Pride -- (war essay) --


Pride



The soldiers of my army were pounding at the walls of the enemy base, ramming into the thick stone and metal with tanks and bulldozers. There was little left on the interior of those walls, having been blown away by mortar shells or destroyed by howitzer fire. The few buildings that retained anything more than a foundation were scarred black and had walls that had fallen in.

The base was completely lost, or so I thought. I was in command of the regiment that destroyed the base. I thought myself a master strategist and fancied in my head all the medals and honors and parades that would be held in my honor. In all my smugness and confidence, I had underestimated my opponents.

As my men tore through the fort's walls, I felt that final thrill of victorious pride swelling wide in my chest. I ordered everyone into the base and commanded them to set up camp. We would sleep here, in our place of victory. I figured it was safe enough, the fires had burned themselves out hours ago, and the winds were kept out by the remaining sections of the wall.

Near one o'clock that morning, I awoke to the sound of machine-gun fire. They struck while we slept in our assumed safety and woke us with gunfire. I was on my feet in an instant reaching for my 9mm pistol and barking out orders. It was then, in the middle of the rubble that I had realized my folly. A huge metal door lay open, the hole in the ground that it had been capping gaped open, ready to either claim a hapless soldier or belch the enemy back up. My orders did nothing we had been infiltrated by a larger, stronger, and better-equipped force. I screamed for my men to surrender hoping this opposing commander would give us mercy in the light of the Geneva Convention.

In my mind I fit everything together, even as I watched my men slaughtered. It had been so easy to take the fort because there had only been a few soldiers manning it. The rest had hid in the underground bunker and waited. Waited for me to make the mistake that they seemingly knew I would. I couldn't come to grips with the fact that I had ...