Situation:Robert is talking about his horrible experiences in a two short letters home to his sister, Emily. Robert is a soldier fighting in World War II.
This monologue could be performed two ways: Robert writing the letters or Emily reading them
"...Emily, I am so scared...I have seen people be killed...seen people starving to death...I have seen human hatred in its most pure form. And it scares me so bad. Worse than anything you can ever imagine. I have to do awful things over here. I killed someone today, Emily. And I saw him die. I killed a boy and was forced to watch him slowly die as he lay there in the mud and dirt in the trench in front of me... This boy couldn't have been over nineteen. It's impossible, and he was probably younger. And you know the worst part? What shook me more than anything? He looked exactly like Matt. It was like watching my best friend die all over again. Yes, the boy was a German, an "enemy", possibly a Nazi, or maybe he was just a normal boy who was drafted like I was or pulled into the mob against his will. He had a life, and a future. And with one slip of my finger, one little second, I took it all away from him. In one split second. He probably had a family like I do, I fact, I know he did- he has to. He has a mother and father I know. But maybe he has a sister that cares for him and worries about him. Or maybe a girlfriend or fiancée back home who cries herself to sleep every night, waiting for him to come home to her. Worrying if he'll be okay, if he's hungry, or cold, or even if he misses her as much as she misses him. And I killed him. I took him away from everybody he loves, and from everybody who loves him. What right did I have to do that? To take somebody's life, future, hopes, loves, and dreams away because of what some stupid officer tells us to do? Who gave that right? Just because the government says Germany and Japan and the Nazi's and all their allies are bad, does that really mean that they are evil and we have the right to take their life from them? Nobody in this world should have the right to take another's life. It's just not our place to decide. And nobody should have that right beyond this world either. Because there is no God and there is no Heaven. But I know there is a Hell. Because I am living through it every second of every minute of every hour of every single fucking day, and I will be for what will probably be the rest of my life..."
"...Emily, it's getting so much harder as each long day passes us by. So much harder to go on living at all, much less living through this absolute hell on Earth. I can't stop thinking about that boy I killed, and just how much pain I must have caused. Every time I close my eyes, I see him, lying in the dark cold mud at my feet, his eyes wide open and seeming to search my soul. I can see the fear behind them, and I can still hear his cry as he tumbled forward, landing at my feet to torture me as he fell into the blackness of death. The nothingness of knowing you are no longer a living being, but instead a dead corpse, at the hands of another. I can't forget the pain it must have caused all of his loved ones back home, wherever home may be. He and his memory haunt me still today. It's been weeks. It seems as if he has taken over my body, my soul, my mind. I died that day in the trenches and he went on living inside of me. I haven't gotten more than an hour of sleep in three weeks! Hell; we are living and breathing through the meanest and most horrible of hells. And one by one, I am losing everyone I ever had. I lost Jennifer early on, and now, of the twelve of us who were sent over here from our town, four are left. Eight of them have died, and only Brian, Luke, Brandon, and I are left and that may not be for long. The German's and their allies get closer every day. Every day is one day closer to the day I will die, which is not very far away I'm sure. Watching people die, like having to watch Matt and that boy die, and watching people wait around, knowing death will find them soon, like I have to do with Brandon, Brian, and Luke, are the hardest things in the world. And so many people don't even seem to care any longer. Not just about death and killing, but about anything. They seem to have forgotten how to care. Maybe they physically can't care anymore...or maybe they just won't. Cause not caring seems so much easier. Luke and Brian gave up long ago, gave up all hope, but Brandon's trying to hold on. But it's not easy at all. It seems so much easier for them to get through the long hours than for me, because it really hits me hard to see all this shit going on all around me. I swear it's killing me to see it. I mean, you can even smell it. You can smell the death all around us and the dying on the battlefield. It's the worst thing in the world, it's hell, and I would never wish it on anybody. All I want right this second is to curl up and die. To suffer the same way I have made other's suffer. But then, I would probably be forced to walk on these battlefields and live this hell for the rest of a very long eternity..."
Angel Harrison
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