Day Five

That village and the two children who were the only survivors of the loyalists’ ambush were the memories that remained with me ever since I saw them. If I hadn’t seen those corpses and the wounded girl with her infant brother, I would not have become part of the patrol and certainly not had joined those that fired during the ambush. I would not have understood the true reason for why we were fighting the revolution. Once I saw the bodies, I realized just how much the revolution can save but also destroy the country. The revolutionists are trying to help the country’s poor by rearranging the social order, but that exact cause, and how they are trying to achieve it, is the reason that all those helpless poor died. Those people died just because a member of their family was on the opposing team, or their village was now in the opposing teams land. I also realized today that if you have a gun, you do not necessarily have power. Didn’t we have guns? Yes, we did. But, did we save those people? No. A gun, although a powerful tool is not a symbol of power, but instead just a tool that is used to show your devotion to your country and your people. If used wisely, it can help the country fight its enemies, but if used out of hatred or dislike, it could do major damage instead. No matter how much an army tries to save the innocent, a war usually results in lot of destruction and death. My hatred for the loyalists might have lit a flame in me today but it was still not enough to overpower my humanity. I couldn’t shoot before, during or after the ambush. The human in me ended up taking care of the baby – the change had begun.