When I was seven, my father dragged me behind our house and threw me in front of our rabid dog. It snarled and foamed at its mouth, snapping at my throat with vicious fangs. My father pressed a gun into my arms and directed it towards the animal. He ordered me to pull the trigger.
I refused. It was our pet. It was basically raised alongside me, from my crib to my bedside; he was my best friend, my partner in crime, my dearest confidant. Who cared that a disease had stripped him of his soul. Who cared that he bit off Jenny’s ear last Tuesday. Who cared that he was now willing to gnaw me like a chew toy. All that mattered was that my friend was still alive.
So my father pulled the trigger. With a single crack it passed peacefully. As I carried its body to the dumpster, my father told me not to cry. This wasn’t murder, he assured me. This was justice. It was our responsibility to protect those we loved. Even if it meant killing someone, it was all for the greater good.
•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•
Staring towards the enemy trench, I knew that this afternoon was going to be a bloodbath. In front of us lay several rows of bristling barbed wire and hidden landmines Behind that, several platoons stood alert, ready to rain down bullets and grenades on us as soon as we stepped foot into their trench. The cherry on top was a machine gun bunker that loomed in the middle of the trench. It nestled under several layers of dirt and concrete, a virtually indestructible fortress. It was going to be a real piece of work to convince the men to charge into this gateway to hell.
“Attention!” I roared. Over a hundred heads snapped to attention, their eyes glued on my dominating figure. “Do you have wives? Families? Mothers? Fathers? Brothers or sisters? Nieces and nephews?”
A chorus of voices rang in unison. “Yes, Sergeant!”
“Would you lay down your lives for them?”
“Yes Sergeant!”
I pointed to the trench in front of us. “The enemy there wants to slaughter our people. If we let them win this war, they’ll hang our boys and enslave our girls. You’ve seen the posters. You’ve heard the radio reports. They leave no prisoners alive. Execution! Torture! Do you want that?”
“No, Sergeant!”
“What I see before me are not people. They are thieves. Murderers. Rapists. They are not human! They are rabid dogs! And what do we do to a feral animal?”
“We put it down, Sergeant!”
“Good. Now that you understand your priorities, here’s the mission: we simply need to capture the trench, wipe out their forces, and secure the town ahead.”
“Yes, Sergeant!”
“Dismissed!”
I secretly grinned. Normally, these men would be mutinying if they heard the order. A small speech had bent them to my will.
I wasn’t smiling much an hour later. Artillery shells rained around me as I cowered in a foxhole, wincing at every explosion that threw up fountains of dirt and shrapnel.
Half of my men died within five minutes. A firestorm of machine gun bullets eviscerated them in a minute. The next half hour was spent retreating and ducking behind rotting trees, dead bodies, or whatever measly cover we could find.
Then the artillery came. It started with a small whistling sound in the sky, a shrill cry that ended with a BOOM, blasting the ashy soil into the air and showering us in a bitter rain of dust. Another shell came. And then another. Hundreds of shells came shrieking out of the sky one, each one producing a thundering BOOM that shook the earth and drowned out the screams of my men as they were buried alive under plumes of dirt. The debris-filled air turned our lungs into tissue paper. We hacked and coughed our way into craters, where I found myself now.
So here I lay, defeated and caked in mud. My only comrade was a cowering, frail boy with the eyes of a lost puppy, whimpering and praying rapidly.
“Almighty God, please grant me the strength to survive this ordeal. Let my family know I am alive and well. Let me escape this torture. Please, God. Don’t let me die here. I have a life. Please, God.”
“Private,” I hissed. “Get a hold of yourself.”
The private ignored me and continued praying. I read his dog tag: Peter.
“Peter, listen to your Sergeant. Quit your religious bullcrap and focus on the battle.
Peter kept on mumbling. We weren’t going to last long if he kept on whimpering. I raised my hand to slap some sense into him. A deep, paternalistic instinct stopped me. The boy was so pale, so fragile. His very existence invoked a burning sympathy in me. I wanted to embrace him, to shield him from the torrent of bullets and fire above us the way a blanket protects a child from the dark. But now was not the time to be sentimental.
I reached out my hands and resisted the urge to wrap them around him. Instead, I grabbed his shoulders and shook him gently. “Quiet, son. Now listen to me, we are not going to die, okay? If you stick with me, we’ll live.”
Peter nodded meekly.
“Look here. We’ll get flushed out of this crater if we continue to stay here. If we retreat, we’ll be executed for desertion. The only way to survive is forward. We have to silence those machine guns.”
“But we’ll die!” Peter protested. “I can’t fight. Please sir, let me stay here. Please sir, please!”
Again, I felt as if I was staring at an abandoned puppy in the rain. His naivety didn’t belong in this land. There was something nostalgic about him, as if he were a deep memory that was digging its way out of the blacked depths of my mind, bring a new sunrise to the scarred battlefield. I wanted to embrace him, to let his light drown out the shadows that plagued my conscience. My facade as a hardened veteran was slipping. “Peter, if you come with me to take out that bunker, you’ll live. You don’t have to fight. You just need to carry some supplies for me.”
I took Peter’s hand and led him out of the crater, gripping my rifle with my other hand. Bullets whizzed by us and I pulled him into a new crater before we were torn apart. Peter’s chest heaved up and down and his eyes welled up.
I pulled out a revolver and placed it in his hands. “You’ve got this, Peter. We’re almost there. Don’t be scared. You have a gun and you know how to use it. Now get ready.”
I waited until there was a lull in the machine guns’ firing, for the rat-tat-tat of bullets to disappear. As soon as the guns finished purring, I leapt out of the crater and dashed to a new one, Peter scrambling behind me. Artillery sprayed shrapnel into our backs. Grenades bounced and detonated behind us. Smoke clogged our nostrils.
By some miracle, we had dodged our way, crater to crater, until we were just beneath the bunker and out of sight from the enemies in the trenches. I pulled out a grenade and signaled Peter to do the same. The pins came off and the green canisters of death flew into the bunker. We covered our heads and braced for the impact.
What followed was absolute pandemonium. The ammunition in the nest went up in flames, blowing the top of the bunker off and taking a good portion of the trench with it. Flames licked the sky and the roar of the guns was replaced by the roars of burning men. The rancid stench of singed flesh filled the air. Sensing that the largest threat in the trench was now gone, our men rushed through the gap. The defenders, dazed by the explosion, stood no chance. Within minutes, we had slaughtered what little remained of their men and sent the rest scattering.
I pulled Peter up and slapped his back. “Good job kid. The town’s next.”
Peter beamed at me, a fresh realization emerging in his face. I knew that look. It was the look of someone who had been seduced by war. I hadn’t known it yet, but that was the first sign of his downfall.
The feeling of victory faded when we entered the town. The sun was setting and the shadows stretched across the deserted roads. The enemy could be hiding anywhere. Our imaginations ran wild. We could envision their heavy breaths on our necks as we entered doorways. We could feel their cold glares from empty shop windows, their rifles aimed at our heads with itching fingers.
Something clattered in the house to my left. I kicked down the door and charged in, expecting to fight a unit of ferocious, battle-hardened soldiers. What I saw instead was a family of weak flesh and bone. An emaciated boy held up a knife in resistance, his palms shaking. The skeletal figures of his mother and sister lay unmoving beside him, the only sign of life in them being the slight rise and fall of their chests.
“Calm down kid,” I whispered softly, putting down my gun. “I’m not here to hurt you. Put down your weapon.”
The kid hesitated. He looked at me, and then at the bodies of his mother and sister. An inferno ignited in his eyes and he charged at me, the knife pointed at my chest.
He didn’t get far. A resounding crack stopped him in his tracks. I turned to see Peter gripping a smoking revolver.
“I-I-I did it sir,” Peter stammered. “I’m a true soldier now. I followed your orders, sir. I put the enemy down.”
Panic boiled inside me. The image of an innocent puppy in front of me was slipping away. “That’s not what I meant, Peter.”
Peter’s eyes darkened. “They’re the enemy. They deserved to die. It’s to protect our people…Just like you taught us.
“Peter,” I warned. “Stop now. These aren’t the people we were sent to kill.”
“The enemy wants to kill our families. You told us this yourself. We need to protect them, no matter what it takes.”
“Peter—these aren’t the people we were sent to kill.”
Peter ignored me, kicking through the other doors of the house. The sound of gunfire mixed with horrified screams. At long last, the terrifying cacophony ended and Peter returned, his eyes rabid and wild. My mouth hung open in terror.
“I’ve completed the mission,” he declared, searching for a look of approval. He was faced with a horrified expression instead. “But sir, I did as you asked.”
I held up my rifle. “Peter, put down the gun. Now.”
He frowned. “But sir, you told us to kill the enemy. Why are you willing to kill me over them?”
“These are civilians. We are better than this. Put down the gun or else.”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
He raised the revolver slowly and all signs of humanity left him. Then, I was seven again, aiming the barrel of a gun at my friend. He was a feral animal, all his logic usurped by bloodlust and I needed to stop this madness. Yet, every fiber of my body told me to walk away. I couldn’t spend the rest of my life repeating this moment.
But change doesn’t come easy and I would have to learn my lesson the hard way. Peter passed peacefully and to this day, I wonder if I had made the right choice. Maybe the bullet belonged inside the enemy. Maybe it belonged in my head. Alcohol and sleepless nights could not give me an answer.
So one winter night, I shoved the barrel of my revolver up my mouth and pulled the trigger. It didn’t fire. I pulled it again and again and again, but the bullets didn’t want to come out. Then it hit me: I was meant to live with it. The pain, the guilt, the memories were all so that I could learn that in this world of rabid dogs, no one was worth putting down. And that was how I intended to live for the rest of my life.
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