Blog Post #14 11/11/15
She left that day. She’d heard of the honour and respect they’d earned and she wanted that, so she left. She heard them say what an honour it was to hold a gun in the name of your country, so she held one herself. She left. She heard how proud they were of the boys who went to fight, so she did the same. She heard of the blood spilled for her privilege, she heard of the lives given in her name, she heard of all the things they’d done that she owed them for, so she payed them back by becoming them. She left that day, and that day that she left, she didn’t hear, she saw. She saw them fighting for that honour and respect. She saw them hold their fingers on the trigger in pride. She saw the boys, the blood and the bodies, and she saw herself. She saw the gun in her hands, she felt the respect, but she didn’t like it. She didn’t want respect for murdering thousands, she didn’t feel honour holding a weapon and blaming it on her country, she didn’t want people to be proud of her for taking lives. She didn’t want people to feel like it was their fault that blood was spilled or that people died. She didn’t want any of that. She wanted to go home. She wanted anyone and everyone who had ever been through it all to go home, to live happily and peacefully, forgetting everything that had happened. She never wanted to relive the trauma, she never wanted to go back. She never wanted anyone doing what she did, thinking that they owed her. Thinking that they would feel proud of what they’d done, thinking that they could go back and live a happy life after seeing that blood on their hands. She left that day, but she came back, and she never left again. And every year on the day she left, she prays that no one leaves.