Silhouettes

They had us shoot at silhouette targets at basic training, paper facsimiles with point values that stood stationary while the muzzles of our standard issue rifles spit fire and sent round after round of lead into them. The skill was not difficult to learn. Quite a few of us became proficient at turning paper into pulp. They said the silhouette shape would condition our minds for combat, the theory being that it would make us less hesitant to pull the trigger in life and death circumstances--our lives, their deaths.

But as we are entrenched in this foxhole, sandbags being sacked by bullets and spewing debris, things are different. Even as our lives are in danger, there are those among us who fail to shoot back. Some pray. Some cower under the enemy's barrage. Some are frozen in fear. For the ones that do return fire, our actions lack the tenacity and certainty we had in basic training. Even in the chaos of battle, despite our conditioning, there is a subconscious part of us that knows we are taking lives. Here, the silhouettes move. And when the firefight is over, sometimes we can hear them scream.