If you have never been awoken by the sound of gunfire, you will never know the feeling of true terror. To have the bullets of .357’s, and 7.62’s scream past your head as you lay in the sweet silence, there is nothing like it. My commanding officer, Captain Robert Low, ripped me from my bunk and handed me my rifle.

He then screamed in my ear, “On your feet man. This is war, not congress.’’
With a hoarse voice I yelled, “Yes sir, but where are the shots coming from?’’

He was quiet for a moment, then with a slight quiver in his voice he said, “Do you not see Towns… from everywhere.”

This dumbfounded me. Our base was about a mile in length, and a half mile in diameter. There is a minefield a quarter mile deep surrounding the base. I don't know how they did it, but they did it nevertheless. That's why in this Great War, to be surrounded means inevitably you and every man you’re fighting with will meet that grim reaper.

The captain was a stern, and very fierce man. He was built as if Hephaestus forged him from Greek iron in Olympus. So to see him in shear terror is like seeing the face of Lucifer, horrifying.

The unrelenting bullets rained in like a hurricane. They came from every direction- north , south, east, west, and from above at times it seemed. Americans fell all around me like dead trees in strong wind. Limbs were lost here, and gashes were made there. Grown men screamed like school girls. That army was nothing but austrian trash. They only joined their army to have something to do besides farm or drink. So it didn't surprise me when I could hear the laughter of the Austrian Army. It was like a chorus of suffering in our ears.

Then like Zeus to the masses, Captain Robert roared, “Men we will not be laid to rest in these trenches. Stand, houst your bayonets, and charge!”

He was the epitome of leadership. The men were on their feet in no less than a strike of lightning. They climbed the walls of those trenches like chimps to a jungle tree. I was immersed in the feeling of hesitation, yet also felt power and bravery. Our war cry was like that of 10,000 Spartans. We would not die that day. We would not feel the cold hands of death on our backs.

Still filled with dubious thoughts, I climbed the wall with vigor. But in an instant, I realized I was alone. It was as if all of the men around me had been taken up by the Lord himself. But with a slow, immobilizing glance at the ground, I realized they were not raptured. No divine hand had taken them into the clouds. They lay, halted on time across the ground, their blood pooling atop the mud of this battered nation. I stand alone in a field of death.

Moments before I am blotted out from time by a hail of gunfire, my captain whispers my name, and a faint, “ I’m sorry’’.

I could tell a bullet had pierced his eye, bit missed him just enough to let him stay on this Earth just a minute longer. I wonder why he chose me. I was the only man he got out of bed and warned of the imposing danger. With a missing eye, and a hole in the back of his head, he lay there beaten and broken. His disgusting to charge will live on in every history book in the world. I only can hope and pray that God will show him the mercy that army did not.

No hail of gunfire came for me. I was taken from this Earth by only one shot. It came from a boy no older than 16. His innocence is gone, his pride never more full in his body.

There it is… the thing I have longed for since this war began-That sweet, sweet sound of silence.