Young Writers Society

The morning mist settled on the dew covered grass of the pasture riddled with pitched white burlap tents. Men dressed in dull blue uniforms walked about holding muskets mounted with bayonets. Some were gathered around a small fire to try to fight off the cold that cut through the cotton uniforms like daggers. One man stirred a plain stew in a small pot over a flame as steam rose from the boiling mixture of food and water.

At the top of the small hill that over-looked the men and tents stood the old Sergeant dressed in his worn out dull blue uniform, three blue chevrons on both shoulders, and his medals resting over his left breast. His gray hair and mustache combed perfectly into place. His strong, old hands clasped behind his back as he looked over the platoon of men that began to rise and move about at dawn's approach. "Acceptable losses," he muttered as he thought over the meeting that he had stormed out of only moments ago.

"I could have you arrested for insubordination for your actions back there," the young Captain said walking up beside the old man. The Captain was half the age of the Sergeant with a youthful visage and brown hair combed back tight against his skull. He had recently graduated from West Point and it was obvious that he had no field experience. It was that fact that had the Sergeant's blood boiling in the briefing tent.

"Yeah, I know that you could; but, you won't," the Sergeant said with a huff. "You need me for this suicide mission that you are sending my platoon into." The old blue eyes looked over the men that stretched and walked about in the prairie below him knowing every face that greeted the day in hopes that this war might be finished soon.

"To a degree you are right," the Captain said clasping his hands behind his back. He was dressed in a new bright blue uniform, two gold bars on his collar to show his rank, and shining black boots that came up to his calf. Not a speck of dirt on him as he stood beside the older soldier. "But anyone can lead these men. I can't say that I understand your actions back there. These men fight for their country and any of them would die for it."

"These men do not fight for their country and I promise you, none of them want to die for it," the Sergeant quickly said as he sighed rubbing his temple looking to one of the soldiers that sat on a small barrel carving a small horse out of a scrap of wood with his bayonet. His white shirt had long since turned a creamy brown from being unwashed and his faded pants held up by suspenders that had no strength left in them. "Do you see that young man there?" the Sergeant asked gently. At the Captain's nod he continued. "Who do you think that young man is? What do you think that he is like?"

The Captain stared at the young soldier silently for a long time before he turned back to the Sergeant with an arrogant grin on his face. "He is a soldier fighting for his country and for freedom. He is a proud soldier that will do everything he has to for victory even if he has to put down his own life."

The Sergeant just shook his head with a tired sigh. "You are like every other captain fresh out of West Point," he said under his breath.

"Then tell me sergeant. What am I missing here?"

Nodding to the soldier he began to speak slowly, "His name is Private William Connell. He is from Jamestown, North Dakota. Before this war he was a farmer with a wife and three children: his two daughters Emily and Rebecca, and his son Edward. Edward will be six next month and starting school and he loves horses. That wooden horse that Connell is making is for him."

The Captain was about to remark on his admiration of the Sergeant's knowledge of the soldier before the Sergeant continued by turning and pointing toward the soldier stirring the stew for breakfast and then continuing to a few other soldiers. "That there is Private Bryan Powell. He is a teacher from Maine. He has a wife who is pregnant and waiting for him to come home so that they can move to the capital where he has a new job. That's Private Michael Hardy. He is half Cherokee and an able tracker. He wants to go to California to try to make a living as a wine maker."

The Captain listened carefully to the old Sergeant and smiled when he finally stopped. "I commend you on your knowledge of your men. It is quite impressive. However, I don't understand what that has to do with your outburst."

The Sergeant shook his head before drawing in a deep breath. "These men are just tokens on a map for you. You send them into battles and say that loosing a few of them is an 'acceptable loss', but you aren't the one that has to write home to the families of these men explaining to their wives, brothers, fathers, or sons that they are dead while fighting for their country," the Sergeant said in a deep growl. "I am the one that has to send them home in a pine box so that their loved ones' can bury them in their home soil. You just see soldiers that follow your orders. I see the men behind the soldier. I see what is being lost if they die on the battlefield. I see men that aren't fighting for their country or for their superiors. I see men fighting to see another day. These men are fighting for their wives, sons, daughters, families, and friends. You say that loosing this platoon is an 'acceptable loss'. The objective is more important than the lives of the soldiers that are fighting in the battle. Tell me Captain do you have any children?"

"Yes, I have a son."

"How would you like to get a letter one day that said that he died fighting for his country?" The Sergeant turned to him with an empathetic look. "Are you saying that you would feel proud because he died following orders? That he died for his country? Would you feel no remorse that your son was coming home only to be buried in the ground?" The Captain was shocked by the direct questions that the Sergeant was asking. "Every battle that is fought, I remember the faces of those that we have lost, those that have died for what they believed in and those that died just following orders from men like you. Men that thought of their soldiers as pawns on a board instead of what they really are. There is no such thing as an 'acceptable loss' in war. There are only losses."

"What we are doing will change the world," the Captain tried to reason. The collar of his uniform seeming to be getting tighter like a noose was pulled around his neck. "What these men fight for will give our country a chance to be something great."

"How can a world change when those that spill their blood to change it never leave the battlefield? How long can a world born from blood and death last?" The Sergeant said with a tired voice. "The world can never change like that. If you want to change the world... stop looking at these soldiers like there is nothing being lost when they fall. Stop looking at them as pieces on a board." The Sergeant walked down the slope toward his men as the sun broke over the prairie bathing the area in an orange glow. Walking among his soldiers one last time before the battle would begin that day. The soldiers regarded the Sergeant with a respectful greeting that didn't brighten the gloom that weighed heavily on his heart. The very path that he walked was like the graveyard that would soon be filled with the names of these soon to be fallen soldiers.

The Sergeant died with his men that day when the entire platoon fell trying to hold off an attack that overwhelmed their ranks. The Captain returned to that hill at sunset as the tents were being broke down to be stored. He walked through the platoon camp seeing the unfinished horse that Private William Connell was making for his six year old son, found the letters from Private Bryan Powell's wife talking about what they wanted to name their unborn child, and read the journal of Private Michael Hardy planning out his winery. Tears brimmed in the Captain's eyes as the cost of these soldier's deaths were far greater than what they had gained in that battle and far more than he could have ever imagined. Dreams that would never be realized and lives that would never be the same. The Captain left unable to face the silent haunting of the soldiers that died by his orders.

The Captain with an unbuttoned uniform and buddy boots sat by the fire near his tent staring into the flames with his hands clasped together in front of him. He turned his gaze to a young boy dressed in blue who was barely sixteen. A bandage covered his left eye and his arm was in a sling while he tried to eat the stew that had been made. The hot food would spill out of the wooden spoon before he could manage to bring the nourishing meal to his mouth. The Captain stood walking over and took the bowl from him gently before starting to feed him. "What is your name soldier?" the Captain said.

"Private Nathaniel Roberts, sir," the young boy said in a shaky voice wiping his chin of the brown broth of the stew.

"It's alright young man. Take it easy," the Captain said reassuringly as he sat down beside him. The Captain sat there with the Sergeant's words still echoing in his head as he looked at the wounded soldiers that surrounded him. "Tell me about yourself Nathaniel. I want to learn about the men that are under my command before I make another decision like today."

The soldier's main enemy is not the opposing soldier, but his own commander.

-Ramman Kenoun