We stopped marching and stood firm. The beginning point of an ending: stand and wait. This was the first time for many of us. And it would also be the last time for most of us.
I was taken aback as I looked around. No backs turned, no desertion. The time had come to stand. So that’s what we did. At present a time of waiting, with battle only moments away.
They also just stood there, the army directly across from us. Many of them in the same situation as many of us—their first and their last.
Man is interesting at all times, but unfathomably so during times of war.
We stood. They stood.
Then came a moment not adhering to the conventions of time, during which no mass movement occurred. I wondered, though, if anyone on their side could see the movement of my own head, as I looked around observing what cannot be fully explained.
“Stay focused, kid.”
My Sergeant. A man with a voice made for barking orders. I hated him, yet loved him; a relationship shared by the men surrounding me.
The man in front of me, without turning around: “Guy’s gonna have three bullets lodged in his throat and he’ll still be tellin’ us what to do.”
We laughed. We hoped it wouldn’t happen. But it probably would. And it would be Sarge’s preferred way of going out, so in a sick way, we also hoped it would happen.
We.
Of the five of us in immediate vicinity—me and the men in front and behind me and at each of my sides—perhaps one of us would make it out alive. Maybe two.
It was we now.
For the first and last time, as we stood there and waited out a moment gifted to us from another realm, I understood men as Man.