Songs of Innocence and of Experience: Soldier

Story: 3rd of march of 2002. 4 years have passed since the war started. I remember when my mom told me we wouldn't separate at the start of the war. I haven't seen her since that day and I doubt that she’s still alive. I don’t even remember how drinkable water tastes like. I can't even count how many people i've killed. But luckily I’m still here, I’m still alive. 3 years ago I had a decent life; I went to school, ate and drank regular water. Every afternoon I would help my father to get water and my mother to purchase food. I didn’t have any friends in the village, but at least I had my 15 year old brother Minguito. Everything was normal, and we barely suffered until they came. It was a sunny day, and I was about to finish my classes and start returning with my brother to my village, which was 7 km away. When we were arriving we started hearing people screaming and running out of the town: the insurgents had arrived. We backed up and started running back our way to school but, unfortunately, one guy saw us. I thought I was dead. I stopped running but Minguito didn’t, the guy didn’t think about it twice and shot him. When he was coming towards me he threw my backpack to the floor and burnt it. Afterwards he pushed me into an enormous truck. I hit my head against something and immediately passed out. 2 The next time I opened my eyes I was completely covered in mud, starving and thirsty as a bone. I waited there for hours until someone came in. He didn't say a word, he just grabbed me by the arm and took me into a bigger room where other kids were waiting. One by one they started taking us out of the room, nobody knew for what. It was my turn, I was scared. When I came out I saw a guy lighting a spoon that had white powder, they took the burnt liquid that came out and inserted it into the syringe. Right after they started injecting the brownish liquid into my body and sent me into another room where a man was waiting for me. At first, when he started talking to me I responded normally, but as the time passed I started feeling a weird sensation. My brain was working slower, my hands were shaking and I was feeling like I was going to die right there. In addition, the insurgent that was talking to me (which seemed to be in an important position in that sect) started touching me and telling me really scary things. During those moments, the only words I heard when I was half conscious were:“death”, “kill”, “war”, “destroy”, “suffering”, etc. Since that day, everything changed. 3 We were trained every day. They gave us guns to shoot maniquies, we were taught how to make people suffer and how to torture, we were taught to lose our fears and we were drugged so that they could manipulate us easily. If one of us broke the rules, he would be killed in front of us. But we wouldn't break them, we loved drugs it was our fuel for the day, we couldn't live a day without them. And every week the dose would increase, making us more dependant and destroying ourselves in a faster way. Our days were all the same, eat, kill, drug, sleep, repeat. Repeat and repeat until one day, the supreme commander arrived to our place. The supreme commander was a huge man, with diverse wounds all over his body and who was never happy. He came once a month to make sure we were being instructed and drugged correctly. However, that day he was different. He wanted something special for us to do. After a few minutes talking with our boss they finally told us they were going to take us to Halem, the closest town that was still in the hands of the government; the closest town that was still secure. When we were told that, I was really confused. The drug treatment and every single word they repeated related with death made me surprisingly glad of my first mission. We were going to kill real people, finally. Nevertheless, there was something inside me that told me I wasn’t doing the correct thing and that I should kill the ones who captured me and assassinated my brother instead. But that voice was really weak. So weak that diminished in a few minutes. 4 And there we were, in the same truck in which I was captured, about to devastate a poor and innocent village. But whatever, I liked killing. We arrived to the town, people were already running, we got out and started shooting everyone,I can't remember how many people I killed, but the more people I killed, the more satisfaction and more torture. I was sexually excited. But suddenly, in the middle of the helix conflict, something happened. I was about to kill a little guy when two enormous men I had never seen before punched me, took off my gun and captured me. In that precise moment, I knew my life was going to have a complete change again. I knew I was on the other side. On the good side again. And here I am now, 4 years have passed since Pedro and Poncho saved me from that horrible sect. I have been treated every single day so that my brain could recover correctly and my mind stopped thinking constantly about those bloody and atrocious things. If I hadn’t been drugged during those war days, I would have committed suicide without any doubt. I wouldn’t be able to live knowing I killed decens of innocent people. Moreover, I’ve been able to reflect about our country’s situation and about all the suffering a war can involve. I’ve been able to realise the unfair torture each of us have suffered during these years, specially us. We are kids and we don’t deserve this. We live in poor conditions, we barely learn things at school and we can’t eat as healthy as we would like to. But apart from this, we go through wars, we get drugged, we lose our parents, we are tortured and we’re converted into soldiers. Into kid soldiers. And since then, my society’s points of view became much more realistic: everything’s about money. 30 years later. One would think that an enormous war like this would never repeat, but I’m writing this for a reason. 30 years have passed since I was rescued and before we start talking about this new conflict, I would like everyone to know what many kids go through unfairly. Yes, history repeats itself, a new conflict, war is starting again. Soldier kids have returned.

E Méndez, E Miranda, J de la Torre, I McCarthy