Chapte 8-5: Blindside - A Different War

Peter – Hawaiian Resistance- Night 70

            Peter had experience with war. A journalist in Pakistan, Iran, and Korea, he had seen his fair share of killing. He had also seen his fair share or human goodness. He had watched men run into fire to help their comrades. He had seen soldiers playing ball with kids in South Korea. He had watched Marines give water to liberated citizens of desert villages. He had watched Rangers hold back insurgents as they brought Ahmadinejad before the UN for a humane trial. He had watched as soldiers gave their lives for civilians in the name of the United States, and he had seen opposition forces do the same under a different flag.

            The Faction was different. The bright cityscape, covered in flickering white lights, the noisy flashes of gunfire, cascades of flame, liquid and otherwise, and the smoking craters of Anning’s misfires. Faction humvees and gunbeds sped through the streets, shooting to kill any who crossed their patrol routes. Paul doubted that the soldiers knew the nature of those they were fighting, let alone why the war was being fought. He knew from his experiences that the men in combat were Japanese troops trained by the Chinese as a kind of tribute payment. They were not an enemy. In fact, many probably sympathized with the Faction itself.

            Sympathy could not turn down the war songs blaring from every revolutionary vehicle, nor could it stop the fire of men fighting for the kills. When his home was safe, when his friends were safe, he would toss these bastards out of his territory. If they wanted combat for combat’s sake, they could go back to the battlefronts of the mainland.