, this time to the commander of the local SS command attached to this area I was filled with a great sense of disappointment in myself, although I had succeeded in avoiding senseless slaughter like this many times the time had finally come for me, I too had become a monster.
His hands landed on my shoulders and with a smile he said the words “Der Zweck heiligt die Mittel.“ I was filled with disgust by his words but equally I recognized that it was all we had now for if we lost the war then all our lives were forfeit and if we lost these words then all that was left of us was a bunch of barbarians, as bad as the ones we were fighting to begin with.
And so leaving the smouldering ruins and stench of death behind us we once more marched on, further east towards our own and our enemies death, further east resting upon the futile hope that the promised end was truly worth it all.