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and if you are lucky enough to die in combat-find comfort in the knowledge that the Marines, your family, your brothers will live on."

Jimmy believed it was at that moment his sanity drifted away. Compassion drained from his heart like water poured from a glass. He forgot about his family, he forgot any hopes or dreams he had clung to in the past. Completely empty and utterly hollow, Jimmy lost the ability to fear death because he no longer possessed the emotion to care.

* * *

Jimmy walked through the jungle completely stripped of his humanity. He felt destined to die and he squeezed the trigger frantically, over and over again. His movements were twitchy as if he were a wounded animal yet, he could not stop and he shot at everything that wore the enemy's color. He had become a walking nightmare, a killer void of emotion-the perfect killing machine.

When the land mind exploded, it knocked Jimmy back a few feet and the shrapnel that pierced his skin caused an emotion to register immediately. Jimmy howled in pain as he came reeling to his senses, he panicked, looked around, and attempted to stand but his injured leg would not allow it.

Jimmy looked down to inspect the wound he could not believe that the oozing mass of ground-pink flesh belonged to him. He could hear the other soldiers in his platoon moaning, but his commander's voice rose above the cries.

"Men, it looks bad," he stated, his voice breaking. "If we don't make it out of here, if you don't make it home today, remember you died for this country and there is no shame in that."

No shame? Jimmy thought as he began to weep surrounded by injured bodies. In his head he could hear the broken promises he had made to Amy-he had promised her that he would come home. He had promised to always love her and protect her. The baby? Oh, the baby, he would never get to love, or teach, or hold it. Jimmy cried out to God.

"Please, No!"

And he shut his eyes against the explosion of white light.

"And that is what war is, if you strip away the lies of glory and the sickening hope of power, and I know this is what men have become. War is death's shadow and death has finally won. When a man fights a war, how can that man ever win?

" I saw your world end in a brilliant flash of light. I tell you what ushered death was the soldier's fight. And in between the whizzing bullets and the thumps of bodies falling, I swear that in the darkness, I could hear the devil laughing and applauding. As the earth becomes a grave, war will begin. And it begins the end. Feeling fatigued and shell-shocked, I know much more remains to be told.

"This is where the story truly begins to unfold. This war will lead to more tragedy. This war will continue to kill. Remember, Jimmy's family? Remember Jimmy's bride?

Learn more about this author, R. Warner.
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