What We Saw

I was drafted, but eventually the boys signed up, they enlisted—they wanted to. Well, during the height of the War, young men, many younger than my grandchildren, were thrust into some pretty indescribable horrors. It was a time when innocence was completely stripped away, replaced by a ferocity that grappled with the fragility of life on a daily basis. The sights we witnessed, oh, they haunt me still. The deafening thunder of relentless gunfire and explosions echoing through the desolate landscapes, the acrid stench of burning rubble mingling with the scent of blood-soaked earth. The screams, the crying, the vomiting….we saw death in its most agonizing form….brothers falling beside us, their youthful life shattered like fragile glass. Yet, amidst the devastation, there were fleeting moments of humanity that pierced through the darkness. The camaraderie shared in the face of uncertainty, the resilience and unwavering spirit that threaded itself throughout the chaos. We clung to these fragile threads to survive. The sheer volatility of emotional instability rode us from despair to hope, from desolation to fleeting moments of fleeting joy. As the war scarred our souls, we emerged forever changed, burdened with the weight of what we had seen, etching a memoir of courage and sacrifice into our hearts. That’s how it was….that’s what we saw.