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

[Silver Adept]

Holy s--t. Today, the Boss was at the meeting. Not just the boss, but The Boss himself. Kid's not much older than I am, and he's out leading the troops. I sunno, I was expecting some old wise guy who could quote Sun-Tzu without hesitation. (Actually, he can, but that's another story entirely.) He gave us personal comments after the metting was over. He told me, "My book's bigger than yours." How the hell he knew about that, I have no idea. But that was all he said. I guess even the leader's got a small case of envy.

Either way, we have our orders. We've somehow got to sneak into teh opposition's home town and lay it to waste. The Boss was clear on that. Scorched earth, he said, and if they don't get the message, keep burning. I've got no problem killing those soliders, but something inside rebels when it comes to civillians. Maybe they trained me a bit too well. Either way, my liason from the Seventh gave me a boring lecture about how to do stuff under cover. I got good scores on covert ops, and I've razed more than my fair share of fortifications with a well-lit piece of dynamite. It's gonna be tough, though. I'm not even sure that I'll return from this mission. But if I can stop the war, then it's my duty to do so.

The days are going to blend together soon. I may only be able to scribble a few words in the next few months. Hopefully I'll be able to send all those letters before needing one myself.

-Sean Delagra, Seventh Division, U.S. Army. February 15.

[Therin]

Now that we've nearly finished our mission, I can sit briefly here and tell you what it was. We were ordered southward through enemy territory, through what used to be Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. To that tiny strip of land that connects North and South America. Panama. Everything south of Home is enemy territory, and is known simply as Jihad. The Panama canal was our target. Our mission, brilliantly concieved by our Leader, was to take this choke point of the enemy land invasion, and to make it completely impassable. Completely. We took with us some of the most dangerous explosives I have seen in my life: Three massive plutonium bombs, designed not to destroy, but to irradiate the land far and wide for the next century or so. Also a bunch of burrowing mines with which to distract the enemy until we can complete our main objective. We planted mines at various crossings over the Panama Canal, and planted the bombs strategically so as to overlap blast radii. One is blinking steadily nearby, covered by forest debris, even as I write this. The thought of these things frightens me more than almost anything else I can imagine.

I shot a child a month ago. We had stumbled upon his house, abandoned, while running in fear of discovery. We knocked on the door, and when no one answered, entered the house cautiously, ready for an ambush. What we found was infinitely worse. Two bodies resided in the house. Both were bloated and black from disease. Probably malaria, or one of those other tropical diseases we were vaccinated against when we joined the army. The male body was lying haphazardly on the floor, face down, and the female body lay on her side on the bed, facing away from us. I was glad of this. I think I would have been unable to bear it had I been able to see the rot on their faces. The worst, however, was the child. He looked at us with silent, swollen eyes as we came through the door, and looked at us some more as I looked at him. He was curled against his dead mother and clearly sick. His nose was red, and his pants were soaked from the inside with blood. Lacking a medic, there was nothing we could do. We stared at eachother for a few hours, the two of us, although it was probably more like minutes, while my men and our counterparts of the Seventh covered the perimeter. Then I did him the only kindness I could think of right then. I raised my rifle, took aim, closed my eyes, and pulled the trigger. I managed to mutter a short prayer for him before the stench overwhelmed me and I stumbled out of the little house, knelt, and vomited heavily on the ground beneath the vibrant trees and the sticky, burning heat of the unforgiving tropics. I think my counterpart, Delagra, said something to me during or after those moments, but I cannot remember it. I cannot remember much over the three days afterward. Except that I killed an innocent child. That, I will never forget.

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

[Silver Adept]

You know, there are somedays where I just want to flip the whole world off. I'd give them a double-digit salute, say a big hearty "F--k you!" and go live the rest of my life without them intruding. One of my ancestors wrote the same thing, but he lived before this hell. Strangely enough, he wrote that he knew the times to come would probably be worse than his own, so he felt a little akward complaining about his own. Either that guy had foresight, or he had problems with self-esteem. I like to think of him as a prophet.

These last few months have been F--k you kind of days. It's bad enough that we have to travel covert, but when I found out what the hell we were carrying, I nearly decided to go MIA. But if I don't do this part, the only thing I'll be able to write to my descendants is that things will be worse. I hate dirty bombs. My ancestor was afraid of them for good reason. And we've got three of those things in place. Anybody who tries to pass through the place will end up a dead man once those things go off. I wonder if the Boss realized that cuts both ways...

...and there's a disturbing thought. If we set it off, will we have enough time to hightail it so that we're not the first casualties of this operation? The guy from the Seventh would probably know, but he's a bit wrapped up in himself at the moment. He shot a kid about a month ago, on the way down. He said the kid had no hope of survival. He was probably right. But a kid like that makes me wonder. The enemy's always been put forward as a well-disciplined, very wealthy, organized civilization. We saw more people living on the dirt on the way down here than we did any sort of city. Puts doubts into your head whether or not those things are true. I wonder whether these people are going to go join up with their army because they haev nothing left to do except die. And die they will, either from the diseases here or the battlefronts there. I wonder how many of them I've already killed that were like that kid. I told him after he'd shot the kid that he didn't have to do it again. He looked at me and said, "Mercy before justice." "But only if you have the rounds to spare." I said back. It's a proverb in the army, and it describes things pretty well.

Time to get moving. The last of the bombs and mines are set. One of my boys volunteered to stay behind and set the whole thing off after we're clear. Another name for the book. When will there be no more names?

S.D., First Lieut (pending out return to home territory), U.S. Army, June 7, 2012.

[Therin]

Our ammunition is halved now. We left our sacrifice, for that's what he is, really, a sacrifice to whatever gods may be watching over our struggling independence. We left him with half of our ammo, an extra rifle, and the remote to detonate our deterrants.
And then we ran. We didn't sprint, but rather jogged at a steady, ground-eating pace for most of the day. It was almost as bad as my memories of boot camp, which have only grown worse over time. I don't know how many miles we covered before we finally took a break. Twenty minutes later, having drunk sparingly from our canteens of tepid water, we set out again, taking up the same terrain-covering, sense-numbing jog. After probably eighteen or so hours of this, during another rest stop, we heard the thump of the bombs going off. Energy restored by fear, we immediately took to running again. The wind, thankfully enough, was against us for most of the next few days. I don't think we'd have made it as unscathed as we did if not for that. Now I go to attend the memorial service for our dead or dying comrade, whose body will hopefully not suffer as much as that poor child I killed. Leutenant Delagra will be giving the eulogy, but I may speak as well, if the mood takes me.
After that, we begin the long trek up the Mexican peninsula, through hopefully unpopulated enemy territory, and back to Home.
Wish us luck, and say a prayer for the soul of Private Marks. May his life be honored better than those poor nameless spirits of wars past.

Lt. Conrad McGaebril, The United States Army.

[Silver Adept]

Another name for the book. I can only hope that Marks did the job, then. It's hard to speak of someone when they're dead. We've been jogging along for four days now, and there's been no sign of the enemy. We stopped only to rest, and to say our words for Marks. That kid had prmoise. I could see him making it through the war and going back to his family. Marks was the kind of guy who we'll need to have, whether we win or lose the fight. The kid had a knack fro cracking the right dirty joke at the right time. He liked saying that when he got home, he was going to make up for all the lost time with his wife. Now I'll have to deliver another one of those letters. Our clicker's been telling us that the wind's driving the fallout away from us, so we shouldn't be getting any fun glow-in-the-dark stuff. But looking at the wind patterns, I don't know whether it will stay that way. Since we have no idea where the base of operations in the South is, we can hope that somehow they get a little dusting of this stuff. Maybe if we're lucky, their big shot will be there at the time and we can make 'em real confused by not having a leader. The Boss never orders any hits, though. I think that's a bit strange. Maybe he has some notion about honor or something like that.

Scouts report that we may be coming up on inhabited territory. Need to keep my eyes alert now.

-S.D., 1 Lt. U.S.A.

[Therin]

We've been scattered. I am now travelling with one of my privates, alone. I know not the location of the rest of my men, nor the location of anyone from the Seventh. We were ambushed a day or two ago just as we crossed the border into Honduras. They just popped out of the woods, much the same way birds do when flushed, and opened fire. We gave as good as we got, I think, but we were outnumbered and surrounded, so we conentrated our fire on punching a whole in the enemy forces and escaping. We accomplished it, but many lives were lost, and we have been running ever since. They're hunting us, I'm sure. I can only hope my counterpart survived and is heading towards home, as I am. But this thought has dawned on me recently, and it makes me fear for our country and our resistance: They knew we were coming.
-Conrad McGaebril

[Silver Adept]

We're on the run, in theory. We got sniped at about three miles across the border by somebody waiting in ambush. I have two demo experts with me who will be getting sent off to sniper training school as soon as we get back. Those two have spotted things and people from farther away than I can see. At the moment, they're the only ones I know are alive. The first attack was right out of the woods. They opened fire without warning. We'd all be dead if someone hadn't snapped a twig before the snipers fired. I don't know how many are dead or just running like hell, as we were for a bit. Right now, we're outside what looks like a supply depot for them. We don't know if it's an important one, but I've got two guys with explosives and something to use them on. If nothing else, it's dumping dead weight. The plan, of course, is to sneak in, re-arm ourselves to the teeth and steal a tank before anybody notices we're gone. That's not going to happen, of course, so we hope that the C-4 that we leave behind in payment for our goods draws enough attention (and fire) away from us so that we can gun or bulldoze our way through what's left and then hit the road for the homelands. That's probably not happening, either. So this is likely a suicide mission. The road probably ends here for us, unless somebody's got some action hero gene in him. We can only hope that the one we blow up is a critical one that slows them down severely. About time to go. We've whacked a patrol, stripped 'em and shot 'em. We need to check back in at the base before they get suspicious. I'm leaving most of the work up to the demo experts, and hoping that our targets were the strong silent type. From here on out, we play guerrilla ball until we either get shot by them or our own border guards. May She protect all of us.

-Delagra, 1 Lt, U.S.A.