Refusal of the Call

The time has come. They have called for me to join in the battle and this time I cannot escape my fate. The enemy has approached our shore and if I do not go out and join in the battle everything I hope to give my children will be destroyed. I thought they would never come and we would be safe, here in the home I built with my own hands. But now I know I had been deceived. I cannot trust the fate of those I love in the hands of others.

The first time they came for me I begged for time to make sure my fields were in order and my crops were planted so my family would be assured of a bountiful harvest. I did not know how long this war would last and I wanted to make sure there would be food on the table no matter how many years I was away. They sent me a crew of young boys and old men to sow my fields and return for the harvest season. The promise of help assuages much of my concern, but what will happen when they call for the old men and the young boys?

The second time they came for me I cried out ‘But, my children needs their father. My wife needs her husband. Shouldn’t we put our families and homes before our duty to the government.’ They reminded me my government is what allows me to have my family and my home and if I did not do my duty everything I loved would be destroyed. I studied the face of my daughter and my son and I knew I could not allow the enemy to land upon our shore.

And when they came for me this, the third and final time, I tried to find a reason I could not go. There were no words I could find to express my fears and prevent them from taking me away. I belong to the War as my father did before me and his father before him.

My daughter clung to my robes and cried out to me. Even now her cries echoes in my soul. ‘Father, don’t go. Don’t let them take you away.’ Her tiny fingers wrapped themselves into the fabric of my sleeves and her tears dampened my bosom. They had to pry her from my arms before I could join my column and march away from the shelter of my home. I could not look into the eyes of my beloved wife for fear I would find my destiny swimming in their depth. The last image I had of my home was of my wife standing in the entryway with my son in her arms and my daughter clinging to the gate, tears streaming from her eyes and the puppy huddled at her feet. I gave her the puppy so she would have something to hold in the night while I was away.

Even now, as I entrench myself in the training grounds, I am begging for the chance to return home. This war is not for me. I have no stake in the game. The enemy will strike out at military targets before attacking fields and homes. As long as the battlefield was across the sea I could believe this was true. But now, as I see the damage the attacks have caused, the scars the enemy has left on the very earth itself, I know I am deluding myself. The enemy will not stop at the killing fields, picking only the soldiers who defend the land.

The enemy at the gate will destroy any thing standing in its way. That is what they say, these men who are teaching us the best way to kill. Our fields will be left bare. Our wives will be raped and killed or killed and then raped. Our children tortured and left orphaned and starving or dead. I find the last image of my family shifting in my mind and I close my eyes so I don’t have to picture the broken and dead bodies of my wife and children against the backdrop of a sky blackened with the smoke of my burning crops.

I will fight to protect my family. I will fight to protect my land. This is the banner we cling to as we learn the ways of the enemy.