Mai Week 11: In the Face of Death

In The Face of Death

 Would you like to know something that has always been unfathomable to me? It’s soldiers. Soldiers, warriors, hunters, and fighters. Anyone who is able to set aside the innate selfish desire to protect your own life in exchange for the perseverance of values that run deeper in the soul than even the laws of nature can dictate or the twisted sense of duty that rears its solemn head when pushed into the face of inevitable death. I am not built to be a soldier. I can hardly imagine being out there on the battlefield, knowing I am going to die, but continuing anyway. I can not imagine it. But I imagine many people prior to enlistment or drafting do not imagine themselves in that situation either. Yet, they still race towards the echoing shouts as bombs fall and guns fire and the black unknown of death pervades the air.

History is the greatest testament to this cruel power that unrelenting duty and values have on people. The ancient Romans charged in bronze, knowing that a single cut could result in an early death. Yet, they race forth. Soldiers in WWI, face foreign, terrifying chemicals and technology, knowing that its very purpose is to systematically destroy them. Yet, they race forth. Soldiers in WWII standing at the edge of No Man's Land, where the living cross the threshold into an unknown world as a fickle light fades under a blaring sun. Yet, like those thousands before them, they race forth. 

I understand that there is not only a sense of duty but of resignation. There is no other choice, yet, at the same time, by coming to that conclusion, they commit themselves to the cause. The comforting feeling that you are part of something more: an idea. You are not you. You are freedom. You are honor. You are protection. With this beautiful acceptance of divine alignment, there is the loss of the individual, an independent soul whose very nature of self breeds impediment to obedience and unquestioning acceptance and importantly, rejects the notion of death. But an idea lives forever. There is also a sense of duty. Of undeniable purpose, when so many are lost in mazes of freedom and choice, you have a role. Together, you share this helpless burden and comradery when history, class, and race don’t matter. You and your fellow soldiers are people with the same purpose, with the same fears, with the same purpose. So when they run towards the sound of gunfire? You run.

 I always think back to one of my favorite movies: 1917. It gives a clear image of the absolute horror war is. But I always cry when I watch not just the death but also the courage. They are people just like us. But with death before them and duty and honor behind, they will—without fail—race forth.

Source: IMDB 1917