Tales From The Express - encounter 6: Why a Soldier

I wanted to be a soldier. Why? They wanted me to be one. Being a soldier meant being the best, as if all things good in life would blend inside this status. It had an importance, a value. So I enrolled. I went there and trained hard, got infused with the atmosphere of the dusty camp and canned fruits and noisy mates, and became that appropriate kind of soldier. But then I never saw things the same.

That importance and value I heard of was covered in the hard work and realness of it. It was a role of strength and glory..But beyond that, it was a role of heaviness and bearing the next day. A role of leg-aches and regret, of mud over wounds and loud bangs followed by endless smoke...It was a real role.

They wanted me to become a soldier. Why? Because in a world where every single role you take can be the best one, this was the very first they saw.