Patriots and Terrorists

To Whom It May Concern,
         
    I never knew why we needed an Army of the World. There weren’t any more wars now that everyone was getting along so well and we sure as hell weren’t blowing up aliens in outer-space. But I didn’t have much choice but to enlist, being poor as I was and unable to afford higher learning. Boot camp was a breeze. They taught us how to shoot and how to march. This seemed pointless also, being as most of us were not officially issued a gun and there were no more wars to march to, but after three weeks I had a uniform, a small pay check, and a bed to sleep in. 50% of the Army of the World is for show. They march in parades as a reminder of our new found camaraderie but do no real work. 20% do things like evacuating people from flood zones and even fighting forest fires, if you can believe it. Stuff the National guards used to do. The last 30% does the things that no one knows about, things needed for keeping the peace. I was part of that 30%.

    To understand my story you first need to understand some of the history of the Army of the World. In 2066 it was discovered that all the major religions were praising the same God, making all other differences unimportant. This was never explained clearly and it didn’t really make much sense to me but after years of religious “holy wars” everybody seemed to be willing to accept any end to the violence. It was sold as “the most important religious breakthrough of all time” and the one thing to end all religious persecution and hatred. TV stations started showing religious services supposed to be for all faiths. Radio stations started issuing prayer services several times a day in the newfound spirit of peace and acceptance.

    Next came the treaties. The three powers of the world (Europe, China, and America) all started signing away their quarrels; one would share this resource in exchange for that resource. A Constitution of sorts was eventually signed by the three countries containing laws agreed upon by the three nations. Among them was the agreement to halt the building of each countries own armies with the goal of maintaining peace. The creation of an “Army of the World” was first mentioned. The members of which were to act as peacekeepers. Then there was the stuff that everybody else missed. The stuff found 300 pages of fine print into the document. That’s where you could find things like the acceptance and legality of spying on a citizen of one’s own country or another country if for the purpose of keeping the peace, or the disregarding of “outdated and obsolete documents” such as the Geneva Convention when necessary for “keeping the peace”. That was a phrase used often, “keeping the peace”, yet to me, things like ignoring the Geneva Convention did not seem too useful in times of peace.

    The Constitution was praised by all as a tremendous breakthrough in the struggle for peace on earth. It was almost immediately signed and agreed upon by all three countries. Journalists on TV spoke of how honored they were to be able to see such a wonderful thing in their lifetime. Not long after, the individual governments of these countries began to diminish their own powers in recognition of these new “World Laws”. A part of everyone’s taxes now went to the “Coalition of the World” and every night we could watch the news without hearing stories of death or war. This is when I enlisted.

    After boot camp they stuck me in a barrack somewhere in Washington State. I was never told of the exact location except that we were about 200 kilometers from the coast. My time here was about as uneventful as it gets. Every day we had to take some form of test meant to put us in the most suitable job. The rest of the day was ours. After a month or so of this I was contacted by my Sergeant and told that I would be redeployed. I had officially been selected to join the “Patriot” division of the Army of the World.
    “That’s quite an honor there private. Patriot’s the most important part of The Army.” he said “Aren’t you proud private?”
    “Yes sir” and I was.

    Until I joined the Patriots I had never even been outside the States. Again, I’m not sure of my exact location, but I know I was deployed somewhere in China near what was once India. We lived in comfortable conditions. I met people from all over the world, most of whom didn’t even speak my language. We were informed on our first day what we would be doing as a part of the Patriots. Our official job was to keep the peace and uphold the Coalition of the World by fighting the Terrorists keen on destroying it. From the first day we were shown mandatory videos of the enemy. In a smoky little theater we would watch videos of what looked like Indian men with black veils concealing their faces. We saw images of blown-up soldiers being dragged through the streets and watched as the Terrorists danced around shooting off guns into the air in some demented dance. They hated freedom and peace and we hated them - all of them.

    Soon we began training for battle. We were taught how to effectively shoot and use our rifles as our boot camp training would not suffice for real combat. This second training was not a breeze. Our day started at 5AM when we would run several miles in the worst conditions. Then it was shooting practice, followed by more running and, if we were lucky, lunch. From there it was strategy training and even more running until dinner. After that we were expected to attend the evening’s film about what the enemy was up to. It was a time for Patriots to let out all their anger, hate, and fear at something real. It gave them a sense that they were working so hard for a good reason: to kill those dirty bastards.

    After training we had a week off while they decided on where we would be redeployed. There was a small Chinese town nearby and a group of Patriots and I would go down there almost every night to get drunk and buy girls. The locals all seemed real happy to see us. They would wave and sometimes even clap as we passed them. It made us all feel like we were doing something grand.
    “I can’t wait to get down there and teach ‘em bastards a thing or two,” said one of my fellow Patriots at some dark, dank, Chinese bar.
    “Get down where?” I asked.
    “Where ever those bastards live. South ‘a here I’d guess. They seemed to be pretty dark-skinned in those movies and those kind live south ‘a here.” he answered, “Doesn’t matter much though, ain’t nowhere out of the reach ‘a us.” We all agreed.

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    We did go south. Flew over the Chinese countryside down into the Pacific Region, I heard. I didn’t get to see much of the country side at first but it looked beautiful from the plane. There were enormous mountains bordering great prairies all cut up by clear blue rivers. It was hard to imagine such evil people living here. We moved into a base and began to prepare for battle. Our first assignment was to simply survey the area. It seemed easy enough but as I loaded into that armored truck I was shaking with fear and so were a lot of other guys. After seeing pictures of armored trucks upside down on the side of the road, having been attacked by the Terrorists, we were all nervous.

    People were scarce as we drove the dirt roads. We would occasionally see a local pushing a cart or pulling a buffalo but they would ignore our presence as if they had grown accustom to Army trucks frequenting their towns. It was mostly farm land out there. Rice I think. We didn’t see any Terrorists on that trip but we were assured they were out there. We got another day of rest before we went on our first real mission.

    This time I was genuinely terrified. At least in the armored truck we had some protection this time we were on our own. There was a group of about twelve of us plus one Sergeant. Our mission was to investigate some suspicious behavior at a farm 10 kilometers away and without reliable roads in the area we had to hike there following cattle trails. The owner of the farm was suspected of housing Terrorists.
    “Why would somebody do that?” I remember asking, “Help Terrorists like that? Don’t they know how much better the world is now?”
    “The Terrorists may have forced him to let them stay there or they have brainwashed him. Who knows? Terrorists hate peace and freedom and they’ll do anything to disrupt it. That’s all you need to know,” responded the Sergeant.

    By the time we got to the farm there were no Terrorists to be found but “that doesn’t mean they weren’t here.” Sergeant reminded us. The farm was owned by an old couple. They spoke a strange language but were harmless. They were small and quite anxious as they followed us around their farm trying to communicate. In the barn we found several bags of rice as well as some sort of vegetable piled in the corner.
    “What is this for?” asked Sergeant slowly and while kicking a bag of rice. The old man made a motion to his mouth to symbolize eating. “You’re gonna eat four bags of rice and all these vegetables?” The old man didn’t understand the question and continued making the eating motion. “Alright,” ordered the Sergeant, “search the house.” Several Patriots stormed into the house and began throwing things every which way looking for evidence. Several seconds later one came out holding an old semi-auto handgun. “What the fuck is this for?” asked Sergeant as if the old man was supposed to understand.
    “Thieves” the old man managed to say, as if he’d been asked before. But the Sergeant ignored it.
    “Burn the barn,” commanded the Sergeant, “burn the house, burn it all.” With that Patriots began holding their lighters under the simple thatch roofs and watched them spark to life in bright orange flames. The whole unit stood around the burning farmstead as the old man comforted his sobbing wife. I stood with the rest, watching the fire consume the simple hut. The blaze burned that house to the ground and with it those flames took my innocence.

    Nobody said much back in the barracks that night. Sergeant saw me at one point, moping around I suppose, and confronted me. “It’s a shitty thing to do but it has to be done,” he told me, “Now you know what it’s like to be a Patriot. It’s about doing the things that have to be done, but which no one has the guts to do. I know you’re not proud of what you did and neither am I. The fact is you’ll never be proud. You may never forgive yourself. Standing up at the Pearly Gates and asked where you belong you might well say Hell. You’re not alone; these things never get easier. You just have to try and find some comfort in the fact you’re doing this for some greater good. And remember, you’ll meet every other damned Patriot down there in Hell with you.”

    It didn’t get any easier. Sergeant was right about that. After four months of burning houses and taking prisoners, and killing Terrorists I took everything just as hard, although I had learned not to show it. After work I would relax with my fellow Patriots, my fellow damned, and bullshit about someday going home, although none of us knew when that might be. It seems strange but I fell into a sort of pattern: kill, pillage, and burn by day; play pool, drink, and smoke by night. It didn’t make me feel any better though. I was carrying this baggage with me at all times and it was weighing on my body and mind. Every day I was reminded of what I had done the day before, whose lives I’d ruined. It was exhausting.

    As time went on I began to see more and more of what these people, these Terrorists, were fighting for. It was more than a hatred of freedom and peace as I had been told for so long. I could see then in their own way they were fighting for what they believed in. I began to even feel empathy for them. Many of these people were forced off their lands and those who were allowed to keep their farms were taxed heavily and much of their crop taken to feed other parts of the world. We ate rice with dinner every night. These people’s culture, their way of life was being robbed from them. Even their religion was being systematically destroyed. They didn’t believe in the same God the rest of the world believed in and that was a threat to the peace. That meant we were required to break up all religious gatherings that were not approved. We dispersed churches with tear gas and destroyed anything of religious significance. I couldn’t help but feel, as we did these horrible things, that if I had been in their position I would have taken up arms with the Terrorists. Of course I did not tell anyone of my treasonous thoughts.

    One day my empathy turned to genuine compassion. We were sent to known local church to break up any religious practices that were taking place. The church was located deep in the forest, hidden from view and it was half a day’s march just to reach it. As we arrived singing could be heard coming from the small thatched roof building. We were preparing the tear gas and other weapons for our raid when we were hit by enemy fire. Two men were killed on their feet as the rest of us dropped to the ground. We had been fired upon many times before but never with such a magnitude. We quickly mobilized and started creating cover fire while several others moved around into a flank position. The Patriot next to me took a bullet to the head but I kept shooting. The Terrorists were hidden in a small bunker with some kind of old machine-gun. I heard Sergeant describe it later as a 50-cal. This was something I had never seen. The Terrorists had always used small arms and occasional improvised-explosive-devices (IED’s) but I had never seen them with such sophisticated weapons. There were only three of them and somebody took them out with a grenade pretty quickly, but not before they killed four of our men. I did not know the men killed, as I rarely went on missions with the same men twice, a strategy by the Army to avoid strong bonds between soldiers that could lead to clouded judgment. Never the less I felt their deaths as hard as any of the men I or my fellow Patriots killed. As surveying the dead Terrorists I noticed something peculiar. One of the Terrorists was white like me. He couldn’t have been older than thirty and he wore the same Army issued boots as me. “Traitor,” said Sergeant over my shoulder, “Only thing worse than a Terrorist’s a traitor. He’s lucky he died before I could get my hands on him.”
    After disarming the machine gun we were ordered to search the church. Inside we found a group of a dozen or so villagers huddled in the back of the open and bare room. As we walked in to break up the crowd three men emerged from behind the rows of people and opened fire with automatic rifles. Two Patriots were killed in the fight and the three of us who escaped barely made it out the door with our limbs. The Terrorists did not follow us out but waited in the church for a reason I still do not fully understand. They may have been out of ammo, they may have been scared, or they just didn’t want to leave their church. Whatever the reason I wish they would have come out after us so we could have killed ‘em easy.

    “Lock the doors,” ordered Sergeant. One Patriot found a piece of old timber and used it to seal the only exit. With that Sergeant held his lighter under the thatch roof and walked the circumference of the church, lighting it from every side. He stepped back. “Shoot anyone who tries to leave.” It took only seconds for the roof to light. Before long we heard fists pounding on the door and saw hands reaching through the bamboo walls of the church, trying to escape the flames. The Patriots shot them dead. I’d heard of things like this happening, centuries, even decades ago, but not now. Not with this great peace we all had. This wasn’t supposed to happen anymore. I could hear the screams of men women and children, as they were burned alive like witches at the stake.

    I did not recover from this. I barely talked to anybody or even left my bed except to go on missions for over a week. My spirit had been broken. By the time I did start talking and playing pool again I just felt like I was going through the motions. I kept going on patrols and I saw the same things but it didn’t seem to have the same effect. Killing Terrorists and seeing Patriots die had lost its meaning.

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    The one rule of patrols is don’t stop. Any distraction could be a trap. Our armored trucks can handle the rifle fire, but if you stop long enough for someone to detonate an IED you’re in trouble. Old ladies, puppy dogs, free beer and cigarettes, whatever, don’t stop. Our driver was not as well trained in the rules as he should have been. The driver, four other Patriots, and I were cruising at a brisk pace, as fast as the driver could go on the dirt road without losing control, when a young boy chased a ball into the muddy street. Panicking, the driver hit the brakes and managed to stop inches from the boy.

    “Go, go, what the fuck’re you stopping for?” someone yelled. Several bodies could be seen running from the truck and then, boom. I along with the driver and the only other remaining Patriot crawled out of the burning truck. A piece of shrapnel had hit my leg and it was bleeding pretty bad. Almost as soon as we left the wreck we were under fire. Two Terrorists were in a ditch shooting at us. They wore black scarves, concealing their faces, and camouflage jackets. The other Patriot was shot immediately as the driver and I ran to find shelter behind the truck. But before the driver could reach safety he saw something lying in the road. It was the body of a young boy killed in the explosion. The driver fell to his knees before the child and was shot in the back; his body went limp and fell over the boy. Reaching into the burning truck I pulled out a charred rifle and took position to return fire. The thought of giving up briefly crossed my mind but I knew the Terrorists didn’t take prisoners and I was not ready to die. So I returned fire and within a minute had picked them both off. Now I was alone. My surroundings began to make themselves known. I was deep in the forest and there was not a sound to be heard, other than the birds chirping in the trees. I remember wondering how birds could chirp at such a time. How life in this forest and through the rest of the world could continue in spite everything that was happening here. Then, for just an instant, I saw the truth as clearly as I saw that burning truck. I saw that life was not going on not in spite of what was happening here, but because of it. It was in that moment of clarity that I ran. It was an almost instinctual response. I left the road and entered the forest, stripping off my clothes as I went. Limping on my wounded leg, I threw my Patriot uniform shirt in the mud and kept running. I ran until I could not run any further and I collapsed on the ground and lost myself in a deep dreamless sleep.

    I woke up alone and was immediately struck by the beauty of the forest. There were birds bouncing on the branches investigating the shirtless bloodied Patriot lying in the mud. The air was humid and sweet. The bright green that surrounded me hurt my eyes and I squinted through the sunlight. The wound in my leg had stopped bleeding but it still hurt to put weight on it. Looking at it I could see the piece of shrapnel protruding ever so slightly from my thigh. With great care I gripped it and firmly and began to pull. The wound had started to heal around the jagged metal and I had to tear through the new skin to free it. It made a sound I cannot describe on paper but one that still makes me sick to my stomach to think about. The pain burned into my brain and I let out a deathly cry. That horrible piece of metal finally released itself from my body with a spurt of blood, which I quickly covered with a piece of my tattered pants. I knew I needed medical attention before it got infected. After the bleeding had subsided I set off walking through the trees. It was not long before I came to a small path cut through the thick underbrush. It was no wider than a foot but clear and easy to follow. I took up the trail and within two hours I reached a small farmer’s hut. By now I was weak and had lost too much blood. I could walk no more and collapsed feet from the door.

    This time I woke in a bed. There was a white sheet over me and a pillow under my head. I sat up. I was in a small building with some sort of podium near the front and a small crucifix hanging from the wall. I realized I was in a church, and a Christian church at that. All the times I spent breaking up congregations and burning churches I never asked a question, I had only assumed they were praising some non-existent God in some unheard of religion that spread fear, and prejudice, and hate. Yet now, thinking back, I could picture the crosses in the temples and around people’s necks that I had never noticed or sub-consciously decided to ignore. I had never been very religious but it brought me great happiness to see that small, simple crucifix, a symbol I had not seen in many years, as most were destroyed in the spirit of religious equality and peace. A woman walked in the room and smiled at me. She pointed to her leg and nodded at me. Realizing what she was doing I checked my own leg to find it wrapped in gauze.
    “Thank-you” I said. She smiled warmly at me, not understanding what I said. She was followed in by an older woman carrying a plastic cup filled with water and a bowl of rice. I had not realized how hungry I was but I ate the rice and drank the water in minutes. “Sleep,” the second woman told me, and I did.

    The next few weeks are best described as a learning experience. I was given clothes and food, and allowed to sleep in the home of an old widower. This is where I remain today. I help him tend the rice crop during the day and I am rewarded with food, water and shelter. It is a town of around 200 people, 50 homes, and a church/hospital/school. Every Sunday I attend mass and pray in a language that I do not understand, though I am learning. I pray, mostly, for peace, true peace, and change. The Patriots have not yet come to this village but I know they will. I do not want to take up arms again, but I will defend this town if I must. I write this so others can know my story and see the truth in a world that has shut its eyes to it. I don’t know when or if this will reach the rest of the world, nor do I know have any answers to the questions I pose, but the first step as I see it is to recognize the truth as it is. The “great peace” we have now is a lie and it is not just the people in this village suffering, it is you too. You are just as exploited as these people. The difference is: they fight back. Your culture is being destroyed, your religion taken from you, your livelihood stripped away to line the pockets of some fat cat you will never see. I beg you: do something about it. A Sergeant once told me that being a Patriot is about doing the things that have to be done, but which no one has the guts to do. This is something that has to be done.

    They call me a traitor, a coward, or even a Terrorist, but I am none of those things. I may no longer wear the uniform or carry a gun but I’m still a Patriot, and I’ll meet the rest of ‘em down in Hell.

Pvt. Jonathon Bloom,
5/1/2075