• It’s over. I am undone. As I fall on my knees to the warm white sands below I cannot help but scream. Mother; where are you? I promised I would be back for you when June had come and the war was over for our family. Oh momma, where are you? Where are you with your first aid kit full of love and bandages? I don’t think that there is a bandage big enough for this wound. I fall to my hands and sob as the sands below are stained with my own blood.

    SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSwwwp-PAH!

    Another shell has fallen close and the deadness of my ears is stifling. As my heavy chest begins to fall flat against the silken sands my eyes roll back and forth to see my friends –my brothers- be cut down. Another shell has just come down on us. I can see the soft sand explode into jagged shades of grey. Oh, why did I come to this awful place?

    I suppose in this hour of desperation, I could blame my country for my forsaken fate upon these foreign shores, but what good would that do? Words will do nothing now. They sent me here to fight on this beach for the sake of peace. What is peace? We all seem to think that peace is a state of reality. In these last breaths of life, I do not know if I can be lead to believe that. Where has peace ever existed? Has it ever existed? As I lay here, mostly dead, I cannot help but wonder. We often talk of peace, but no one knows how to find it. It is such a utopian idea. Diplomats and ambassadors ramble on and on about ideals to fetch us a fake peace. They sit behind their great mahogany desks, ordering us to war to find peace. There is not peace out here. How could we possibly find peace with war? We are so set on having security and peace that we have neither. Perhaps it is our nation’s arrogance against the heritage of our old lands, the lands of our eastern fathers, which we do not understand. They are our brothers, but not in tongue and nationality. We are American; they are not. What person would want to give up his right to war, just for the sake of a brother he does not know? Why would we give up out right to live as we please to let anyone else live as they please? Peace is only reserved for the most humble of persons I suppose. Humbleness. That is almost as rare as peace. Oh, what humbleness could do for a nation! Loving others would be so much simpler then; not only across the back yard fence, but across oceans and nations. I dream, in this moment of suffering, of a day we may all live humble; for our brothers rather than ourselves. No wars, No slander and most of all, no arrogance.

    My breath is dwindling and my lungs begin to burn. I know it will not be much longer before I go. Oh momma, I am so sorry…

    Ssssssssssssssssssswwwp-PAH! Another shell went off so close that is envelopes me in a wave of blanketing sand. The waves of shell shock overcome me as a solider falls to my side. His mouth opened wide and every muscle in his neck tensed as he screamed in pain. Everything lingered in that moment. His voice. His writhing movements. His expression. His tears. Blood spill out from under the chevrons embroidered on his arm and he leaked for his gut. This poor mans face glanced over at me. His face went hard as he tried to control the pain as he looked into my eyes. For only a moment I could bare to look at him. He spoke to me.

    “I pleasure to serve with you private. A pleasure to die with you...,” his thoughts escaped as broken words.

    I had not the strength to answer. How could he accept such a fate? Was he ready to leave this earth in his own blood; in the blood of others? I could not understand him. His eyes closed. Blood began to leak from his rose lips and mingled with my own lifeblood upon the sand. His ivory face was striking as his flushed cheeks lay in the sand. His brownish hair and stubbled face fell peacefully back into the sands upon which it was created. I swear he looked as if he was image of Gods son, laying there next to me upon the Abyssal sands of that red-dyed beach. As I look into the face of a dead man I cannot help but wonder if God truly believes in peace.

    He must, right? The thought vexes my lungs even more. What thoughts have I left to hide from him? What is the best that he could do? Kill me? I scoffed at my own notion and a surge of blood rushed into my mouth. The pain began to creep upon me once again. The numbness was now gone.

    The pastor had said that we were made in his image. Perhaps that is why we cling to peace to vehemently. I think in some ways, God must be the only one able to achieve peace- No; not even him. He gave us the power of free will. Is it not our choice to make peace? Then why do we make war? We hold our governments for times just like this- to tell us where to go and what to do and how to die for our country. They tell us opinions and make them fact and we so readily accept it as such. We are their sheep and they are our Shepherds. Was it not God’s job to herd his flock? When was arrogance and lust for power substituted for humbleness and wisdom? They are so busy playing God that they have forgotten who he originally was. We are made in Gods image, but does that truly make us gods ourselves?

    The warm blanket of sand is beginning to grow cold and I cannot help but smile in the misted of my pain. I have so many questions to ask God and in a few short moments, I may ask him in person. I feel as if my life, in these last moments, has been tossed upside down in the sands of an hour glass. My leg muscles begin to tighten and I cannot help but let a tear of cheer roll down the side of my face. It is all finally over. I finally get to experience peace. No more war. No more Arrogance. No more lies. To the sweet symphony of the ack-ack, I lay my head down to rest. It is over. I am undone. Oh momma, I love you…