The voice of compassion echoed within his ears, infiltrated his well-trained mind, and cleared the inpenetrable land minds surrounding his dormant soul.

"Why have you come to do these things to me?"

the Major strained his ears, anxious to hear the voice better, but at the same time terrified by what it was asking. It was the question that he had forgotten, after so many hours, months, and years of knowing that there were certain insurmountable truths, had been made to forget.
Again.
"Why have you come to do these things to me?"
Why?
A million answers rose up in his mind- because he was defending his country from what might be a threat, because it was the right thing to do, because he had been told to- trained to, because... because...
"Because you're the enemy..." His voice trailed off in the face of this greater being, like a child who, reprimanded for abusing another child, tries to make an excuse, face turned down, pouting.
The voice of the war child, became somehow... visible, stretched and twisted in waves of nebulous light. It engulfed Major Cooper, wrapped him up in its glow, and he was lost.
He was a flea on the wall of a school in Guernica, going up in flames, watching the wall darken, change and split. Watching the alphabet primers consumed and hearing the screams.
He was a last glance given from the mother of the terrorist, turning away in fear and pain and wondering how we have fallen so far.
He was a single hair on the head of a Japanese child in Nagasaki.
He was the knowledge that it is never all right. It is never "justified". And those that "justify" it are most often the ones who live to see the end. And write the books.
He was the war child, born of the rib of the dark twin of Adam, condemned forever to bear the weight of man's inhumanity to man. And he knew how to answer his own question...

Nice one DanB

Don't know how to answer the question, but DanB definitely wins the write-alike contest so far.

The tainted sun took longer than usual to disappear- lingering in the smoldered ash and shining renewal across devasted land before giving in to its own demise. With evening's first shadow overtaking horizon's rightful share, dark souls emerge from unburdened terrorized graves, laying claim to anyone willing to console death within.

Beyond death awaits life and a place that beckons us to perceive the harm we do to others, we must also be prepared to receive.

And the death field asked...."What next shall life be?

And the answer became obvious since it was the thing most missing from view.....

Compassion, I'll name the war child Compassion and see how man treats Me.

Compassion replaced the turmoil within Cooper's heavy heart and filled it to the brim. He realized the boy that yearned for answers came from deep inside the neglected parts of him. Useless now to his comrades, the noncombatant decided to seek the safety of familiar ground, citing war fatigue as his affliction in order to be set free.

And so the war child dispersed across the ravaged land, seaching for others to believe.

Today my neighbor, father of twin girls and an officer in the reserve was called to active duty with orders to ship out in less than two weeks. He leaves for briefings tomorrow. This fifty-one year old man was struck speechless. He knew this day could come, but the reality was surreal.
In his words, "The problem is that the enemy believes they are fighting a religious war and we're just fighting a war."

The implications of that statement are far-reaching since this man is a faithful Christian struggling with his eminant task.
So I was wondering if any of you might attempt another perspective on the tales of war with a Bradburesque approach. I've had my turn.
The storytellers are obliged to ease the world's woes just a tiny bit at times like these.

Here's about the only thing that comes to mind...

Compassion's War - Chap. II

Earth divided by posioned power's misguided desires to enrapture his god as the God of all men tears rips and gashes across the face of earth's raw skin. Ravaged by crators overflowing with God-forsaken flesh and blood... lost by those who've forgotten we are all a part of Him.

I love your story. I may add later. I printed it off to show my friends, keep it up. It rocks!!!

I love your story. I may add later. I printed it off to show my friends, keep it up. It rocks!!!

hello everyone,
he's my little bit to add.

Him. The one true master. The one that they had only heard about and seldom ever took the time to realize. He had been the one watching, the one waiting. He had known this would happen and it did. Now he sat back and remembered the time before this unholy onslaught had begun, a time when his real believers tried frantically to salvage the rest of the demoralized planet. Peace had never been accomplished but there were times that parts of his creation were at rest with one another. He knew that a messenger must be sent down to remind the lost of his love. It would be a pure soul that would endure hatred, scorn, and prejudice. This soul would either save the world or be destroyed with it. His name did not matter. The men of the planet would not call him by his true one anyway. They would call him some slang term for his ethnicticity. The record in His divine place would only say that the soul of compassion would leave for war on September eleventh.

Cities crumble, families break, cultures collide, all in the name of righteousness. Evil cloaks its agenda beneath a blanket of napalm, hidden from justice sight.

A fresh batch of American soldiers arrive to intervene should the chaos inside the city escalate into madness.

Joshua waits silently with his squadrun, displaced by unpatriotic notions of shedding his standard-issue uniform for an unpretensious garment, native to the local culture. Brought by fate to the place where he could make a difference, and now chained to a pledge to protect a cause that has dissolved with war's rubble. Joshua's purpose morphed inside him. A physician of ailing souls must minister his medicine. Joshua clung to the urgency of his unacknowledged calling, sheading the heavy combat fatigues that suffocated his pores and stymied his purpose.

Stripped of pretense, compassion replaced indifference as night's idol darkness underscored his mission. By morning light, his captain would discover Joshua missing. No clue to his whereabouts and soon the rumors would fly. No one could determine his agenda: AWOL: A Worker Of The Lord.

They put their noses on the hard gun metal, oil sniffing like rose pedals on summer lemon aide evenings. Switching weapons, feeling the stock the metal listening to action bolt and rub steel to plastic hammers. They ignored the esplosions and hitched their tails to pedals and cool mountain water and whisked in sun and shade to peace and more peace.