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HWF-online.com | Board of Education | Layout My hopes were shattered on a cold winter’s evening with one single knock on my front door. “Mr Michael Trey?” “Yes?” “I’m a representative of the Langley & Waterman coal mining company. I was wondering whether I might come in and have a word with you regarding the terms of your employment.” I’d heard the rumours floating around town already. Apparently, while we were down in the trenches, the company had employed new men to take our work on. Obviously, there was always going to be a problem when we returned and so redundancies were inevitable. No sooner had the guy opened his mouth did I know what was to follow. The returning war veteran had been laid off by a company he’d trusted for years. It was a kick in the balls, to say the least. I called Jon the very same day to check up on his progress and to see how life was treating him. The damn rat bastards had given him the same treatment. “Is this what we come home to? A jobless future?” I shrieked down the phone at Fuller. He was seething too. We’d laid everything on the line… and we came back to find ourselves screwed over by the people we’d fought to save. “It makes you wonder whether the war was worth winning, doesn’t it?” “We’ve not won any war, Jon. The war continues. We fight a war every day of our lives… and because the human race is a selfish corporate machine,” I declared, laying my feelings down like statements. “I don’t feel like a winner. I’m willing to bet that thousands of other men are in the same position we are too. There are no winners in war.” I was royally pissed. Anger always brought out the worst in me when it came to pretentious speeches too… That’s when I realised that life itself is nothing more than a battlefield. So long as everyone is hell bent on competing against their neighbour – we’ll always be at war. “Do the last 4 years count for anything at all then?” said Fuller, almost rhetorically. “I don’t know,” I said with a sigh. “I just don’t know.” In November, 1918, the first World War ended. The British emerged victorious along with the help of their American allies. That’s exactly what it says in history books all over the globe. It’s entirely accurate too. However, they failed to point out one thing. It wasn’t the soldiers that won the war… it was the politicians. And that’s what left Private Michael Trey as neither a winner nor a loser.
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