5. Unbreakable

The soldier stood before the breach, eyes cast forward over the brink of total war. Before him lay his enemies, reduced from fellow men that loved and feared and wept to a flesh-swathed mass of fire and danger.
He knew that this subconscious dehumanization was born of the primal and overpowering law: survival.

       Beside him stood his brothers, a wall of beating hearts that fought for the same purpose and will that he had; they were a family knit with barbed and iron strands of pain and mortality. Having trained and sweated blood together, dying together seem only natural, should it be necessary.

       He knew they were fighting for life, whether they died or didn't; not for their own lives, but for the lives of those they left behind.  

       Behind him lay his home, somewhere far beyond this plain of ash and flame, and the blinding, barren ocean waters that he had traversed in the name of freedom. When he thought of home, he didn't dwell on the memories it held; the word "home" was now connected with the word "future", a concept that by all rights now lay beyond his certainty and grasp. The safety of tomorrow is never guaranteed to a man at war.

       He knew that he was mortal, and this knowledge rendered the fear of death inept.

       The lack of regard for life's sanctity, a sense of purpose, and fearlessness in the face of death; these were the soldier's true weapons as he charged into the inferno of war. His guns and ammunition were merely the tools he used to channel them. Had he been a man truly alive, such elements would have been heavy burdens to endure through the process of a normal life, and he would have felt obliged to rid himself of them. But in the heat of battle, in that deadly game of kill-or-die, no player can truly claim he is living as a man ought to.

       They became his weapons. The soldier became unbreakable, tempered in a fire he would relive a thousand times, should he survive it.
_______________________________________


       The veteran stood before the breach in a graveyard, his eyes cast down upon an empty bed of grass and clovers. Before him lay his enemy, the fact that this place in the cemetery was bereft of his headstone. Taunting him with the greenery and flourish of life amongst the dead, it was a constant reminder of his continued survival.

       He knew that he was alive, and he hated himself for it.

       Beside him stood the uniform rows of decorated gravestones; a wall of stony silence that pitifully represented the fleeting vitality of his friends. Side by side beneath the dirt, they were a family knit together by life and death, and the memories of the many dreams and aspirations they had sacrificed for what they held in common so dear.

       He knew that he was alone, the only one who had not joined their ranks.

       Behind him lay his home, a place and concept no longer separated from him by an ocean or the uncertainty of his continued existence. It was a place he connected with the idea of a "future", and for that very reason he left it where it was: behind him. "Home" and "future" were two things he had no interest in anymore.

       He knew that he was trapped in the past, and all the memories that it held; memories of dreams that were cruelly snatched away, and of unspeakable horrors and death that he could only now take time to fear.

       The soldier had been broken.

      "I know that look in your eye, boy."

       A weathered brown hand clapped solidly on the veteran's bent shoulder, nearly knocking him over. Struggling to stay balanced between his remaining leg and scuffed metal crutch, the latter forgot the sanctity of his surroundings and swore. When his elderly assailant clucked a berating tongue at him, he forgot the social manners of his day.

      "Don't preach at me, old man. You nearly knocked me down! Can't you find a more convenient place to go senile? Leave me alone."

      "You may be managing to stand on that leg, but your eyes tell a man that you're already down for the count," the wrinkled visitor replied. "I used to see the same story in my mirror, you know. Those were the days after I returned from a war what took place a generation before yours did. Tell me, son, why I shouldn't do you the favor you pine for by knocking you down and leaving you to lie in that empty lot."

       The veteran had no answer for this; he had noticed that the old man's face was a patchwork of crinkles and scar tissue, and that the centerpiece of this composition was an empty socket were his right eye ought to be.

      "I was never a man to gamble," the man continued. "But I'd bet that you feel the guilt of survival more painfully than you feel the absence of your leg. Shame, boy. No life is spared without reason; you have no right to question why you're still here. Why mourn for your comrades? Their fight is over, and they have been immortalized in the love and memories of those they died defending. You should be more concerned for yourself than the dead. Don't you realize that death is nothing? A mere prick, and then the end of all that is bad. Life is what is truly painful; consider it the battle that you must continue to fight, both for yourself and for your friends. Go home, young man; go home and live."

      They stood for a moment in the silent aftermath of this speech, two soldiers that had lived to tell the tale, but had no desire to recount. The young veteran realized that, in the company of this scarred old man, he was no longer alone in his feelings; however, he was alone in his desire to cling to them. Without another word, he turned homeward and began to walk, each step feeling less like the hobble of a handicapped veteran and more like the march of a soldier towards a different kind of war.

      He knew that he was alive, and would continue to live for those who could not.

      He knew that any man who preferred the company of the dead would always be alone, and that he no longer desired to be.

      He knew that the past had broken him; because of this, he could not be broken again.

      The veteran had become unbreakable.