NationStates Jolt Archive

[OOC: This is how I've decided to do an intro - with a civil war as read through the eyes of one soldier. I hope everythin is clear enough. Feel free to comment.]

Dearest Anya,

I hope this letter finds you well. I can not begin to describe how I miss you. It has been weeks of marching for my comrades and I with hardly a moment to sit and write you until now.

Yesterday we boarded a train. The officers say we are heading to the front. Hundreds and hundreds of men crowded into these boxcars; it has been very uncomfortable. The food is short as usual, and when we do have some it is terrible. Still, I am full of vigor and hope. Our world is changing, Anya; we are witness to history! The revolution is come.

They say the place we are going to is called Byedna Otsayaniya by our soldiers – the hopeless abyss. The Tsarists have broken through there and all the talk is of death. It sounds as though no one could survive in a place like that, but we are still ordered there. We must hold the abyss, hopeless or not. I hope you don’t think less of me, but it frightens me where we’re headed. Don’t tell my father that.

My love,
Alexi 5/4/2005

Dearest Anya,

We arrived in the reserve area behind the battle lines today. The train tracks have been bombed in many places and our march to the front was a slow one. The spring rains have made the roads all of mud as far as the eye can see. We took two hours to march just three kilometers to reach the assembly area. Here, the land is all a muddy parade ground, filled with bootprints and rifle buts and soldiers waiting for the order to move up. Truly a sea of faces – green-jacketed bodies as far as the eye can see.

From where I am now, I can hear the sounds of the battle coming just over the ridge. The Imperialists have loudspeakers always blaring, even as their airplanes bomb our trenches they are telling us to surrender. We all laugh. “Propaganda,” we say. What fools.

The political officers are always talking on their own loudspeakers here. They say things like, “Be proud, communist fighters,” and, “The Tsarist enemy is a coward. Your victory is assured.” We all listen and try to be brave, but I still cringe whenever an airplane goes overhead. I wonder where our own planes are.

One comrade, Vasili, is no more than sixteen. Yet he is more passionate than any other man in my company and can quote the political officers by heart – not to mention Marx and Lenin. He tries to raise our spirits with campaign slogans, but I don’t think it does much good. Between the Tsarist propaganda and ours, I don’t know what to believe. His ranting is dampened by a somber pair of older men from Svitlovodskya called Akim and Yevgeny. Together, the three make quite an interesting group, and I think I like them.

Rumor is around the camp that we are going to the front tonight. I’m excited, of course, but at the same time afraid. I do hope they give us our rifles before we are sent forward.

Again, my love.
Alexi 6/4/2005

[OOC: Very ingenious.]

[OOC: Thank you]

Dearest Anya,

Yevgeny, Akim and Vasili died in the night. Everyone is sad because of it, and little Vasya is particularly missed. Tonight we will have a service for them if the rain stops. In the current weather, though, it is impossible to dig anything without it filling with water - even our trenches are flooded and we must sleep on the open ground, so needless to say graves are an impossibility. I pray that it isn’t raining if I should be killed.

It has been two days since we arrived here, and not a day passes that I do not wish I could leave this place. The shelling keeps us awake each night and what I have seen during the waking hours haunts my dreams when it is quiet. In our two days here on the line it has not stopped raining and everyone is miserable because of it. Our foxholes are always filled with mud and water and filth, often past my knees and are thus inhospitable. We sleep in the mud, then, wrapping ourselves in blankets and praying for the clouds to lift. Sometimes it seems they never will.

I dare not tell you some of the more awful details, but our stay here is most unpleasant, even without the rain. The plain has been churned into a sea of mud from the constant bombardment, and is strewn with debris and equipment and bodies as far as my sight will show. The air is thick with the scent of wet earth and smoke and it is nauseating. Still we are not even given the luxury of such sickness – our stomachs have been empty since we arrived, despite the officers’ constant promises of a hot meal each night. Empty promises.

Still, I am glad to be here. We are fighting today for a better tomorrow, a free tomorrow, an equal tomorrow. As long as I tell myself that, I will be fine.

Yours,
Alexi10/4/2005

p.s. The others have taken to calling me Alyosha, and it reminds me of you. I miss you terribly. Please, tell my mother I miss her too.