Someone is welcome to formulate their own title for this...

[Therin]

I haven't written anything in this forum for a long while...Just to let you know, this was inspired when I found the lyrics to the VNV Nation song, Honour.

Passive field. January of two-thousand and twelve. It is three years since the spark that ignited what is now called the War of Asenscion. My troops think that they are ready, but no one can truly be so. Even those of us that have lived through many battles are not ready for the next one. We are cold, our faces pale as we sit in wait. The enemy is unpredictable, so we must always be ready to defend from any direction. Our nation is almost ready to stand alone. Such pride as we have will never be broken, but none shall speak of it, out of superstitious soldier's fears. I can recall now, in this moment of absolute peace and tempered fear, back when justice prevailed, almost eleven years ago now. The first bombings that should have served as a warning to the defenders were ignored. The Enemy didn't give us another chance. In two-thousand and five, four years after that first signal, they destroyed every major city in the country. New York, Chicago, Washington...All of them. Few of us survived, and fewer knew what had to be done. Fewer still were willing to set it into motion. To this day, I do not know exactly why reason failed us, but I have my theories and hypotheses. Based on our experience of the fanatic devotion the Enemy shows to their god, I think that we, as logical thinking beings, were unable to comprehend why they would want us all dead. It was unthinkable. We were the greatest nation in the world. And yet, in the heart of our country, we knew we were on the downside of our hill. As drugs and crime became more prevalent, suicide more and more common, a few of us knew that our glory was over, that we would soon descend into the utter madness that consumes post-superpower countries. We didn't expect it to come so quickly, though. After our cities were destroyed, anarchy descended upon us with the speed of a whirlwind. The few of us who could adapt to the new circumstances and surroundings took leadership of the others, and now we all pray and serve under one master. We will continue to work and to fight for our country until we have won it back from the Enemy legions. And legions they have. Most of the eastern hemisphere lies under their control now, with the european nations quailed by the loss of their figurehead. Every day they storm up through the mexican peninsula, dying by the millions to tropical disease and famine, and yet millions more still reach our lands. We are on the move, and so I must leave you now, but since I leave you temporarily, I leave you with this: We believe in our leader, with close to the same devotion that the Enemy shows to their god. I believe that he alone has the strength and cunning to successfully beat back this jihad, and every one of my men would follow him to the grave if need be. We will win, even if it costs us our lives.

Tuesday
Conrad McGaebril
Second Leutenant,
Fifth Unit,
Special Forces Division,
The United States Army

[starlitdancer]

I really like your descriptions. Numbering the years instead of spelling them out might make the piece easier to read (just my opinion).

[Silver Adept]

A title in what sense? A name to the story? A heading to the letter? Something else?

I can add a piece to it, if you like... I wonder if it would be cool to write these sorts of letters home and gather them into a story of some sort.

[Selrahc the Evil]

Really good man. I don't know what title to give to it but I really like it. Glad to see you writing again.

[Therin]

Actually, that's a cool idea, Silver. If you want to, you're welcome to add entries. However, they can't be entries in Leutenant McGaebril's diary, they must be in someone else's. Also, don't give a name to the Leader or the Enemy. I will proclaim those when I wish to make them known. Other than that, pretty much do whatever.

Title as in a name to the story, which will continue as we build on it.

[Silver Adept]

7th of... Hell, I don't know what month it is, or what year. Oh, it's the 16th of January, in the third year of this goddamn war. They told us fresh out of officer school that we'd be able to win this war back in three months, tops. Yeah f---king right. I've watched more people die on battlefields than any of those pompous a--holes in the brass. I keep hearing that my classmates are fighting hard, killing the opposition, but just as often I hear of them getting killed.

There's another book in my office - a ragged tent that is pitched wherever we think they haven't mined. In that book, there are names. Litanies of names. They're my classmates from officer school, they're the people under my command who are dead. There are a lot of names. Every day, I write more letters. Letters "expressing my condolences for their loss". So formal, so detached. I watched their sons and daughters die, and all they'll let me say is that I "express my condolences". F--kers. There's no way that I can keep up with the names. There's always more names. I want to tell them that their sons and daughters died because the higher-ups told them they had to. In defense of freedom and all that s--t. I can't say that to my troops, though. I have to put on the face and say, "Today we drive 'em back." And every day, we fight, and they die, and we die, and nobody gets anywhere. And tomorrow, we go at it again.

The brass keeps telling me I'm doing a fine job. They say stuff like I have a "stable position" and that I can hold a line. Sure, but how many more people die before they realize that holding the line's not gonna cut it?

S--t! Someone's lobbing shells in our direction. This time, I tell 'em it's all or nothing. We beat those sons of b---hes back to wherever they came from today. We stop holding and start advancing now.

-Sean Delagra
Second Lieutenant, Seventh Division, US Army

[Therin]

Passive field. February, 2012. Orders from the top. We move to block the Mexican passage. We were camped in the ruins of the Alamo. I hope that our battle turns out differently, though. My unit is sort of front sweep to remove mines and snipers. It's what we're good at. It's practically all we've been doing for the past three years. I haven't a clue how they get their hands on such vast amounts of weaponry, but I guess that's because I've never controlled three quarters of the world before. Leader has sent us a new device. The Weapons division calls it a wide range explosive negation device, or WREND, but I think I know what we'll call it already. I read Dune once, it seems like centuries ago, and this can only be a Thumper. We've tested it on abandoned fields, and so far I'm extremely pleased by the results. I sometimes wonder what other things they've sent out from Home, our last stronghold in the Rockies, but I know that the battle won't come down to technological advances. It will be like it was during the crusade, a war of attrition, a contest to find out who has the sheer stubbornness to outlast the other. My unit met with the officers of the Seventh today to let them know and to discuss our tactics for this massive undertaking. We decided that our best bet is to go guerilla, since they have such an impossible advantage in numbers. I think I'm going to like my counterpart in the Seventh. He's very spirited and puts on a nasty tough-guy front, but I can tell that each day wears him down a little more. Maybe we'll share a drink when this battle is over. And now I'm off to take out Enemy snipers, so I bid you farewell. Something's going to happen soon, I can feel it in my bones.

Thursday
Conrad McGaebril
Second Leutenant,
Fifth Unit,
Special Forces Division,
The United States Army

[Therin]

Active Field. February 2012. It is two days since my last entry. The voluable chanting of the Enemy's masses haunts us day and night. None of us can sleep, but even if we could, we would be dead before we awoke. However, even the toughest of us need their rest, so here I am. My second has taken temoprary command of the unit, so I now have the time to sit and ponder as I speak with you. It seems like weeks since I last slept. The Enemy's dirdge carries even above the roar of gunfire that blots out all other sounds. Even the commands that crackle through my headset from time to time are barely audible. Presumably a song of twisted honor, and of the glory of the kamikaze. None of my men can make out their words, gutteral and harsh, but its meaning seems clear enough to us. We are doomed. They will crush us with the sheer weight of their numbers, and leave nothing lift but ashes. But I must keep faith, though it is hard in the midst of battle. An unsupressable fatigue has overcome my thoughts and muscles, turning each movement and each reevaluation of our position into a monumental contest of willpower. I must find a way to rid myself of this tiredness, or I will no longer be ablt to command my men, but how? I close my eyes and am sent back, through the skin of my eyelids, to the years before the war. I owned a business, back then. In Baltimore. Leonard-Strofski Publishing, we were called, my brother and I. We were just starting to become known, and were thinking about what we might do on vacation next summer, when we finally had the money to take a vacation. It would have been our first vacation in nine years, since before the two of us were laid off when the economy went down the drain. I thought we might take a week and go to fiji, or the bahamas, but Ron, he just wanted to go skiing again. He loved skiing, Ron did, more than almost anything else. I always used to joke with him about moving to Canada, or Colorado, or one of those other C places with a lot of snow. I don't remember them all now. I don't know if he ever realized I was joking, I never got the chance to tell him. One day, he came into the office all excited about some new book or story or something, and when I asked him what the big deal was, he just said, "I went shopping last night!"
I asked him what was so interesting about that, and he replied by saying "Come see for yourself!"
Turned out he had gone grocery shopping the night before and struck up a conversation with the cashier, whose name I don't remember. Apparently, this kid had some serious literary talent, though, because Ron was positively hopping to get him edited and printed. I never actually read any of the kid's stuff, but sometimes I like to think about what might have happened. How things might have turned out differently had these psychotic maniacs not destroyed our country. I can imagine Ron bursting into the office in the morning, waving a check or a contract in my face and saying "I told you so, bro!" His eyes would be almost shut, because he grins so hugely that it scrunches up all the other parts of his face. His face would probably be bright red from the cold outside, because it would probably be winter before we got a line on someone to buy that kid's work. He always had so much energy. It was always a frantic sort of energy, though, like a whirlwind. He'd get something between his teeth, and be off like a shot, dashing around the office, making calls, writing stuff down wherever there was room, tapping his foot or fidgeting when there was nothing to do but wait. During these brief periods, I would always try to tel him to relax, that whatever it was, it wasn't going anywhere soon, but he would make some flip comment and ignore me. It was just the way he was. But he's gone now, and so is the kid, in all probability.
Someone I've never heard before is yelling for me over the radio, so I must go. I wish this war was over, or that it had never happened...

Conrad Leonard McGaebril
The United States Army

[Silver Adept]

Seventh February.

Got new orders from the top. "Take Mexico." is what it basically amounts to. However, they've joined us up with a company of specialists and some interesting stuff. Met another second Lieut. He looks fresh out of school, too, but the difference is he actually believes the stuff they spout. Ya knw, Defense of Freedom, the Rightness of our Cause, and all that. He'll probably willing take on suicide if they tell him to.

The opposition keeps screaming iat us. It's giving me headaches when I wake up, and the message never changes. It's always the same thing. I told him that he needs a linguist so that we can shout obscenities back at 'em... you know, insult their mothers and that. It's wat we woulda done beforehand. I always tell my guys to flip 'em the bird while they die, if they can. Send 'e'm to Hell where they belong.

This Lieutenant looks like he'll be an able commander. Too many of our guys thought that real combat was going to be like those exercises in school. Even live-fire stuff, somewhere in the back of your head, you know they're not really trying to kill you. The opposition has no such reservations. Took a few fights before I even knew that. I think he'll figure it out before he gets killed. Hell, his specialists might actually help us. We're thinking of something really tough to get them in disarray. Explosives, tunnels, siege warfare, that sort of s--t.

I wish it were over. I hate this f--king war. I'd rather be studying for some profession that I'd make a decent amount of money for. Heh. All those dreams shattered away. Wel, if we can kick 'em out, we'll think about the other stuff now. Mah. Staff meeting soon. Hopefully we'll actually do something this time...

-Sean Delagra, Second Lieutenant
Seventh Division, U.S. Army

[Therin]

Our Leader was at the staff meeting today. I could hardly believe my eyes, having never seen him before. He looks to be only twenty six years old, which means he was barely nineteen when our cities were destroyed! He walked around the tent to each and every one of us, knelt, and gave us thanks. And he meant it, I could see it in his eyes! He is truly thankful that we are where we are today, and that we are alive to continue our battle for freedom. He whispered something to each of us as he got up. To me, he said "Never let your guard down, Leutenant, for you shall be overwhelmed the moment that you do." Then he went to the rear of the tent, to the head of the folding table that was our meeting board, and sat. Once we had all done the same, or were standing at our places, since there weren't enough chairs, he began to tell us his plan for retaking the Mexican peninsula. My unit and the Seventh are travelling in the mask of the Enemy, all the way through Mexico and the Central American peninsula to Panama. I must go and make sure Leutenant Delagra knows how to operate under cover. I do not know how long he has been with us, but I am sure that I have more experience with this than he does. I think he'll catch on quickly enough, though. I will probably not be able to speak with you for the next three months, for fear of Enemy soldiers reading my writing and discovering us. Wish me luck!

February, 2012
Conrad McGaebril
Second Leutenant,
Fifth Unit,
Special Forces Division,
The United States Army