Nazi Grunt

• Jade Casey, Grade 11
• Short Story
• 2015

I had lost count of how many people I had to kill under the supervision of higher officers. I and many others of young age had walked along the streets with our heads held high, sporting the flag and proud to be one of the faces the public respected; ready to help create the perfect future for our country. Had I known back then, had I seen that millions would die under the forceful hand in power, I could’ve stopped. I may have fought or ran; either way I would not be what I am now, as it were I continued down a long path with many unknowing soldiers beside me. Doubt seeps in my mind as I hold a gun, hesitating before I wave it at people, training and learning for great prospects but never understanding.
The feelings stopped, hesitance before every order becomes non-existent and I take them with stride. Becoming an emotionless shell only familiar with the weight of the gun at my side, no longer did I try to avoid the circumstances, the repetitive systems. I lost count of how many people I had to kill as I held guns to heads daily, the fear in the eyes of the innocent imbedded into mine as I hear myself yelling distantly in my mind. Flashbacks haunted me, they caught me in my every moment and shook me to the core, sleep was rare, I always remembered my father’s disappointed gaze and my mother’s tears as I execute activists; whom bore no fear nor courage just acceptance.
I felt myself closing my mind from the violence, the torture and dead, shutting off from my own actions. I fear now that if it went any longer I would be lost, running around in my own head, condemned to the void of my own thoughts. Regret cuts deep when I do realise, when I see that he was wrong and that he lied. I despise myself for holding that flag, for being proud, for following him I lost my life, my innocence and my family. The scars do not go away nor does the blood on my hands as I scrub furiously over and over and over.