Vineland Public Library

Teen Writing Contest 2001

Short Story Winner

3rd Place

I looked into the eyes of my enemy whom I had never known. In those eyes I saw fear, a fear that I struck there. His eyes were pale, almost lifeless. At this sight I realized this man was no different than myself. We were both fighting for a cause we believed in and both fighting an enemy we never knew. In my eyes I now he saw the same fear I saw in his. His rifle was aimed at me and mine at him but for some strange reason we did not fire, we just starred at each other. The posters and billboards glorified war as an adventure but standing here looking into the face of death it was no adventure. It was a nightmare.

In October I marched down the street and into the local recruiting station. I had seen a poster of Uncle Sam pointing at me saying, "I want you!" After that I was set. I was joining the army. No sooner had I put on the uniform was I called out to battle. Everyday since then I’ve been in a trench, fighting an enemy that I’ve never actually seen up close. All I knew now as I was charging the enemy was that they had killed my best friend and I had promised him on his death bed that I’d get the bastards who shot him. We were going over the top (of the trench). I made it back, he didn’t. He was shot in the chest and while he was lying there on the battlefield he said something I’ll never forget: "I joined the army to defend my family. If a war like this can happen here, what’s to say that it can’t happen at home? If my dying protects my family from ever having to go through this hell, then by God I’m willing to die." His speech was broken but I understood him perfectly. I promised to fight for both him and myself.

Two weeks after he died our regiment suffered its greatest amount of casualties. We lost over 750 of our 1500 men. It looked pretty bad for us but we were sent reinforcements. Unfortunately, they weren’t much help as they were so extremely inexperienced. When we were hit with gas attacks we lost a lot of them. No boot camp or training ever prepares you for the reality of war. We would go up out of the trenches because the gas settled in low places. New recruits would return to the trenches too soon or follow after a dropped item before we could stop them. The gas, without a gas mask, would eat away at their lungs, killing them slowly from the inside out. They suffered so much. If the gases didn’t get them though the machine guns did. They’d walk out of the trench and were almost instantly killed. The new recruits dropped like flies. Eventually, our regiment grew but some of the men began talking of desertion or self-inflicted wounds that would cause them to be sent home. For me that was the unthinkable. I gave this war my all. I fought sick and hurt, I never complained. I lived strategy. I ate, slept and breathed fighting. I did it for my best friend, for the hope of winning and mostly for the thought of returning home to my family.

After six months I smiled for what must have been the first time during the war. I was given a job as a translator in the trench because I spoke both French and German along with my native English. Also, our other translator came down with a horrible disease. Disease in the rat filled trenches was one of the most common killers. I had desk work everyday translating messages and orders. I began to write many letters home as some days there was little to do other than write and listen to the machine gun fire, bursting bombs, falling shrapnel and screaming men. There is no sound in the world like a dying, wounded man screaming out to God and calling for his mother with his last breaths. It was a sound that haunted my nights as well as my days. It’s a sound I knew I would never be able to forget.

My desk work didn’t last long it ended last week. Thus is how I ended up standing here looking into the pale eyes of my enemy. I wondered what he was thinking about as he stood there looking at me. Suddenly, he turned and walked off. Our encounter here lasted but thirty seconds. I turned to walk away and found myself face to face with another enemy soldier. The look in his eyes was not pale and frightened but angry and bloodthirsty as he pulled the trigger and fired a shot into my stomach. The pain of a thousand hot knives invaded my body as I fell to the ground. I lay there for a few seconds as a soft rain began to fall around me. In a voice muffled by pain I said "Hail Mary full of grace. The Lord is with you. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of death. Amen" I recited this prayer because for me, I knew that now and my hour of death were one and the same. I reached into the pocket and pulled out my pen and paper. On it I wrote: "Dear Family, my time has come. I love you dearly and my death will not be in vain. Do all you can in your lifetimes to keep war like this from happening again. Keep me always in your hearts and in your thoughts. Wherever you go, I will be there. Love forever, James." I put the letter back in my pocket. I looked up at the falling rain and smiled. I closed my eyes and started drifting off; my wound didn’t even hurt anymore. Those the war does not kill, it destroys. I was about to belong to the first group. My last conscious thought was of my family and how in war no one is silent though many are not heard. I hoped that with my dying my family’s voices would be heard so that they could prevent another generation from having to feel the pain they felt to keep them from knowing the incredible horrors of war.

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