Kill The Black Bloods

Kill the black bloods!

March march March!

Hut 2-3-4

March march March!

Today was the day

The day I was created for

Today was the day

To kill the enemy!

I was good

He was bad

That's all they told me

That's all I knew

Kill the black bloods

March march march

Hut 2-3-4

March march march

Rifle in my hand

Lieutenant at my side

Courage in my heart

I was ready!

But when the lieutenant gave the green light

The target was a child

hiding behind a woman

shielded by a man without a gun

Shoot said my lieutenant!

Kill the black blood

take his wife

And shoot his kid

My heart stopped... This didn’t make sense. I was here to serve and protect, I imagined we would fight an armed and dangerous military man and I didn’t see why killing an unarmed man with his wife and his child in front of his home required us to train as long and hard as we did.

“But what about laws protecting children and civilians?”-

My lad that shit don’t matter here!

These are black bloods

They aren’t civilians, they have no children

They are black bloods every last one of them.

I tried to talk-

To express my freedom of speech…

but I was welcomed with insults and threats from my comrades and an encouraging elbow in my gut from my lieutenant. I knew I had no choice. I looked at my target head on.My arms trembled though I had a gun,but he stood sturdy as statue bearing his own courageous chest to shield that which was more precious to him than his own life. He was fearless of my bullets, and fearless of my men.

My vision started to blur, and sweat poured down my temples. As I squinted to aim properly I saw his wife sigh hopelessly and lean her head down on her husband’s arm just as my wife Mary often did to me. She had my full sympathy for much lesser sorrows, and I trembled to think that this time it was me who was the cause of this sorrow to another man’s wife. I quickly wiped my eyes and I refocused on the goal but when I looked up again the little boy looked me straight in the eyes softly spoke the broken words “Daddy pleez sav mi” in his baby voice.

“Joseph!” I yelled and took a step forward to gather him safely into my arms and then realized that this wasn’t my son Joseph and he didn’t say Daddy to me.. he said it to his father. His father who I was just about to kill In front of his very eyes. I looked once more to the father whose expression didn’t change in the slightest but a single helpless lump passed his throat at the sound of his son’s impossible request.

I shot the black blood

and then it hit me

It hit me with a force that knocked me to my knees.

It hit me how brutally I was betrayed.

I was made a fool!

I couldn’t comprehend how such a colossal truth was kept from me:

Hid blood was RED... His blood was red just like mine!

I felt the foreign soil in my hands, and realized that it was I who was wearing the boots of the invader

I felt his red blood splattered on my face, and realized it was I who was wearing the uniform of the coward

The world continued to spin on its axis, but as I watched each drop of blood drain from his dying body, I witnessed the last drops of humanity drain from my existence.

That was the day I killed my brother.

That was the day I died.

Not a day, not an hour nor a second passed by that I didn’t feel that I was drowning in my regret. Every time I closed my eyes I saw it more clearly than ever exactly what it was that I lost that day through the barrel of a gun.

Everytime I closed my eyes it was absolutely clear to me that I could never hope to rebuild a beautiful garden of peace and prosperity on my slain brothers grave.

When it was all over and we got back home I walked around like an empty shell unable to connect to anyone or anything.

It wasn't over for me!

It never ended for me...