They don’t understand. They never will.

But they can’t, and I can’t expect them to. They do not have the… senses… that I have. We all have excellent eyesight and spatial navigation skills to make a bird look lost, but I…

I can’t describe it. I just can’t. I know it sounds crazy. We all love adventure, and the chill of adrenaline, and so on… but they love the killing. They try to persuade themselves that there are no men in the planes they knock out of the sky. To a large extent, they succeed, and only remember that they are murderers in the depths of their drink-fueled depression.

But I… I cannot forget. I would not willingly even if I could.

It started one day in January, when I was patrolling… it was a clear winter day, and I was sweating inside my jacket. There was nothing in the air but me and my flight for miles.

And then a flight of attack fighters tried to fly in above our heads. It was suicide for them – they were not nearly as maneuverable as our air control fighters. They were saving fuel. They never saw us coming until I fired at them.

I clearly remember how it happened. We had circled around behind them, and I had lined up a shot at the leader’s cockpit, when they entered a turn. Quickly, to retain the element of surprise, I fired. The heavy shells stitched a line of flaming holes into the fuselage of the lead fighter, moving up toward the cockpit…

And… it was as if I had been concussed. I was engulfed by panic and flames… the flames were not real, I told myself, but… and then I died.

It felt as if I had been shot through the heart. I found out later from my wingman, who followed me, precisely the sequence of events, as I have only a vague memory…

I jerked in a seizure, and entered an impossible climb. The plane stalled, tipped over, and sped towards the ground.

Then I got sick. As the plane plummeted, I brought up all the meals I had ever eaten, and kept retching. Despite this, I managed to pull, little by little, out of the fatal dive I was in, and engage the level autopilot.

I looked at the mess around me. It was not only food; blood made the scene truly horrific. I howled incoherently, in fear and pain.

When I returned to base half an hour later, I was dragged out of the cockpit to the surgeon’s office. When he heard what happened, he cleaned me up a bit and sent me to the chaplain. The chaplain was somewhat confused, himself. He knew that I was already an ace. I had killed before, so that wasn’t the issue. He sent me back to the surgeon, who took me off duty for a day or two, and then sent me back out.

The next time I killed, it wasn’t as bad, but I was still thrown out of position by painful spasms… and I… I felt him… I felt him die. He knew I was there, but his fear was only a small part of what was in his heart. There was also anger… and, like a clear stream in a polluted desert, hope. He hoped that… that something… something would… I never found out. He was suddenly gone.

From then on, I felt no more physical effects from the killing. But every time I centered a plane in my sights, I knew that I would face a barrage of emotions, ending in a sudden flash… fear, anger, pride, confusion, and sometimes humor would flash through my mind, and then the shock… and the plane would fall out of formation and tumble.

I am now an ace nine times over. But I remember every one. My squadmates sometimes joke about it, but they have stopped doing it in my presence. They do not understand that it is not pride that makes me remember: it is pain, the terrifying ache of a soul suddenly torn loose from its body.

I have become more reluctant to fly. I have been demoted for it, but I can no longer fly anything but patrol missions. While I wish to serve my country, I cannot continue to take life in doing so. The enemy is almost defeated, as the front has moved deep into Germany by this time.

They are starting to wonder. Sooner or later, they will find out, and control of my life will be taken from me. Either that, or I will be sent back to the front to kill, and I will disgrace myself by deserting…

I have found that they are sending me to the front. I have packed my bags already, and I am ready to go. But I will not kill.

I know which plane I will be flying, until that machine goes down. I have taped opened flares to the insides of the fuel tanks. This way, I can fly straight to an engagement, begin maneuvering, and then the flares will ignite… taking the plane with them.

I will not jump. Rather than become more of a killer, or desert in treason to all that I hold dear, I will take the matter into my own hands.

The man reached the words at the end of the page, and as he did so he entered a small clearing. He folded up the long letter and closed his eyes as he knelt by a stone and a plot of freshly turned earth.

Then he crumpled as if shot as tears forced their way past his closed eyelids. He screamed aloud.

“Why, my son, why?”