Getting priorities in order

I woke up much earlier than the beautiful women in my foxhole. I experienced peace for the first time in a time most definitely not suited for it. But what else was I supposed to do? Throw away those small moments of happiness that made my peace of mind so much more bearable? It was most certainly ironic that I just pleasured two beautiful, smart, young and sexy women at the same time in a fucked up world where when I was living in a peaceful world I had to endure **** loneliness which was slowly corrupting my mind. And I all I had to do for it was killing a man in cold blood and fumbling around as a leader in a war so horrific, we were all thinking we would die in.

People clung to hope and peace in the strangest of places, in the strangest of men. If I could be that man, so be it, but I would keep trying to be as good as a man I wanted to be. I was not getting younger, that was true, but what happened in Vegas, stayed in Vegas. I realized I had to stay with my two feet firmly planted on the ground. I had to keep in mind these experiences were but fleeting moments of giving and seeking comfort. When the war was over and all of us somehow survived, it would be fleeting moments, best to be left in the past. I couldn’t think about finding love here, it would be detrimental to me if I pursued it, here and now of all places and times. Surely something bad would happen and be lost and leaving me utterly destroyed.

Yet, as a drowning man, I clung to the first hands that kept me alive. I had to admit perhaps because I was drowning, I was slowly falling in love. Fuck. Falling in love thought me one thing over the years I experienced it: that is was a sickness of the mind, out of desperation to find some happiness. Surely this would not last.

I had to get my priorities in order. Survive. Keeping sane. Taking care of those that started to love me. Taking care of others whose life depended on me. And if keeping sane meant I had to do things my dirty mind told me to do, I would not deny them, but I wouldn’t look for them. Take what is given, but nothing more.

So I started getting back to work. The war was now three weeks in effect. It didn’t look like it would last for years. The wave that was on its way was bigger and more dangerous than ever. They took their time to get everything in order, but when they pushed on, they would be pushing hard. Three weeks, and already entire countries were at the mercy of unrelenting Russian soldiers, capable of doing the most inhuman things men could do. I was getting scared again, not per se for myself, but for the people relying on me, here and at home.

All I could do was preparing my battlefield the best as I could. But something more could be done? No doubt leadership had thought about it, but it kept nagging me, that if they hadn’t, things could turn out so much worse.

I walked over to the command post, finding there the same leading officer of the Special Forces. Cleaning out his gun, again, sitting quietly against a tree.

“Good morning, Alex. What brings you here on this cold, rainy day?”

“Just some stupid ideas, my dearest officer...?”

“Call me Blue, it is my call sign.”

“Blue, I was wondering about something, in the grand scheme of things.”

“Ah, philosophy, a better pastime there is not out there.”

“Uh, no, a bit more specific, more like about grand strategy.”

“Just recently, you have been promoted to lieutenant, and now you are already vying for being a general?”

“I don’t care about those ranks, I was a civilian three weeks ago and will be again, if I return at all.”

“Good you are indifferent about it. People that suddenly are made officer, they start thinking they can do all sort of things they shouldn’t be doing.”

“Indeed. Now, what I wondering about. At the Regen we halted the first wave. At the Donau, the Germans blasted the second wave. Now a third wave, even bigger, comes to us. When will it all end?”

“It will end when they or we are all dead.”

“That I could figure out myself, thank you very much, Mister Blue. No, what I was wondering about, if somehow we beat the third wave, where comes their forth wave from?”

“Considering their third wave was already on their way, but somewhat delayed because they had to wait for reinforcements from Russia, I would say, the forth wave would have to come all out of Russia again. We would delay them for an extra month and in that time my country would be here, with all the bells and whistles attached to it.”

“And if somehow we could stop them from entering Ukraine?”

“There are considerable efforts in sabotage, all along their logistical lines.”

“Excellent, but not without some casualties on our side, is it not, Mister Blue.?”

“Casualties are unavoidable in the best of plans. Where are you going with this?”

“Say, I had a way of denying them access to the entire Russian border?”

“That would be a miracle. Are you a Jesus Reborn?”

“No, and I doubt even raising one dead guy would do the trick.”

“Ha, I doubt it too,” he laughed.

“I heard your mortars were using fragmentation missiles, if I am not mistaken, that kind of munition is not allowed here.”

“All is allowed in war. The US never entered those silly international treaties, and even if we did, we kept on producing.”

“Have you ever seen a crop duster at work?”

“As a matter of fact, I did, I even flew one, when I was younger, what has that to do with anything? Your questions jump around a lot.”

“Bear with me. Imagine a crop duster flying all the way from the Black Sea to the Baltic Sea. Not with stuff to kill insects, or to prevent insects to come upon the plants. But with stuff to prevent bad people moving to the border. Imagine the US had plenty of crop dusters to do so, dropping that stuff. Stuff that would kill anyone who dared to cross the border. The same stuff that **** us to move from Regensburg to here.”

“The US can’t escalate the war with dropping nuclear bombs all across the border.”

“Not nuclear bombs, no, but stuff derived from it could do it. No mass destruction, just creating a zone no one can enter and leave without dying. You can still leave while being in it, but never enter it again.”

“Dropping radioactive materials... You would need a lot of dirty bombs to do that.”

“I am sure you don’t need that much expertise and materials to produce those. And the US is famous for producing stuff they shouldn’t be producing in the first place, because of silly international treaties. And you have certainly enough crop dusters. Even unmanned ones. Able to fly very low, very fast, able to carry those payloads.”

“We are talking about destroying a lot of land, and a lot of people will be affected by it.”

“People I don’t adore all too much lately. For all I care, Mister Blue, warn them of impending nuclear attacks with ballistic missiles or mass carpet bombing with your stealth bombers. That will make them look at the sky, not low above the ground.”

“Well, well, well. It seems you have learnt something after all. Having been a pawn in our schemes, Alex, made you think like a player.”

“Philosophy aside, would you be so kind to deliver this idea to your masters?”

“I will consider it, I will consider it even very strongly.”

“Good, see that you do,” I said with iron in my voice.