Transormational piece

A Story by My-two-lives

my english lit coursework for one of my two teachers.

I remain trapped in this khaki prison of the mind that is Craiglockhart.

Today, I heard some men talking about the war. It astounds me how little they understand it; they who send their sons, brothers, fathers, to a war which lost a purpose long ago. They spoke of honour and pride.

If honour comes from the killing of others, only to die without dignity seconds after, and if you can take pride in the killing of others, then I take no such part.

They, who speak of the war as if it were a sport or a game, the people at home who sit and try to ignore the war, who sit and watch as men die without a care; their ignorance astounds me, and their naivety towards the truth of the war, in such abundance, is a saddening fact about those around us.

It is a tragedy when so many families are broken by the war, and yet those that choose to continue this suffering don't even have the decency to show them, or even hint to the truth in which their families love outside of Britain's comforting borders.

If I ever choose to look back on these, or if the indoctrination of the surgeons starts to 'cure' me of my senses, then I hope to use this diary to remind myself of the lines in which I stand.

These entries shall be my ongoing documentation of my time in Craiglockhart, and I wonder if it won’t be more than propaganda in the form of a place for the ill.

What they do not realise however, is that I am not ill, but it is their ill minded judgments that need to be cured, not I.

Not I.

Rivers said in our last meeting about the men in my company, and how my being here is not stopping their suffering. He mentioned how my men must be enduring so much and is grieving, and yet how from here I stand without being able to stop their afflictions.

This fathomless dungeon of wits, despite its coherent abuse of general sense and its general bias towards the war, may just be my own selfish cowardly escape from the war. I know what my beliefs are, and I still stand by them, but none the less, I am not helping my fellow soldier by being here, I am only being protected from those realities, simply to be sent back when I have learnt to deal with my current beliefs.

I worry that I am starting to surrender myself to the cushiony mentalities that the doctors here try to give the other patients, and I must stop this now, or give up my duty to the men who fought by my side, because I will be of no use to them if I allow myself to be changed by these half-truths that are shoved down the publics throats all the time.

I remember running back towards our trenches, the wounded Lance-corporal hanging on to me as I huddled him through No-Man’s land. I saved his life with that act, and was even awarded a military cross for saving him. We were under heavy attack, but we still managed to save him. Any other Captain might have left him for dead.

“For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses.”

A quote from 2 Corinthians 10:3-5 in the bible that I read earlier today. It humours me somewhat, when even the beloved religions teach against war, and yet it seems that people do not listen, even when the will of God is against it; even when God teaches against pointless fighting, people still ignore it, and prolong said fighting.

I feel that it is my duty, to my friends and brothers in arms that still rest in the trenches, for me to try and make a change. Even if it means being here, and not with my comrades, surely, I can still achieve my goal and help them.

I must stay strong to my beliefs, and not question them so much, or else I may fall victim to the senseless propaganda, and lose myself to the eternal indoctrination of the surgeons.

I am not abandoning my friends; I am now fighting another battle in their honour, and to help them. I refuse to believe these lies. I am determined to achieve my aspiration.