Day 5

Dear Journal,

Today was the first day we stepped out of the fortress, and never in my life have I felt and seen such terrible things. We came across a village; a village that had been attacked by the Loyalists. It was dreadful. I couldn’t get myself to look at the corpses and the damage that had been done. I found two children; alone, in the jungle, whose family, the Loyalists have destroyed. I saved them. I took care of the one-day-old baby brother, that we named “Manolete.” His sister, Magdalena Sánchez, was the one found in the jungle, with Manolete in rags tucked into her arm. Manolete was entirely my responsibility from the time we found him (or so it seemed like). Olivares was very helpful with dealing with the baby. It was hard for me to watch; him and his sister get weaker and weaker by the minute. Luckily, though, Olivares, Captain Mendoza, and I were able to save them in time by taking them to the mission, and left them in the care of a nice blonde-haired blue-eyed lady, Mrs. Carter.

Observing the damage done to the village and the state of the orphans, made me feel like … a monster. I could have been the one to destroy that village and demolish the parents of those children; isn’t that what soldiers do? Spending time with them made me realize even though you are not in the war, you are greatly affected by what anyone does. It’s like dominos; it affects everything in it’s path.

I can’t believe I lacked the courage to shoot those atrocious Loyalists. They could be the cause of my village’s, more importantly, my family’s death in the near future. I need to develop the strength to fight against evil.

Uno Ramírez

Picture from: http://images.google.com/hosted/life/f?q=carrying+dead+body&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dcarrying%2Bdead%2Bbody%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DG%26um%3D1&imgurl=d750e9307e0afb60