Brings me to humanity
Brings me to Humanity
These are the events I see fit to describe in the war of 2025. Regiment had us march on the parade ground in July. I saw no fit use for these purposes, as they perverted the initial scope of our previous experiences. Out on the front, we do not 'march' into battle, we run as fast as our jackboots will take us. Fuck the C.O., for it was before he came to retrain us for officer duties that I met upon the most profoundest of changes upon my will. I could say, as others before me will, that we are told that the enemy is a fierce foe to be loathed. Just as Germans were Huns or Japanese were shifty-eyed devils. We learn through contact and mistakes that these implications are grievously false. Enemies are just people like us; fighting for country and beliefs fervently with character and strength of will. These beliefs are not wrong. Politics are wrong. Politics are always wrong. I learned this in an unexpected way along with another soldier during a bombardment in March.
Me and my garrison, a number of forty left from one hundred and eighty, were assigned for trench guard duty while a fresh garrison out of training were going to charge the enemy emplacement. I already knew that most of them would be dead before they got to the wires. Survival in war could not be taught, it had to be experienced. The survivors of the offensive soon returned, hounded by the crash of landing shells behind. We all quickly filed into a nearby bunker to escape the worst of it.
For some time we waited, each earth tearing explosion rocking us until one green recruit ran out before we could stop him. We imagine we'd find him all over the trench as we vacated later. An hour or so passed before the shelling stopped-then we were given the order for fixed bayonets. That usually meant one of two things; either we were going over, or the enemy was invading. An allied machinegun opened up, confirming the latter possibility. I decided to follow last as my garrison filed hastily out of the small entrance. A grenade went off before I could get out. The others in front of me died as I found a giant splinter as thick as a thumb and the length of a foot or so lodged firmly and grotesquely through my thigh, sticking crudely out both sides like handle bars.
I limp back to a corner and wait, having a seat in the slightly damp earth and hoping to be found by a red cross boy'. That hope died when a C.O. outside ordered the retreat.
I was alone with the dead, the dying, the enemy, and my carbine.
Inside of two minutes I was greeted by one of the enemy. He had stepped over my comrades bodies, so he did not expect to see me in here alive. He was quite surprised to see my rifle leveled at his chest from ten feet away. He raised his own, a bolt-action, aiming it at me, staring into my eyes, my soul. We both hesitate with death in our path. This went on for minutes with not the slightest movement. If one blinked, they could easily miss their own death. Slowly, we lower our weapons, and glared at each other.
I an entombed curiosity, so lithe and weak a creature as to be unable to survive or control anything.
He a true symbol of equine masculinity and grace; a white and brown paint stallion in their majors' rank uniform and knee-high hoof encasing shoe-boots.
Perhaps staring is not satisfactory for him. He trod over, seized his mud coated hand out of the way with one hand, and sat upon his derriere right next to me, now releasing his tail and removing a pack of smokes from a coat pocket. These are the oddest thing I've seen; they are basically cigarettes that look like firecrackers due to the dyed red paper used in rolling them. He offers me one. I hesitate, sitting here with my vilest enemy. We are to kill each other. But he seems civil enough, and quite patient with my turmoil. I finally take one, very much confused.
Shelling begins.
There's no escape.
Only the two of us will share this bunker for several hours.
It is strange then, that we take a break from the death and come to understand each other at some primal level. Yes, we are enemies. We are also soldiers. This distinction made us brothers. We were both fed wicked lies about the other. One cannot easily forget the propaganda, for in repetition does it gain power. Man was meant to fight, and he was meant to kill, but not murder. It is true, that the crueler war becomes, the sooner it is done with, as is that war contains no rules. These are in fact universal agreements. What sets man and monster apart is what soldiers do to those not involved in their merry hell.
I relax as he lights my crimson, despite the splinter in my leg. I'd rather share company with a horse than any ten of those gutless pricks who preach of patriotism. They aren't here eating rats and shitting in shell craters, or having to listen to the screams of the brass's latest SNAFU.
We had hours to kill.
And a language barrier.
Apparently, communication would be done with crude gestures and drawings in the dirt, or trading of possessions. In the end, we traded the common foodstuffs the other rarely got to eat. (That seems to be the rule of war; you get a lot of rations you don't like because the rest is for some reason scarce and only owned in abundance by your foes.) Cheese for chocolate or a parmesan bread loaf for some tins of spiced apples.
He wore not a helmet, but a kevlar and steel plate fastened smartly over the top of his muzzle to right behind his forelock, where a black painted bar with glass attached could be flipped down over the eyes from the resting place of his neck.
His tail was unfitting for an elegant creature such as he, for I now saw not just mud, but feces as well. I toss him my comb and canteen, pointing toward his tail. I did not know whether this was taken remiss as an insult, or if they were frumpy prideful creatures grateful of an appearance boost. At any rate, he got to work, avoiding eye contact. I thought it a splendid time for hygiene of my own. I spit on a Gillette and get to work on my face. The horse stops in the middle of a stubborn tangle, staring in fascination at my usual ritual. He doesn't understand it; no horse does. They don't have facial hair and they use scissors and clippers for everything else. When I finish, the stubs are rough and uneven, but here one could call that acceptable.
I sigh heavily, spitting the stub of the cig far across the bunker. After he finishes his tail, he hands back my stuff and gets the idea in his head that we will play some games. It mystifies me in turn to realize he has a horse game similar to Chess or Checkers. The board is heavy collapsible plastic, the pieces are aluminum coin-like tokens with odd symbols. He is quick to point out in pictures on the dirt that these are representations of numerical values of army sizes. In that, an army of 400 can beat one of 300, 1000 to 200, and so on. We each get fifteen tokens. The highest valued one is 800, and while one side is marked, the other is blank. This allows him to randomly assign pieces to the both of us on the board. The board itself is done in blue and black octagonal shapes instead of squares, so it appears to have jagged edges instead of four smooth sides. I am on blue, while he takes black. All our tokens are separated by at least one space, lest we begin too soon. I realize I got cheated when I flipped mine over and have no 800's.
Bastard.
But through error, I am taught that high pieces do not make the victor, just as the bigger army does not make a general better. We are allowed to make two moves per turn. When he moves a 600 and 200 in range of my 700 token, I am confident I can defeat one of the two when my turn comes. However, he takes my 700, much to my confusion. He is quick to explain through gesture that army tokens must be combined at key moments to defeat one or another force. In other words, though my 700 was more powerful than either of his, it could not stand up to both at once. Adapting to this strategy, I manage to best him in kind three out of five games. Soon, he raises his arms in vain surrender with a horsy chuckle.
The stallion major never expected to be beaten at his own game.
I then decide to teach him about poker, but he cannot easily bluff. I beat him every time, but feeling sorry for the poor bastard, I give back most of the stuff I won off him. He seems to appreciate that gesture and smiles warmly, embracing me to him. This action confuses me. I do not respond. It is uncomfortable for a man to be hugged by the enemy. It is uncomfortable for a man to be hugged at all. The stallion backs off quickly, understanding. It is horse custom to nuzzle, nicker, and share contact; things humans were averse to. He was proficient in body language; his kind thrives in it. We keep to ourselves and eat. He is hesitant, reluctant to ply further contact and offend me again. He cannot know nor guess at our ways without offending me further. His kind do not take helpful gestures remiss, as we do who want to keep our weakness a secret.
Tough manly men who hide themselves become cold autonomotons whom serve little purpose.
I shrug and sigh.
Aside from a furtive ear flick, there is no movement from my warmate. I shake my head hopelessly.
"I'm sorry." I spout off.
He turns about hastily, astonished. Apparently, he is not so oblivious to our language. I look into his eyes and for once do not see the killer of a thousand battles and hard unthinking cruelty. What I see will shock me, even after all the horror I have been privy to. I see love, caring, an unjudging fellow. Most of all, I see a friend with eyes like those of my comrades. He is not an enemy; not a deceitful force to jab a bayonet through my ribs. He is simply a peaceful presence nearby; like a tree.
There seemed no delight in them for killing us. Never enjoying it, as if destroying us were below them, but they must anyway. No horse kills a man for fun. For sport sometimes, but that is a separate issue. When I refer to their distaste for fun, I refer to our common action of not merely killing a foe, but making him suffer as well out of spiteful hatred. The horses are merciful, in that they do not leave us to die slow horrid deaths, and take prisoners to be taken care of when possible.
It would seem in their benevolence to do the right thing, as if they were Jonathan Swift's perfect Houghynms and we the vile degenerate yahoos whom cannot escape our wicked natures'. That aspect is in fact, part of their own propaganda. Their slur word for us IS yahoo. We do not simply represent all these negative qualities, to them, we ARE the negative, evil, degenerate, yahoo. Of course, they have failed to understand that yahoos from "Gulliver's Travels." are primitive ape creatures more than men. We are not houghynm, true, but neither can we be classed as the yahoos equines tend to see us as. We are neither God nor the Devil.
We are simply men.
At any rate, my generosities have proven we are not so greed-ridden a menace to value property above friendship. Both the apology and the return of his things unsettles him; he did not expect me to be so agreeable a host. He seems desperate enough to take company with a 'vile' beast. They've that herd instinct, that one which tells them to seek company else they will pine away. Company is one thing, but FRIENDS! IN THIS PLACE?! The stallion suspects the untruths the equine magistrate may have bespoken their kind. He sits now in contemplation, suspicious not of me, but what other lies he may have been taught.
Who are you to question me?
I know damn well you're the enemy!
I can see it in your face, I can find it in your eyes
I'm not the fool you take me for, if only you'd realize
You're different than what I thought
Not exactly what I was taught
I guess my teachings are a lie
But if that's true, then what am I?
I never believed I could see you
Without a gun and eyes brand new
I am a soldier that is lost
Just a rag doll that got tossed
And if my purpose is a sham
Is that all I really am?
Mudslinging of politicians toward an unfaced enemy are dispelled in battle. The more I watch him, the more I realize I cannot go back to fighting them. When you learn something, you cannot go back to the way you were. I look at my friend with his furtive stance and go to sleep.
In another plain, I awaken (or do I?) to rapid drumming, beats eerily similar to crashing high explosive shells in the distance. I listen intently, thinking wryly that even war has a beat, a rhythm, despite the chaos and desperation about.
"We have met the enemy." Replied a small piping voice. Strong, wise, and authoritive.
I look down.
Standing in front of me at knee height in a Napoleonic uniform and wearing a black gold-trimmed shako with jowl band going about his cheekbones, is a short little white stallion. He stands upright like a man; like the enemy.
It is strange, though I've not seen him before, I know who he is. I chuckle to myself; this is Captain Knickknack, my supposed C.O.! What absurdity.
"We have met the enemy." He repeated, not pleased with my lax interest.
"Private, are you listening?" Then his eyes narrowed shrewdly, "Or don't you care?" He replied.
"It's difficult Knickknack. I keep hearing it; same sounds, same hubris, but it never changes. War is a song that repeats over and over. A few lyrics change, but it basically stays the same. The monotonous refrains tire me." I muse offhandedly.
Knickknack looks up at me angrily, which only makes me giddy.
"That's Captain Knickknack Sir! And war is the same because we cannot fight to another waltz or serenade. The Brass won't hear of it!"
No, they are too busy doing Tango among themselves. Who leads? We do, of course. Until the enemy offensive. The only few words among the lyrics that change; atomic bomb, laser guided strike, new guns. These are amongst half notes and quarterstaffs of blood, death, hate, rats, desertion, dismemberment. War has many notes-for a tango-but most are overplayed, like a strained, speeded up Moonlight Sonata with butchered pitches and flats.
"I suppose not, Sir." I reply.
He appraised me, nodding confidently.
"Good, I see you are more alert private. We have much to discuss." He spoke.
Discuss? Only now did I realize this was a figment of my fantasy. This was not real. Knickknacks' eyes caught mine, seeming to say, 'and how real do you want it to be, Laddybuck?' I shrugged.
"So this is some dream I have cooked up." I muse.
"No, this is MY vision. I live in your subconscious." He spoke impatiently.
I frowned. Can figments of things LIVE in another part of my head? Is that possible? I grin. Maybe if I had multiple personality disorder.
"Is that what you are figment? Another personality in my head? Another sentiency? If so, why the stallion body?" I ask.
Knickknack gave a grin I did not much appreciate. A condescending wolf smile that said, 'boy, I'm gonna eat ya and shit out yer bones.' That expression creeped me out. That was not a true expression of our enemy at all. That was maliciousness; that was something else.
"Yes, you are correct. This is not my natural form. However, you are not ready to see me. You are not ready for many truths, but eventually, you will see. For now, suffice to say, I am your guardian spirit, and giving advice and wisdom. For now, be content with the honesty among lies that war is a tango, a bloody, ugly dance with millions of partners. Your partner right now is Major Brinby. Enjoy the festivities until I return-if you survive that long."
"Of course, shorty, of course. Sometimes in the great violent tango, we do not live to another partner, another dance, another refrain of death."
Knickknack shrugs, unamused.
I awake, and wonder if it WAS a dream. There was one matter of proof I could try. I chuckled. No, that was stupid. How could this other thing possibly psychically know the name of my bunker mate? After some boredom, I decide to try it out.
"Major Brinby, how goes your neck of the woods?"
The big stallion twists about suddenly. Wide-eyed, shocked, terrified, intense amazement. There's no doubt what he's thinking, 'Human, how the fuck could you know that?!' There is no doubt, either, of his muscular capability. That's not a guy you want to fuck around with. I decide not to dicker around and patronize his intelligence, for fear he may bend me in two to do a self-fellatio. No, I don't have to say anything, he reads the confusion in my posture and sighs himself. Maybe he understands, maybe not, but at least I'm not about to become the worlds' first hermaphrodite pretzel! Soon, I come back to Knickknacks lectures. 'We have met the enemy'. What does that mean? The statement doesn't feel right, complete. It is poetic, missing a closure. He'll tell me, or he thinks I can figure it out.
Eventually.
The next day reeks of powder and dead things, but the shelling is over. I won't kill him, but I don't care about his family or the sacrifices he made for his part in wars' bargain.
Later, a day or so, we are visited by three more stallions. They at first eye me warily, guns aimed at my chest, but Brinby trumpeted out some commands in his odd horsy language, setting them to carefully take me out toward a hospital area not too far off. Soon, placed in a stretcher with my bad leg held suspended in the air by some pulley support on the stretcher. That should have been taken care of a long time ago, says the expressions of their medics and surgeons, as they poke about the wound. Not the distaste for treating the enemy our medics had. Too, was it strange that no measure of restraint was taken toward me during the whole duration. Somehow, they knew damn well how tractable I was, compared to others.
When I was soon taken to a monestary-converted-hospital of theirs, and bedded on the first floor, I did not realize how fortunate I was. Twenty or so other P.O.W.'s shared this level with me. They were pilots, sailors, or ironically, our medics. Real non-aggressive types. They told me as much that infantry soldiers are not normally handled on the first floor. Usually, the real mean bad-asses were treated in the upper stories for security reasons, and that there were elaborate measures to curtail violence. None of the prisoners in my ward wanted to elaborate that point. Within an hour, a cute buxom mare (or was she a filly?) came in the room to wheel me down to surgery. I am given what I assume is a Thorazine injection and black out in full confidence of their care; It's no secret their doctors try their best for either side.
When I come to, I am back in my ward, where mare nurses and stallion and mare doctors are busily seeing to the affairs of the patients. I also see that my leg is full and bandaged. (no amputation, despite possible gangrene) A mare nearby replaces an airman's' I.V. with a fresh quart of something clear. Sugar water, I guess. Others give out pills, clean bedpans, and do vitals and bloodwork. This efficiency astounds me. However, I'm told by a submariner, a torpedo loader, that we are the favorites and are treated better and with more attention than others in wards above us. His conclusion, speaking of the equidae, is that if the other prisoners don't want them, they aren't needed unless necessary. Infantry and tankers (or just plain racists) have a stigma about them of a snake, 'I am a wounded, trapped animal. Don't tread on me.' Indeed, the nurses and doctors bear the scars of infinite vicious assaults. Equines get wise to that behaviour, treating the higher levels progressively more like prisons for convicted felons.
Yes, down here, it is true, we are practically loved and cosseted. Even me, the warrior. After all, It's maliciousness, not occupation that determines where one is put. I myself seem to have four nurses whom eagerly hover about for any of my needs, if for no other reason, than for being the strange creature in the menagerie; a warrior without vice or hatred for the enemy. They are quick and very intelligent, they perceive a need in me before I even realize it. Even if we are separated by language, our bodies themselves convey what these caretakers need to know. They react quickly, friendly, lovingly; like the perfect wives we never met. My doctor whom did my surgery (I fondly think of him as Black Beauty) thinks It will heal up well enough for me to take a few nice wheelchair trips outside among the gardens. But first, I take a trip by myself in the chair to see how the others' of the human race were dealt with.
On second floor, there is just a little less activity, but as much attention to be had by these wonderful and sweet female creatures.
Level three and four aren't too bad, either.
On level five, men wear clear plastic hoods over their faces that lock in the back and some sort of harness across their groin area. These guys, I know automatically, are slimers; people who throw waste products and spit at the caretakers. Aside that, they haven't crossed over into physical assault. Yet.
Six, seven, and eight are your typical don't-take-shit wife beating lame-o's. Permanently strapped into beds unless they need exercise or a bath.
Nine is the charming psychos that talk to god.
Ten I did not spend long inside. I would not want a million dollars to go in there again.
I return to the quiet mundane pampering of level one. A chestnut filly offers to push me around the orchard outside. I genuinely assure her that such would be intriguing for me. Most of the trees are for oranges (gotta have that vitamin C, y'now), but she wheeled me instead toward an apple tree and pointed tentatively up.
"Like?" She spoke crudely, forcing the alien syntax from a mouth that barely knew to form such sounds.
Despite that, I was impressed. I nodded dumbly. She smiled delightedly, giving the tree trunk a tremendously powerful hindkick which dislodged several fruit. She gracefully managed to catch one before I had my own Isaac Newton experience. The strength and speed astounded me. Jesus! She could take on all the hospital crazies and then some! As I had my treat, I did not realize how false these observations would prove in an altercation the next day.
I had four apples on a stand nearby to enjoy whenever I wished. All was calm for some time. Indeed, I never saw them in a flurry of activity as I did now. The nurses were rushing about, panicky and confused.
Bad shit had happened today in ward three.
A submarine engineer, an Edward Penn, had a nurse hostage with a rusty piece of trash against her throat like a shiv. He already had her helpless, dead to rights, raping her, cutting her. When they finally got him off her, he proclaimed belligerently that, 'enemy pussy is still pussy', though sex was beyond the point, because he was also cruel-and having a fun time at it too! No, sex wasn't an issue. If any of us had gotten over our shyness and managed to ask one of our patrons, I'm sure they'd be happy to oblige in that area as well.
No, Ed was just an asshole.
And now he's an asshole living on level eight.
My colleagues are in agreement on this issue, 'if you want to fuck around and throw this paradise away, fine, just don't expect to be let back into Eden.' But how did he hide this viciousness for so long from the 'experts of body language?'
Another day, a break from the calm is the outburst I hear from five, the slimers. But it only began there. It is one catchy phrase; a spin-off of a famous anti-Vietnam slogan, stoked further in the upper levels by the fires of hate and mistrust. Soon, catching fierce in all but the first two levels. Anyone not gagged, is singing the famous anti-equus slogan for all to hear. The monastery is an inferno of,
"Hey, hey, Cleveland Bay, how many kids did you kill today?!"
That wretched anti-Vietnam comeback sets the equids ill at ease. It troubles them because they cannot stop it; cannot silence the hateful ignorant words of those wounded whom should be grateful. The chestnut nurse had enough. She takes me out to the orchard so that I can sleep. I decide I should, disgusted myself at this uncouf, unwarranted behavior. The equids are nice. They TRY to be friendly. All we do is push them away.
This has been my seventh rest before I meet Knickknack again.
"Hello private, what got you down?" Asked this tiny stallion thing.
I shrug. After that crazy-as-hell grin he flashed me last time, I don't know what to make of this little shit.
Does he REALLY care?
"O' course I do! But you got to understand that you and the others on one and two are the minority, and others aren't as sympathetic as you. Most will only see the hate they've been told, you know, 'we have met the enemy and all that rubbish?" Knickknack pronounced.
"Enemy? I don't see in them the hate I should." I reply.
"That's because your eyes are not showing you right. Eventually, you will see how evil the enemy can be, don't doubt that."
Then the dream was gone and I awakened.
The next day, an old black mare nurse (likely a wise matriarch among horses) wheeled me out to the garden, where I was surprised to meet an old friend whom had received the leave to visit me. None other than dear Brinby. I took pleasure in his company. Soon, we are at his game again. I won a majority of times before he had to leave, but before he went, he said something to the nurse matriarch to the effect of, 'you better watch this one, he's pretty clever.', before giving his horsy chuckles and leaving us. The mare appraised me amusedly, not believing my strategic prowess herself.
By the sound of nearby shells landing, I know liberation is not far off. I both anticipate and dread it. Why this is so, I cannot conjecture.
Two days after Brinby's visit, the hospital has been taken over. My comrades take to looting, rape, and murder-revenge. None of our kind hosts are spared this agony. I am helpless to stop them. I cannot. They are my allies, and as one grunt put it, 'Geneva don't cover no fuckin' hosses!' But I know this is wrong; surely Geneva was meant for more than men alone? I steal a pair of crutches and leave in disgust of what these war-loving beasts are doing to my equid friends. The yahoo's are desecrating a sanctuary for Chrissake! Further along the road are giant poles with equids tied to them. Naked, starving, and miserable. As I go by, one stops me immediately.
Holy Christ!
It's dear Brinby!
The paint coated major has been emasculated. I can easily tell by the trails of blood on his inner thighs. He is scared, confused, ashamed. He motions to a nearby bush with his head. In this thicket, I find where his clothes and equipment have been tossed. I bring them back over. I can read his eyes well, now. I know what their somber message to me is. I take his large oversized revolver out of the holster, hesitating for a moment before firing once.
There will be no more games.
I stride away in shame of what I had to do to appease a friend suffering so. Sometime later, I came to see some vagrants raping at gunpoint that fine chestnut filly that had taken me out for those lovely strolls in the garden.
I don't need to hesitate this time
I kill the men attacking her so viciously and drop the gun in revulsion, moving on as the nurse fearfully quivered.
Later, Knickknack appears to me, not waiting for a dream, but instead coming to me as a hallucination.
"Begone you cursed thing! I've lost all that I dared care for." I growl angrily.
"You have seen, experienced. You are ready." Knickknack spoke, sure of himself.
"Ready for what you little fucker?" I demanded.
At that prompting, he turned from a stallion to a man. A man with a Nazi helmet, an AK-47, a ww2 Italian infantry uniform, ww2 U.S. G.I. boots, a thin long mustache, and a Japanese Nambu pistol in his waistband.
I look on, appalled.
Knickknack replies simply,
"We have met the enemy,' he takes a long draw of breath and muses,
'and he is us."
"We have met the enemy, and he is us."
-Anonymous-
"Sometimes the greatest examples of humanity are shown by our enemies in war-even if they aren't quite human themselves."
-Big Fluffy-