Ordered to Kill, Taught to Call It Honor
What am I being asked to do? To kill them? For what reason?
Is it simply because the command has been issued? What have they done to deserve death?
Is a different language, a different flag, or a different uniform enough justification for taking a life?
And if the answer is that they will kill me otherwise, then I must ask:
Is it fear that drives this decision, or is it something we insist on calling patriotism — a convenient mask placed over survival?
Why must people suffer like this?
War is neither entertainment nor should it ever become a business. Yet the consequences remain the same: someone loses an arm, someone loses a leg, someone loses the person they love. Lives are altered permanently, futures erased in seconds, and some are taken entirely with no explanation that truly compensates for the loss.
And then come the medals. What purpose do they serve? While I stand at the front line fighting an unknown man whose life mirrors mine — a man I had no reason to hate — others remain in officer’s quarters drinking whisky, distant from the reality they command. My blood and labour turn into their profits, and ultimately, they will be honored with medals while I return with bandages, sutures, and memories I never asked to carry.
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I wish my mother would not fear the thought of statues and memorials — I do not want to exist only in stone.
I now understand the quiet pain my father concealed behind his smile, the pain he never put into words.
And to the one I love: please do not cry. Tell the children their father showed courage, but do not let them choose the same path. Bravery is not worth inheriting when it demands a life in return.
To the man I was ordered to kill — the enemy I never knew — I am sorry.
I am sorry for taking the life of a father, a brother, a lover.
I am sorry for killing someone I had no personal reason to harm.
I am sorry for becoming a sinner under the weight of obedience.
Because in the end, that is what we were: puppets. And when peace arrives, our countries will exchange goods, build trade, shake hands, and flourish in ways that will never acknowledge the graves beneath their agreements. Business will prosper over the land where we fell. Life will move forward. And we will be remembered only long enough to be forgotten.
What am I thinking…
Tell me the latest report of the ene…mies.
