Day 7

Doing all those drills didn’t seem to make to confident about our big battle. To me, it just showed if I was good or not, the result, not good. Lolo was a better soldier than me in any way. He could pull the trigger on a man and not feel guilty about it, whereas, I wasn’t that strong. We were separated from each other. Lolo and I had to head down towards the river and use our rifles to shoot the loyalists. Maybe this was it; I could finally show my strength and pull the trigger. Sergeant Diaz had us hidden so none of the men on boats would be able to spot us. My heart started to race from the fear. Not of dying, but of having the guts to shoot. Could I? Then the signal went off. All I heard was continuous sounds coming out from my rifle as if it had a life of its own. The dark shapes each fell to the ground with piercing screams that stung my ears. I couldn’t stop, if there was more soldiers then I wanted to help shoot them down. They had killed many, and I felt the need to kill them. That was it, I did it. I shot the bullets out of my rifle just like that. I felt like a true soldier, like one of them. I felt like I belonged, until I started looking at Lolo. He is everything you could have asked for in a good soldier, and I felt like I was nothing. I wasn’t even sure if I had killed anyone, only sure I had fired. I wanted to talk to someone. Someone I trusted, Lolo, but I didn’t even know if I could anymore.

http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/gettysburg/dead-civil-war-soldiers.jpg