My name is Jackson T. Crawford, and ever since I was a child; hell, for as long as I can remember, I’ve always wanted to be a soldier.

My father was a soldier. His father was a soldier. It was in our blood. My brother, Warren, enlisted the day he turned eighteen. Our mother was so proud.

But I always knew it was a dream I couldn’t achieve: a life that I could never have. I was diagnosed with asthma when I was three years old. 

It was heartbreaking, always knowing exactly what I wanted to do and knowing, no matter how badly I wanted it, I never could. I felt cheated. Denied of my blood right. But everything changed when I was nineteen years old.

Everything changed when the war started.

No one cared anymore. It didn’t matter if you were an asthmatic. It didn’t matter if you had a flat foot. It probably didn’t matter even if you were missing a thumb. It seemed like they drafted everyone. So long as you could walk and carry a rifle, they were more than happy to take you in. 

On the first day of fall my nineteenth year, 258 young men from my home town left for a small camp in the mountains a few mile south. I was overwhelmed with joy to be among them. 

Despite the broader draft criteria, training was as hard as dad made it sound in his stories. They wanted us to succeed though, too much hung in the balance. I was only one of 46 asthmatics in the unit and every one of us was required to carry a rescue inhaler at all times. Yes, it was hard. But it was to help us. They needed us. We were valuable.

PT was exhausting, but the classroom was where all the tension truly was. The war was still young, only in its first weeks, but there was already a lot of controversy surrounding the issue. Part of our training was mental conditioning to fight the enemy, but it didn’t matter. They didn’t need to convince me to fight. I was simply happy to have the opportunity to serve. 

For six long weeks we trained. We ran. We climbed. We crawled. Through the rain and mud and snow of the mountain air we prepared for struggle below. I had never felt so alive. 

For six weeks.

My first day in the field I shot thirty six people. 

It was kind of funny how after six weeks we called it the field. Only a little more than a month ago, we called the smoke and broken glass in the streets home. Home was far away now, separated from us by the flames and an eternity. No, this place wasn’t home. The town, however, was the same.
I shot thirty six people that first day. Of those thirty six, I knew four by name. Of those thirty six, only sixteen were armed. 
It was liberating.

I never questioned anything they asked me to do. I trusted my commanders and they needed men like me. The rules were simple, and it didn’t take much to stay alive. Don’t help the enemy. That was it. That was all you had to do to survive.

On that first day, I stopped thirty six people from helping the enemy.

Not everyone thought the same way I did though, and for a while it caused some problems. In my unit’s first three weeks of active duty, we had suffered zero casualties but only 58 of us remained. 

Deserters. Two hundred deserters and traitors. For a while, I was disgusted to be associated with them. It didn’t matter though. Before long, we were absorbed into the larger 12th Infantry Regiment. Those who had left were rebels, and they deserved the charges of treason they got, as well as everything that went with it.

By this point I had already been promoted to sergeant. Sure, it was only a field promotion, but it wouldn’t be long before it was on the books. I had proven myself. I was loyal. I could get the job done. People respected me and answered to me. It was a great feeling for a kid only nineteen years old. After a month of fighting, they had given me my first medal. A Commendation of Honor and Loyalty they called it. It wouldn’t be my last.

Loyalty. It was the only thing that meant anything. Sure, the politics might have been shaky, but out there in the field you knew who had your back. The rules were simple. All you had to do was follow them.

No one batted an eye when the capital fell. The war had been fought for six months when news reached our outpost. The following day, all of the politicians had been flown in. There were parades in the streets, although that was mostly just to keep the civilians in check. There were speeches and rallies, but it wasn’t like any of it mattered. It’s not like anything of value had been lost. It was a little know fact, but It was a fact none the less. The government’s real power was with the military. The rebels never understood that. That’s why they could never win. They relied on people to carry the weight of the nation, and it just simply couldn’t be done. It took generals to lead. It took soldiers. People just got in the way. 

So they had the capital. So what? What was it really worth? Over population? Disease? Let them have it, I thought. We had the oil fields. We had the farms. We had the rubber and metal working factories. We had it all. We held our positions and we held them well. There wasn’t anything to worry about. 

That was the day they made me a Captain. 20 years old now, and I was a captain. The world was ours and we knew it. We lived like kings, and why not? Who could tell us not to? Sure, we heard the things they called us; the things they said behind our backs. But it didn’t matter. They never saw that. 

It didn’t matter what they called you. It mattered what you answered to.

I didn’t have to answer to anything but, “Yes, sir/no, sir.” 

It was perfect. 

We were soldiers.

-Captain J.T. Crawford