a_brave_warrior king kong NINJA there is no purpler prose to him. he's a literature professor who routinely laughs at the last letter home of some soldier that they printed in the newspaper to give the war personal relevence so people don't flip to the entertainment section. he's a fat balding man on tenure sitting in his den so sure no friends of his could ever convince him to die. we have to send somebody into the darkness lest the darkness come to us don't we? he muses. he has reasons, he has counterarguments, he knows this war has questions to be answered. but there is something that haunts him. forgetting for a moment the maps of a sattelite or a waroom or the ends of a offensive, there remains the dirt, the boundries measured in a battle's little lines of sharp metal light, the oppresive heat, and the nights where the tension of guns with deathly still chambers, leaning gingerly on explosive force is absurdly calm. there is still a face gone dead. a body's peculiarly awkward weight as it falls. these images haunt him. he is envious of the soldier. he chastizes himself for it. no one would wish this upon anyone. but isn't there a pride? a deep pride in having survived a sacrifice? for more than anything, he wants his life to be like that. a taste of water to be cool, each letter to be that raw. he knows that a person can't live like that. that's why they're soliders. living is often not their foremost concern. that's also why they're brave. he copies down a sentence from the last letter home and says it out loud. "when i get home, i'm never going to let you go." He'll never know how many moments in his life he let go that people would've died for. 030415 ... . one that is willing to tell the truth in a world of lies 230112 what's it to you? who go blather from