Glory and Honor?

This was supposed to be a story about guts and glory, honor and heroism. That's what the captain wanted out of me today. He told me to “come up with something inspirational” for the recruitment guys.

I tried to come up with something like that, but the truth is I don't have it in me. Glory, man against man, conquering your foes, standing victorious and honorable, flag waving freely against the sky. Yeah, Glory like that doesn't exist anymore.

That was a long time ago. This is war now. Remote controls that don't work beyond a limited range, crawling in mud, hiding from the enemy while robotic weapons face off against each other. The better technology will win. We always win. We are very good toy makers. Humans do so love their toys - toys for play, toys for destruction; it's all toys. Heck, some brilliant mind made a little toy that means we can jump interstellar gaps. Now we're conquering other planets with our toys.

Why am I here? Why should you join me here? Why sign up to play with these horrific toys? Once, somewhere, somebody told me, “If you want something bad enough, you fight for it, or you lose it.” That was before the war started.

I had a daughter and a wife then, but they're dead now. These things we're fighting, they probed our Mother Earth to “see if it was suitable” for their species. Turns out it wasn't. Earth is too cold and dry for their physiology, but they discovered us. So they sent a “cleansing team” to neutralize us.

Well, they got some of us, my precious wife and baby girl included. But they kicked the hornet's nest this time. See, humanity reached a point back in the late 2100's where we were no longer trying to eradicate each other as separate nations. We were starting to “give peace a chance,” as the old saying goes. Countries stood united, the old borders were wiped away. When we faced a threat, we faced it as a race- as a solid undaunted single force.

We hadn't set our weapons and toys down for long, so standing shoulder to shoulder with our former enemies, we faced this new threat. No longer conquering for the sake of the control and power, now it was for survival. To preserve ourselves, this we will still fight for.

If you are after me and mine, then I will “cleanse” you and yours. Humanity stands proud, strong, united! We will not be conquered, we will not submit. We will fight until the last of us is dead, or the last of them lay silent at our feet. We will stand, protecting our own. We may not start the fights anymore, but by God we will finish them!

Time to duck now, incoming ordinance. Get your gun and haul ass. Remember, if you gotta go, take some of them with you.