poem

War:

Oh, do you know the battle field

That leads you to your death?

Few will walk this path alone

Before they lose their breath.

One such was Jorge Mendoza

A new freedom fighter

And grieving him was Captain Mendoza

Who was not a writer

He thought that there was no harm

While he stayed here

And doing his training

He thought he had nothing to fear

That night he wasn’t cautious

And was taking a stroll

He wandered off on his own

Little did he know he would pay a toll

Captain Mendoza was in deep sorrow

Didn’t want to leave his kin all alone

So when he was taken inside

With the sight he let out a groan

(He =Captain Mendoza)

Now he swore

This is why we are fighting this war

To keep our families safe

Now we trekking through this jungle with a sore

Later that night he came to me

While I was at watch

We were told to go home

We were just kids with a stopwatch

Day 1: The Recruitment

I know many people may think that village boys have adapted to every hardship, but the truth is I only learned how to use a machete to cut sugar cane, not handle a gun. But first the only reason we are here is because I had to get up before my mom and then when I spotted them (the army trucks) I should have told my mom. Although I like to know things before other people this time they didn’t come for harmless food they came for recruits. Others had fled to avoid this but unlucky us (Ignacio, Lolo, and I) where left here. We sat in a army truck where it was a long ride to the fortress. Once there we were assigned tents and given the rules then we could eat but before that Lolo decided he would snoop around camp and report to us. The surroundings in this camp are dense jungle and not that much shelter. My thoughts are that to stay alive in combat I’ll have to be faster than a jack rabbit running from a fox. Its torture, we never know if there is going to be an air raid like last night but they say we could have fought them of. What’s the point of having the equipment to fight if we don’t fight? Many boys came here because they wanted to and serve the revolutionaries. Forty-two wars have gone by but nothing has changed and it is unlikely that this one will make a difference as well. We get AK-47’s but not much ammo and how do they expect us to train, serve, and do well in a real war with so little ammo. The commanders are vigorous and they expect us to know everything. Though they may care for their families they don’t show it. Many are fighting this revolution to save their families. They all think of peace as a glorious prize but what they have to do to get that prize is what will bring them to an end one day. The recruits have to sleep on the jungle floor while the ‘important’ people get proper beds because they think that we are cut-rate, low lying dogs that do their bidding for them. They don’t care if we die they say that they will take ‘care’ of our families but god knows what will happen if anything happens to them cause I’m in the revolutionaries they will pay I tell you. We were just brought here to take down a couple of soldiers then to die for a cause that will never win.

Day 2: What we are here for

After a day in this camp I wake up earlier than Ignacio and Lolo. But soon later they wake up and we spot some men digging some thing and I ask Ignacio what they are doing and he replies digging graves. Grimness’ came over me and I thought back to the air raid last night and I thought where those the men who died in the raid? Later I ask Juan and he says “5 Men died last night and a new person this morning about as old as you.” Sometimes the captains are nice like on Sundays when we get meat in our beans. When I came across the captain he turned around in a ready attacking position as if I was a loyalist. I could tell he was thinking about his son. He said that we are fighting this war for our families, children, and our believers, also this country has a volcano for a mother, a jaguar for a father, and the children suffer we must try. We are here to fight as John F. Kennedy once said, “Those who make peaceful revolution, make violent revolution inevitable.” Back at the sleeping place where Ignacio and Lolo where just awaking I told them what I did and the where just staring at me in awe. I had this feeling that everybody was glad it was not them that got killed in the raid but nonetheless will pay their respects and grieve for the dead men, they also say that if you make to many mistakes they will leave your body to rot, but im sure that will never happen due to the respect they are showing the dead. After the ceremony my thoughts are different, now I’m thinking we are dragged out here to fight a war but if we die they bury us and then with one chorus of the national anthem they leave and go to kill more people. I’m wondering if the recruits from villages were thinking if the loyalists could do this to a base I wonder if my village is ok. Also I think that this war is just pure murder because like the other 42 wars it won’t change anything! We have never yet won, and if we did win we would just turn into the new loyalists with the presidential election and laws but we the damn, dumb cut-rate country men. Just senseless murder thinking that they will achieve high success but the fact still remains the poor will be poor and the rich will be rich there will still be inequality and we will not have any rights STILL! This will just go around in a circle like it has before, we win this one, in a couple of years we get overthrown, and etc.

Day 5: The Massacre

The patrol is leaving to search for the Loyalists and Ignacio, Lolo, I where told to come. At the village we stopped at I couldn’t see why the Loyalists would commit murder like this but this is the type of things that we are trying to stop. The people had been shot but not shot till they died the loyalists wanted them to die a slow painful death in the mountain of blood. They were helpless people. The men that had their skulls bashed as if they were trying to defend their village with cattle prods. I couldn’t help myself; I went bawling like a little kid when I say the corpses pilled in the center of the village. If the Loyalists are this blood thirsty they will stop at no costs to capture San Ildefonso. These blood thirst vermin won’t escape they will fall! Murder without any thought these people, no they don’t deserve the right to be called people they will be called vermin. These vermin can’t stoop any lower. Those vermin are about as useless as a freezer in Antarctica. Then when I am going searching for reeds I come across a girl with a baby. We took them back to their village and then treated her wound with antiseptic but that probably wasn’t enough. The captain said they needed clothes and by tomorrow they would be able to treat them better in the fortress. I said firmly that by tomorrow they will have diarrhea, by tomorrow they will be dead. Olivares said that by tomorrow we can get them to the American mission. I was stunned that there was an American mission here but was told to keep it a secret. Through the scorching heat I’m carrying 3 rifles, extra ammo, and the baby, sweat trickles down my head till I can’t see a thing. Why would anybody want to do this? Only the lowest of the low, the evil would do this. They would have to have a heart as cold as the deepest ravine in the ocean near Antarctica. This rose a deep anger in me those vermin will pay the consequences. They only go raid the poor villages, torture, then slaughter them one by one like a slaughter house. If they give valuable information those vermin say they will ‘let them go’ but in the end it is the same they all end up dead. Ignacio believes in the revolution Lolo believes but I didn’t use to, but know after this massacre I guess believe some of it not all because I couldn’t kill the vermin in front of me in the patrol. Now we are not fighting for mostly power we are fighting for better lives of our families, and our children to have a brighter future then just killing and inequality. After this massacre I will not be the same, after I came to the fortress I was not the same, now this has tied up in my life to much so I will never be the same.

Day 6: My first Shot

Today Ignacio, Lolo, and I were on a patrol to scout the vermin*. Those low lying, cut-rate vermin, after what happened in the village, I knew I could do it. I knew that when I was told to watch out for those vermin boats I would shoot em’. Ignacio, Lolo and I learned that revolutions were fought with the stealing of the money as in how Captain Mendoza got his airplane. At first I thought this was just plane stealing, but then I understood why. We revolutionists now don’t have a say in this government; we can’t go to big cities and buy stuff like regular people; no we are now known as the illegal people. No body in big cities will sell us stuff, that why we have to use the black market. The illegal traders trade us goods but other wise we would not have this ammo and rifles. Without the black market there wouldn’t be a revolution but without the revolution we would just be cut-rate low lying farm men but this time we are fighting for a cause this time we are getting funded from the cities we take over but they are funding us is another way to think about it. We are fighting the revolution for them and that’s I guess is not stealing. Once we kill a soldier we go and take their clothes, weapons and etc. and we take what we can from the villages like today’s lunch were peasants were serving us food. I was put on watch for their boats. As soon as I heard them I reported to Diaz. Once our safeties were off we got in position and once Diaz shot we all shot and heard the sounds of agonizing, blood curling screams as one by one they fell into the water and were either drifted down stream of to the beach. At last I felt the anger escaping me and I felt free that I had taken out one of those vermin, those thoughtless murderers.

*see Day 5

Day 7: The battle

On this patrol Lolo and I were told to keep watch for any boats. Later Lolo wanted to sleep but I talked him out of it but, as soon as I said that we heard boats. Diaz came and told us not to fire until he did. Then we heard a Cr-a-a-c-k and that was our signal to fire. As we fired we heard agonizing screams as the men on boats were shot and fell in the water. That morning Lolo was arguing with Ignacio that he had killed less than half a dozen loyalist but Ignacio said the way he was firing he would be luck to chip a tooth of the loyalists. No one is sure about Mendoza but I think that if we fall 9into Whistlers care I would rather have Lolo shoot me first. After Lolo shot a loyalist due to the comments in the morning I was suddenly scared that he might be alive. Lolo convinced me that he was dead by saying Diaz had cut his throat. Those filthy vermin were shot dead and we saw the boats all of them were empty. Then I felt strange I felt as if I had been in this army for years but we were only recruited 5 days ago. This was an unusual thought that I first had.

Day 8: The last day

Today Diaz and De Soto were arguing about why we fired. Diaz was saying that they didn’t have time to radio but De Soto was saying they would have to fall back. Diaz finally managed to stay while the main troops were coming. Later we were told we would charge. After we charged we were found by loyalists and we had to shoot while wading up to our waists in blood, waterhhhhhhhh, grim, sweat, and muck combined. Then after we crossed the jungle was silent then the next moment we had to duck for cover due to the machine gun fire. Once to the other side we went to a church. There we were rigid and stood there in silence. Were we told to search for snipers and we were searching. We advanced with caution to the altar. Then Juan voice told us there was a loyalist concealed that had been shooting an Uzi like a rain of boiling water. I raised my gun too return fire but the next thing I know is that I woke up on the other side of the river with an excruciating pain and realized I had gotten shot. Then a voice told me were 16km from the coast and were told to go under ground for weeks or maybe months and build another fortress. Due to those vermin who bombed the old one.