Soldiers are men who are sent in someone else’s battles under a flag which convinces them that the fight is their own. The discipline and the courage that drives them to stand first against a rain of ammunition directed towards their land shines through the grime, the blood and the smoke a war brings. Wars have been filled with instances that show the presence of the human soul in the mayhem which surprisingly feels misplaced but I believe wars are the most human thing we can witness. Wars are a cultural heritage of man that teach us about the fatal mistakes of our forefathers and in some unfortunate cases encourage us to repeat them.
I saw a very moving video today, it resulted in a buildup of something profound and sorrowful. The video is a footage from The Kargil War and shows Indian soldiers returning the dead bodies of their Pakistani counterparts to a party that has come to take them. These men were probably trying to blow up each other to bits only a day before this meeting and now in this moment they stand in the most gentlemanly order inside a bubble so exclusive that it makes them the closest to no one else but each other – even more than what they hold for their respective countries.
War never ends, it only changes form but within its flames you could always find two brothers looking at each other through a barrel as long as the men in comfortable rooms behind them tell them to do so. Both of them have a common wish that their sacrifices will be recognized and honored whether they live or die. The sad truth is that no medal or gun-salute back home can match the unsaid respect they hold for each other even if it is focused through a machine gun’s sight.
Making Existence Question 