I guess…I guess I could have been one of those that contributed to the end of America. If I had known how it was going to end, though, I would have been one of the first to start fighting! But I didn’t see that by remaining silent, by clinging to my misguided belief that the government would not, could not, turn against the people of this nation, I was helping them do just that.
“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
Now, of course, Benjamin Franklin’s words are a haunting warning. But by the time we realized that, it was too late.
Our leader has asked me to write down what happened, in the hope that someone in the future will find it and learn the truth. As I look out into the darkness of two o’clock in the morning, I can see the shapes of the APCs and tanks in the distance, rolling towards our hiding place. After chasing us with fighters and bombers for most of the day, they were finally able to pin us down in this valley. What we thought would be a place of safety from the air strikes has instead left our troops cornered in a dead end.
“Dead-end.” My God, never have two words sounded so final, so deadly.
I am wasting time getting philosophical. Just write the facts, John, I tell myself!
I shift my weight to the other side of my buttocks, and take another glance toward the east. There is no light except the moon; by its soft glow, I can see the approaching armor and troops of the Joint Task Force. It gives me a renewed urgency to finish this journal. I turn back to the notebook in my lap, and start writing again:
“In hindsight, I can now see when it started, or rather, how it started. What seemed like totally unrelated occurrences, then, can now be seen quite clearly as parts of a larger plan. Most were in the name of ‘safety,’ while others were such small acts they didn’t seem to matter one way or another. But taken all together, they did what no invading army could ever have done—disarm the American people, take away their means to put up an effective defense, and enable certain factions of the government to control them.
“I’m sure anyone who may someday read this will have been told we were rebels, traitors to the American way of life—assuming any mention whatsoever of our fight hasn’t either been erased or forbidden by then. So I guess I should tell you of the circumstances that led us to take up arms against our own government. I’m not going to list the causes in order of occurrence; the sequence is not nearly as important as the effects, and to try to recall all of the dates would take too long. Time is running out; I hear the sound of the approaching armor on the wind.” Continue reading
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