Monday, February 05, 2007

Diary of a Soldier ... (part I)

Bismillah,

We were on our scheduled patrol when we discovered a village or known as kampong to some troopers including me and my own squad. We arrived there with almost no resistance, all seemed quiet and people were on their daily activities. Our arrival there scared the hell out of them, perhaps they've seen too many men in green with mean face and no mercy to elders and citizen.

My squad CO however, was aware of this kind of situation. Therefore, he ordered his men to stay on alert because anything zero might comes to something. A little about my squad CO ... he somewhat was late 20's, never told us how old he was ever since he was appointed as our new CO few months back because our former CO was KIA when we had contact with the enemy. This new CO was quite temper; easily provoked, awesome built, and his face never showed hospitality; everybody always nervous when they were ordered either for a watch or even buying a cigar for him. But when we were on our mission, he cared and perhaps would even die for the sake of his men's safety and the mission he involved in. So whenever we were on duty we were quite relieved having our own CO's behavior like him.

Back to the village ...

The squad was formed by 10 personnels; CO, auto riflemen, grenadiers, and gunners. After the CO ordered us to stay on alert nobody missed a single spot on the village and the surroundings. The CO then head to the village elder in order to gain important and relevant informations on present activities --it's very hard to determine wheter they were friendly or foe-- in case
they were positive as our targets or just neutral. I sat down and took out a picture of a beautiful lady --at least for me-- from my pocket, after a while my tears began to drop. Suddenly someone shocked me from behind and I noticed it was my pal within the same squad.

"Is she your girlfriend ?" he asked. I said "well yeah ... she was". Then he sat beside me, opening his flask and sipped some water ... "I bet there must be something went wrong to both of you" he continued asking. I paused for a moment and aswered his question "Yeah, there was". "C'mon tell me something I don't know, man." "She found someone better ... wealthier, handsome, brilliant; well he has everything a woman needs ... that's why she left me away. Before I got shipped out I heard that she will be married with him" I replied. He sighed and said "Well, everybody has their own story to tell ... but you can never change history even with your ideas from your intelligent brain, you're a smart person in the squad I noticed." I replied while wiping my face with handheld towel "*chuckles* I don't think so ... but thanks anyway, though. I'm here to eliminate those chemistry I ... we've formulated." "So that's why you joined the army then ... " he said in flat tone. "Some people said army made every men won ... when I killed in combat at least my name will be written as those who fought and died bravely for his nation."

"You know what ... I hate war. I just don't like killings, why would we have kill someone who might have the same idea as us, at least to me ? If it wasn't because of the call of duty I would've spent my life in peace with better than getting along with all these war junkies!" I said assertively.

The CO later informed all of us that the kampong is safe from threats ... at least so he said. Soon we began preparing our temporary camps for our base, I never thought the people would be very hostile to us at that time. As a day past by we were quite relaxing from our exhaustion days before. One of my buddies from the squad was talking with other squad team with joy and laughter, I didn't know what they were talking about but it seemed that they enjoyed their day after fighting that drained all of our energy, focus, many. By the time I wrote this story ... with my M16A1 sitting beside me I wonder how beautiful the place we are in is.

But suddenly my buddy I talked about took a hit directly on his head, spilled blood to his mates and eventually bumped onto the ground, lifeless.

"SNIPER .... !! Get some cover !!" shout all of them.

-to be continued-

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A Time for Us

A time for us, some day there'll be
When chains are torn by courage born of a love that's free
A time when dreams so long denied can flourish
As we unveil the love we now must hide

A time for us, at last to see
A life worthwhile for you and me

And with our love, through tears and thorns
We will endure as we pass surely through every storm
A time for us, some day there'll be a new world
A world of shining hope for you and me

For you and me

And with our love, through tears and thorns
We will endure as we pass surely through every storm
A time for us, some day there'll be a new world
A world of shining hope for you and me

A world of shining hope for you and me