Memories

We were a typical American family on a regular Saturday night in front of the TV, but that day was far from normal; as the rest of the country, for not to say the rest of the world, our eyes were hypnotized by a countdown clock placed in one of the corners of the television. My name is Jesse, I am seventeen years old and of course North American. As almost everyone in the United States I have relatives and friends whose lives could end with the same ticking of that clock. Impotent, all we could do was stare and wait, wait for the war to begin.

Mark, my dear and only brother is only two years older than I am. I can not remember the exact day but I could say it was almost one month ago that he got recruited by the army. Everyone was so happy, my parents were so proud, celebrating; their son was going to be a hero! He was going to serve our glorious country and come back victorious!

On the other side, I was appalled by the news. I ask myself sometimes what they were thinking, Mark wasn’t going to avoid magically the bullets nor turn immune to every danger that lurked for him across the vast ocean. I can only remember crying that day. Of course I congratulated Mark, he was happy so I gave him what he wanted, I gave him my approval, no matter how against the whole war thing I was, I could not bare the feeling of watching him go worried by my opinion; I would not be the one who rip the happiness from his hands. How naïve I was.

In my soul were buried all my worries towards him, he was just a boy when he left; I don’t understand how he would conceive the idea of taking anybody else’s life! This was no PS2 game. All of them not just my brother, all of them were kids disguised as soldiers with a bunch of fancy toys.

The people from the desert were guided by anger, they fought for their freedom; the American troops? They were mere pawns for our government’s greed, as they called them, they were…expendable. The soldiers, innocent and blinded, fought with their only motivation being a lie. How were they supposed to deal against what the desert hided? I can assure there was no simulated battlefield that could prepare my foolish brother and his fellows to what the end of that count down had for them.

Nine, just nine days passed since that hideous clock stopped ticking and you would not believe me if I tell you, but my brother did came back. Yes, he is here, next to me as I finish writing my memories on this piece of paper. Next to me in the same way the government delivered him to our family; in a bottle.