Masked Soldier

         Nobody messes with the general. And I mean nobody. Well, nobody with two brain cells to rub together that is.

         Unfortunate for me, I'm not not that lucky.

         They've always called me obedient. A good soldier I'd make. Anything they said I did without a second thought. I worked as part of a unit. I was loyal, noble, and I knew when to panic. I believed in my county, and I believed that my country believed in me. The perfect soldier.

         The general hated me.

         I remember the first day I joined the base. Deep in Afghanistan, far away from my home in Tennessee where my siblings were in school and my parents were living their everyday lives, proud of their son who was giving up his life to protect theirs.

         For my family? I'd give up my life 10,000 times.

         It was only a few weeks after basic training, but I was ready for anything. Obedient, like a puppy desperate to be loved. That's how I got the nick name, Dog.

         Us new recruits were unpacking our bunks when he walked in. Seven feet tall, shoulders as broad as an elephant. Muscles like over grown melons bulging from every limb.

         In our minds we gave a sigh of relief. The general wasn't female.

         Scars covered his face, which was shadowed in ash. He strutted up and down the rows of our bunks. We stood straight like bored, not saying, not uttering a word.

         He walked up to me. A sharp blow came to my face. My eyes squinted shut, and I returned back to my original position.

         “Did that hurt, sunny?” he asked, too close for comfort. I did not flinch, I did not say a word.          This has happened to me in basic training. Do not answer, unless he says to answer. That was the rule—always.

         “Respond!” he shouted, spit splattering against my ear.

         “For my country I feel no pain,” I responded. The general stood back, and hit me again, then mimicked my sentence.

         “You feel no pain, eh?”he sneered. “Who do you think you are? Captain freaking' America?”

         I said not a word.

         “You're Dog?” the general asked. He waited a moment. “Respond!”

         “Sir yes sir!”I shouted.

         “Who do you think you even are?!”

         “Sir, an American soldier, sir!”

         “Wrong!” the general barked. “You're an idiot!”

         He then stormed to the front of the room and crossed his arms.

         “I am your general,” he stood like a every growing storm over us. Though he stood perfectly still, he was a volcano about to erupt. “I am your leader. And as your leader, I have only one thing to say. In my army, you will think, with your brain. You will not be controlled! You are not an American soldier, you are a man, with a brain, and in my army you will use it!” with that, he stormed out.

         We all glanced at each other, not sure what to make of him. A big, mean general? That we understood, we were used to that. But didn't they usually scream at us to be obedient? Do what I say, they'd shout. Only what I say, when I say it, how I say it, no more no less!

         He was a man that no one quite understood, and we were pretty sure we didn't want to.

         A few weeks later, we were in group training when he walked in.

         Our backs straight and strong, we awaited his words.

         “How are you today?” he asked, by that point we all know to respond when he spoke.

         “Sir, good, sir!” we shouted in unison.

         “What is this!” he shouted back.”Why do you talk like this? As if you're all programed robots? Dog?”

         “Sir, we were trained to sir!”

         “Why, why were you trained like this?”

         “Sir, we are an army, soldiers, we need to be united, one solid body, we do not think of ourselves sir!”

         A hard swing slammed into my gut so hard I toppled over. Sending five other people down with me.

         “That's a nice speech, kid. What, did you memorize that from basic training?”

         “Sir yes sir!”

         The general snickered.“One army, eh?” he asked. “You're a soldier, eh? You follow orders, you don't make decisions, you don't take the blame. You're obedient, you do what I say, you don't think for yourselves. You're just part of a whole, you don't have to think, just listen to orders, eh?” A large ball of saliva pierced my face.

         “Stand up!” he shouted.

         We stood.

         A hard swing swung at my gut again.

         The general opened his mouth to say something but all we heard were the alarms.

         Blaring, loud, visious in our ears.

         An explosion errputed from the back of the training facility.

         Our arms swung open as our faces crashed into the cold, hard ground. We then stood up then ran to our stations. Demands were yelled over our heads as we jumped into our tanks, pulled out our guns.

         Bullets flew through the air as if they were just words that escaped our mouths. Each moment a new blast of flame and ash burst from the ground along with screams and cries from my friends, my bunk mates, people who I thought of as a part of me, torn to shreds.

         Everywhere around me, people were falling. On my left fell Boxie. He slept three beds down from me. He had a girl at home and a dog named Carl who waited from him every morning for walks. His head was as square as a cube, hence the nickname.

         I heard the screams of Joey, who had moved to New Jersey from Australia when he was eight. He had a little sister named Suzi, who sent him her drawings every month, and letters every week. Both of his parents died a while back so they livid with their Aunt Rose.

         Everywhere I turned, Marsh, Davie, Brooklyn, all on the floor, gun in their hands, and I continued to shoot, blind before me, thinking of the people who caught the bullets on the other side. Of their siblings, and parents and their bunk mates three beds down...

         For my country I feel no pain.

         Because that's what they taught me in basic training.

         Because I'm an American soldier.

         Because I have a family at home that I would give my life over for 10,000 times over.

         Because I'm an American soldier.

         For my country I feel no pain.

         And the bullets flew, over our heads, through our hearts, bitting at our every last nerve. And on the other side, where men, like me, with a family, with a home, who went to basic training, who were feeling our bullets and running from our grenades.

         It clicked in my head then.

         I was an soldier, obedient. I didn't give a second thought.

         The people I was shooting on the other side, they had a life. A life. I was shooting them. Yet I wasn't shooting them. I was shooting soldiers. And that was OK, but how dare they shoot Boxie, or Joey, or even have the audacity to aim for Marsh, the three time pie contests winner throughout the base?

         How could I? How could I shoot? How can I shoot when there are lives on the other side?

         Because I was a soldier. I didn't need to think about that, I needed to think about what I was needed to do. Yes, I had to shoot the men who were trying to kill me.

         The generals words came to my head. He was right, in a way, I was, somehow hiding behind a mask. The mask of obedience. I wasn't the one shooting, it was the gun, it was the soldier.

         My heart broke inside my chest as my mind clicked into place. I was the soldier. This facde I was hiding behind was a concept I never truly understood. I was a soldier, someone who not only gave up their lives in the physical sense, but the ability to live as they want to be. I had to live as a mask. Like a gas mask, to protect my face, my country. As a mask, not to let the pain of what I was doing seep in to deep.

         A bullet bit its sharp, cold teeth through my side.

         My eyes closed. I flew down, my back hitting the ground with a thwack as I closed my eyes.

         I awoke in the infirmary, one body amongst hundreds, filling the rooms of the building. One gear in a machine, broken.

         I wondered of the people holding those guns on the other side understood what I was just begging to comprehend. That when they threw those grenaned, they weren't just blowing up soldiers, but rather the minds of young men apart, tearing our concept of reality to shreds.

         A man set down next to me, I turned to see the general, his eyes red in their gray sockets, as if someone had given him six black eyes. Pay back for the six he'd given me.

         He leaned back in the chair and let out a sigh.

         “How are you, son?” he asks.

         I closed my eyes, not wanting to see him like this, not having the guts to keep them open.

         “For my country I feel no pain,” I said, but it sounded half hearted even to me.

         The general shook his head. “What are you saying boy?” he asked. “You speak as if your country cares. Do you think we keep the president awake at night worrying about us? Boy, I don't even know your real name.”

         “It's Walter Figgins, sir,” I said, my voice strained.

         “Let me tell you something kid,” he shook his head. “Two weeks before you came here, I went home for a few days. It was about a week after an attack like this one. All I wanted to do was go home, be with my wife and children. I drove into the air port, and I see a group of people, they walk up to me and ask if I'm the general of the base here, and I say yes, I am. They then show me a picture of this kid, Mark Frocheck. He's with two little kids, and the people tell me their his sons.

         They then look me in the eye and I cry, and they say nothn.”

         The generals head falls into his hands and he trembles. Like a volcano. He had erupted, he was broken, he was crashed and shattered, yet, instead of a river of lava came on ocean of tears.

         “He died,” said the general, “Following my orders.”

         We both said nothing for a moment.

         “My orders!” he shouted. “MY ORDERS!”

         He stood up and inhaled deeply. He then grabbed his chair and swung it against the wall.

         “WHY!” he shouted. “Why?! Why every day do we give up our lives for these people?” he exclaimed, his face white, and red, and slightly green, The veins in his neck bulged, threating to explode.

         “Why do we have to do this?” he screamed. “Why do we have to put up with this pain?! Why do I have to see you all die?!” he then inhaled deeply and collapsed to his knees. “When I see you boys out there getting shot, it hurts, it its so bad that I can't feel a thing. And when, and when ye' die? Boy, I know I shove you down, and I know I hurt you, but the hurt I feel when one of you go down... kid I ain't no poet, I can't describe it. But when when you go down, you're a soldier, and you're...”

         “Just a label,” I coughed.

         “You don't know how much easier it makes it kid,” he shook his head. “When I see you as a soldier, it's not OK... what happens to you... but when I saw the picture...” the generals head fell into his hands again. “Boy when I saw the picture, it hit me then, real hard, that you're not just soldiers, you're men. We just call you soldiers because it makes it easier. When you're a soldier, and you go down, it's honorable, it's bearable. But kid, I know that you ain't just that. You're a man, you're a life. How do I take it, how do I take that pain?”

         I thought for a moment then closed my eyes once more.

         “For my country I will feel no pain,” I said, my voice was thin as old paper.

         The general sniffled and inhaled deeply, drawing his tears back.

         “I should go,” he stood up and took a deep breath once more and walked onto the next room, his face stern and harsh. The man we saw the first day we saw him. Like the general the world knew him and needed him to be.

         I swallowed all my emotions and all the pain that was building in my throat.

         For my country I will feel no pain.