Captain Tyle
Mar 2nd, 2002, 03:07:04 AM
War...it is a great paradox.
Something that we all see in some diluted form or another as children, from the other boys in the schoolyard playing gunfight with their fingers, to the holomovies we might watch on Saturday Matinees, with daydreaming eyes. The story is always the same. The good guys fight the bad guys, the heroes never die, and live happily ever after. The bad guy is always caught or killed, and always...gets what he deserves. Everything told in broad brush strokes, in black and white. Shades of grey are very rarely found, and when uncovered, bleed to one polar view or the other.
Suprisingly, little changes when children become adults. We read more books, and percieve an understanding that some long-dead philosopher has told us is prudent. We prioritize the trivial, and the shades of grey that never existed when we were young. We learn to look at War objectively, but with little more wisdom than our younger selves. We denounce and praise the barbarism inherent to our kind, because long-dead philosophers have expounded on it. We look at holos of the fight of others, and presume to think we are wiser than those fallen warriors. That they are foolish, or worse...deliberate murderers. And when our fellow man is pin-pricked, half a galaxy away, our devotion to a nation's banner boils our blood and blocks our reason, and we would return their slings and arrows a thousand fold to validate our loss.
There is one constant, through all of this. We do not understand war. If there is a greater deity over us, I pray to them that we never do. Though the ignorance of those who will never pick up a rifle will send thousands to die by one, the demons that lick a man's soul after he's been through the black chasm of death are too much for any man to bear. I endure on strength I know not where I have found. My fellow man, my children, and my posterity do not deserve this. I would rather their bodies be casualties, like my fallen brothers...than their souls, like my own.
I am of the few who have seen War. Who know War. And I am forever changed. If there is that greater deity, I am that farther apart from their blessing touch. It is that I endure, to protect my comrades, and ultimately, those who take up arms against me.
Memoirs --
Sgt. Nemor Tyle, NRSF
November 18, 3456
(2 days prior to the battle of Cilpar)
<center><font size =20>* * *</font></center>
(The calm before the storm was a good way of putting it. With no enemy fleet around within 10 parsecs, the New Republic Expeditionary Fleet was unopposed from the starry vantage point over the blue planet of Cilpar. Tyle had experienced it it before. Hot meals, free alcohol and cigars, and a lulling quiet. Some of the non-comms would attend little parties in the ship's galley held by the morale officers. It helped to distract them from what lay ahead, and that did alot of good for most. For one more night, they could live a little. After that, it was all up to fate.
Tyle took solace in a bottle of scotch, and a well-aged cigar. It was a tradition he'd carried with him for years...before the Second Death Star was destroyed. The cigar was long and thick, exquisitely made by some Malastarian aficionado. The kind that you never finished in one sitting, just clipped and saved for another go. The scotch, after tonight, would be transferred to a small flask he kept in a lapel pocket of his BDU's. A button-down officer graduate would tell him that such items weren't permitted on combat excursions, but that same man would be the one ordering in artillery strikes...a mile away from the front line. He delegated, and killed from a distance, often never having to see the light fade from his enemies eyes. Tyle scoffed at that hypothetical man, and envied him at the same time. The cigar and scotch weren't an excess luxury. They were a medicine...a temporary remedy for the ails of war. Some rules were important. Some were crafted from sheer ignorance. Tyle felt no dereliction of duty in such things.
A door slid open at the small mess hall, and a thick-bodied sergeant entered, with close-cropped hair, and a face that looked like it was carved from old leather and beaten with a shovel for good measure. But then again, Sergeant Wargrave was likely the prettier of the two. They were both haggard from their profession, and they both knew exactly what waited for them...down on Cilpar.)
Sergeant Tyle: Wargrave, you look like hell. You must've gotten your beauty sleep.
(Tyle passed the bottle to the man)
Something that we all see in some diluted form or another as children, from the other boys in the schoolyard playing gunfight with their fingers, to the holomovies we might watch on Saturday Matinees, with daydreaming eyes. The story is always the same. The good guys fight the bad guys, the heroes never die, and live happily ever after. The bad guy is always caught or killed, and always...gets what he deserves. Everything told in broad brush strokes, in black and white. Shades of grey are very rarely found, and when uncovered, bleed to one polar view or the other.
Suprisingly, little changes when children become adults. We read more books, and percieve an understanding that some long-dead philosopher has told us is prudent. We prioritize the trivial, and the shades of grey that never existed when we were young. We learn to look at War objectively, but with little more wisdom than our younger selves. We denounce and praise the barbarism inherent to our kind, because long-dead philosophers have expounded on it. We look at holos of the fight of others, and presume to think we are wiser than those fallen warriors. That they are foolish, or worse...deliberate murderers. And when our fellow man is pin-pricked, half a galaxy away, our devotion to a nation's banner boils our blood and blocks our reason, and we would return their slings and arrows a thousand fold to validate our loss.
There is one constant, through all of this. We do not understand war. If there is a greater deity over us, I pray to them that we never do. Though the ignorance of those who will never pick up a rifle will send thousands to die by one, the demons that lick a man's soul after he's been through the black chasm of death are too much for any man to bear. I endure on strength I know not where I have found. My fellow man, my children, and my posterity do not deserve this. I would rather their bodies be casualties, like my fallen brothers...than their souls, like my own.
I am of the few who have seen War. Who know War. And I am forever changed. If there is that greater deity, I am that farther apart from their blessing touch. It is that I endure, to protect my comrades, and ultimately, those who take up arms against me.
Memoirs --
Sgt. Nemor Tyle, NRSF
November 18, 3456
(2 days prior to the battle of Cilpar)
<center><font size =20>* * *</font></center>
(The calm before the storm was a good way of putting it. With no enemy fleet around within 10 parsecs, the New Republic Expeditionary Fleet was unopposed from the starry vantage point over the blue planet of Cilpar. Tyle had experienced it it before. Hot meals, free alcohol and cigars, and a lulling quiet. Some of the non-comms would attend little parties in the ship's galley held by the morale officers. It helped to distract them from what lay ahead, and that did alot of good for most. For one more night, they could live a little. After that, it was all up to fate.
Tyle took solace in a bottle of scotch, and a well-aged cigar. It was a tradition he'd carried with him for years...before the Second Death Star was destroyed. The cigar was long and thick, exquisitely made by some Malastarian aficionado. The kind that you never finished in one sitting, just clipped and saved for another go. The scotch, after tonight, would be transferred to a small flask he kept in a lapel pocket of his BDU's. A button-down officer graduate would tell him that such items weren't permitted on combat excursions, but that same man would be the one ordering in artillery strikes...a mile away from the front line. He delegated, and killed from a distance, often never having to see the light fade from his enemies eyes. Tyle scoffed at that hypothetical man, and envied him at the same time. The cigar and scotch weren't an excess luxury. They were a medicine...a temporary remedy for the ails of war. Some rules were important. Some were crafted from sheer ignorance. Tyle felt no dereliction of duty in such things.
A door slid open at the small mess hall, and a thick-bodied sergeant entered, with close-cropped hair, and a face that looked like it was carved from old leather and beaten with a shovel for good measure. But then again, Sergeant Wargrave was likely the prettier of the two. They were both haggard from their profession, and they both knew exactly what waited for them...down on Cilpar.)
Sergeant Tyle: Wargrave, you look like hell. You must've gotten your beauty sleep.
(Tyle passed the bottle to the man)