Diaries of the Lost Ones

My father served in Vietnam, my niece is in the air force, my cousins served in various military. It turns out there have been over two hundred conflicts, wars, civil wars, etc., since I was born. I knew of only a handful.

My Grandpa Bob fought in World War I, my Grandma Becky grew up in the Great Depression, and I was surrounded by stories tinged with a life that I could not possibly understand unless I had lived it. Being a naturally curious person, I wanted to press for more. Perhaps if I studied it enough, listened to enough, I could come to understand.

What was it about war that made it so universally unspeakable? As a child, I had difficulty reading facial expressions but I could sense the emotions that hung like a fog around a person, and something about war was such a unique combination of emotions, I wanted to know the intricacies. What were those feelings, so hard to name?

I wrote a fictional short story when I was about sixteen titled Diaries of the Lost Ones. It was inspired in a moment of Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. In the middle of the epic battle scene, I started hearing voices. Not in the hallucinatory way, but more like as a medium. It was close to how I hear voices when I write poetry or short stories.

I wrote the story in one sitting, and barely edited it. It didn't feel like I had the right to say "um, I'm sorry, this doesn't make sense, in charge of a planet?" because it was half a medium's job, half a writer's job, and ultimately the story wasn't mine to tell or edit, it was only to transcribe and present.

I'll share it here in that spirit, in thanks to those who have served and are serving, who live in a world that no matter how brilliantly portrayed or captured, cannot always be contained or conveyed to those who have not lived it.

THE DIARIES OF THE LOST ONES

I suppose I should have seen it coming; the end of everything. After all, that’s what I had signed up for—to die, if necessary, so that others could live and enjoy existence.

But when something is expected for so long, it ceases to be a real threat. I can’t remember the original threat. What it was I had to keep at bay. What I could never allow to take place.

Memory is a strange thing. I took mine with me. Even the memories I had hoped would perish with death. But some things seem incapable of dying.

No one remembers me. I waited for someone to come but I was left behind. A piece of me still is. -J. T.

* * *

Man. A curious, incomprehensible word. It says so much and yet can be reduced to so little. A gentleman, a man of his word, a man of honor, of valor and of dignity.

War strips a man of all that is gentle, honest, dignified. The things that must be done can bring out the best in a man, but it also magnifies all that is animalistic.

Fight, flee, stand your ground, bare your fangs, and keep to your company at all costs. Where has all the honor gone? I see none of it in the children who must fall, the women shamed.

But I am not at liberty to complain. I am a wolf, and I must stay with my pack, to defend our forest from the creatures of the night: animals who could not have possibly been men once. -A. S.

* * *

How can something be exhilarating and wrenching at the same time? I moved faster, with more agility, than ever I thought possible. I am a boy no more, but am I yet a man?

There’s something, it twists and squirms—these that I kill, they are evil, no question.

I know what I am doing is good. It is necessary. But if each side believes he is right, is there such a thing as wrong?

I ask too many questions. I shouldn’t look around me, because I see too much and can’t explain it.

I wish I could choose blindness. But I don’t like the dark. No prediction. No protection. I’ve got to keep my eyes open. Never allow them to close. -L. D.

* * *

I killed today. I may have killed before but this was the first time I saw a soldier die by my hand. It wasn’t supposed to be any different than breaking the neck of a chicken.

But why does it hurt me, if I know he cannot feel? I’ve been trained to leave my sympathy behind, but moments pierce through. They haunt me and taunt me and leave me to question if I can come back from this and carry on life as usual.

All that was boy in me is dead and lost forever. I will miss that boy, with his sense of innocence, of wonder, and his prospect of a future worth meeting.

All that was man in me fell away as I knelt by the one I had cut short from the pleasures of living. My brother. My twin, in every way but one: he had thought my side evil. I had disagreed. -F. J.

* * *

It’s a lonely yet fulfilling thing, being in charge of a thousand men and having the responsibility of an entire planet. Charged with its salvation against impossible odds.

My enemies are judged solely by their actions, and failure to answer to reason.

I make decisions because I have to, and my duty sustains me, salvages me, when the ravages of war wish to wear me down to a state of false death, where I seek no action of my own, and desire only to obey another.

I will keep freedom and peace for this planet in my charge. Pray the cost is not too much. -W. N.

* * *

The graveyards are scattered throughout every corner of these lands. The earth is rich with desecrated bodies turned dust over time. So many causes, such painful consequences and counter-reactions, that who wronged who first has been lost to the history books and is quite moot now.

I lay here, and I know this isn’t the first, nor will it be the last, war of my country. People died before me, they will die after me, around and around like a sordid Merry-Go-Round, until the promised day when all the sentiments of Christmastime shall come to pass.

I hope they will not become shallow words, as mine have become. The hope I vested in freedom, joy, peace, has long wasted away into a desperate desire that at least my actions here will be worth something. Too many die around me, countless by my hand. I can’t turn this off.

It’s dark. I’m surrounded, and I use my last strength to take down those in my circle of influence. In the shadows I cannot tell if it is friend or foe, but that is sadly of little difference. There are no sides now, just survivors. -B. H.

* * *

If I close my eyes, I can hear whispers. Man down. We’ve lost him.

Today, we won. Tomorrow, there will be peace. The day after, no one can tell.

I am dying. I made it through so many battles with only a few minor cuts that it is strange to feel life falling away from me.

There is no one here. They all celebrate, trying not to think too much of those that cannot share this day with them.

But I know better. We cannot have a truly joyous day, because too many comrades are down, too many lost. They might say it was worth it, to know peace is possible at last.

I cannot say. My thoughts are plagued by visions of the war—no doctor, no drug, no salve will cure me. I have seen too much, and even as my eyesight fades, moments remain more vivid, and more real, than I can bear.

Life is not falling away fast enough. Perhaps I will help it along. -V. K.

* * *

Sweet day, I am free. Victory is all but ours and at last, I can let go of this war and come home to you. I know now that my integrity, my duty, my love for this world, will carry me forward through anything. Yet it is a bittersweet day, because you can’t share it with me.

I wonder where you are, now. You’ve probably gone and grown up without me, everything is probably different. Do you believe some things never change? I can’t decide just yet.

I feel different. Can’t tell if it’s a good different, or bad, or combination of both. I know I’ve aged: I saw myself today and couldn’t recognize my own face.

I used to keep myself going with fond memories of home, and the hope that I might see you again, but somewhere in that last stretch I just didn’t have the time. Now all I have are broken pictures, fractions of a moment… you had a lucky pin, and a beautiful smile.

I expect this will go down in a book somewhere, a victory like this. But I can’t imagine anyone quite understanding, or conveying, how glorious, how tragic, how immense it all was.

My dear old klutz of a brother has one more battle and I’m inclined to join him. Despite all the odds, he has survived and I am proud. Keep the candles lit so we can find our way home. -S. C.

* * *

For those who never came home

For the candles still lit in wait

Peace be with you.