Uno Ramirez's Seventh Day of War

The beginning of the day started out a little bit slow for me, and was unbelievably nerve racking! A big battle with such minimal experience, and besides, I had never even fired a gun at someone before today. But something that felt very strange to me today was that as I was going into this battle with little experience, my best friend Lolo seemed to already be a professional soldier and being by his side gave me comfort in some ways. Most of the soldiers in Unit E had very little experience and this also made me nervous, but overall if I were to mess up I would most likely be killed by Juan and not by any of the Loyalists.

The highlight of this gloomy day had to be fired straight at those Loyalists. I had actually shot at a human being, and a week ago this thought would have sent horrible chills down my spine, but today it made me feel excepted and finally a real Revolutionary. Even though I’m pretty sure I didn’t hit any one, I am proud of my self for being able to direct my fire towards them. I now am happy to say that I can share battle stories with Lolo and Ignacio while eating dinner or before going to sleep without feeling like a coward or as if I’m a lire. That is only if we make it past these next few days. I really hope we make it past these next few days.

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Uno Ramirez's Sixth Day of War

Today was kind of a let down for me. When Juan told me that Captain Mendoza stole money from a city that had been captured to buy an airplane my view on Mendoza and the Revolution had changed for the worse. I mean how could he just steal money from those people who put their money in the bank when we are fighting this war so that everybody can have a better life? I don’t get it. I had always thought that Mendoza was an honest man, a good man, but I guess I was wrong. How could Juan say that to win this war we need to fight dirty, if the whole point of winning is so that people can live an equal life? Can an army full of forced soldiers actually try to do the right thing or have they already given up and are just there to serve their time before their death?

This got me thinking about how the Revolutionaries are run, and the anger and sadness rushed back to me and I started thinking about how they would just come through my village and pick people to join their fight to death and cover it up by saying they “volunteered”. Maybe they don’t have real volunteers because they aren’t actually doing what is right for everybody. I also thought about how we came to that village that had been killed, and what did we really do? Nothing. We didn’t even arrive in time to save a whole family.

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Poem of Uno Ramirez's War Experience

Pablo (Uno)

Confused, sad, respectful, and kind

Sibling of Concepcion, and the 2 babies

Lover of Family, Lolo, and Freedom

Who needs knowledge, support, and friends

Who feels scared, lost, and alone

who gives backup, new ideas, and his opinion

Who fears his family getting hurt, his friends death, and not being brave enough

Who would like to see the war end, the Revolutionaries to win, and his village to be safe

Citizen of the Revolutionaries in Central America

Ramirez

By Philippe Griffiths

Uno Ramirez's Fifth Day of War

At first I wasn’t sure if I believed that the revolutionaries were doing the right thing for my country but after seeing what those stupid Loyalists did to the people in that village it hit me, the revolutionaries may actually be doing the right thing for the people. All I could think about was how that girl got shot in the arm trying to protect her sibling. Would the loyalists go to my village and kill everybody? Will my family be able to protect themselves? Or will my sister Concepción get hurt trying to protect my baby sister? I won’t let the Loyalists do anything to my village or any other village, and I will fight with the Revolutionaries to make sure that no one else will be hurt by those devils.

We also found two men in the woods today, Garcia and Olivares, but I was too busy thinking about the village to take them into thought. But overall today has changed me for the better. I now know what is going on around me and that by fight side by side with these revolutionaries I am saving other village unlike the one we were too late to save yesterday. If only we had come earlier, if only we had come in time to save that girls family.

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Uno Ramirez's Second Day of War

Today while talking to Ignacio the senselessness of war really hit me and I realized that we are all (the soldiers) just, in Ignacio’s words, going to become the new loyalists if we win, and the loyalists will become the new revolutionaries. After having the whole night to think about it I realized that all this death is useless and everyone is just stuck in a vicious cycle of wasted energy, lies, and death. And I couldn’t help on thinking about how those men that were buried today didn’t mean anything to anybody anymore and that they were dead just as soon as they were recruited. Maybe that’s why no one looked sad at the funeral; maybe they were all just dead to each other already.

The camp seems to have different opinions than I do. On one hand Juan truly believed that this war (the forty-third) would actually change something, and on the other hand Ignacio thought that the violence and war was useless and would never end. Even though there are some honest good people out there, I feel like these wars will be going on for ever and that people like me will be stuck between them for years to come. That though makes me loose hope of this country ever turning itself around and settling this war once and for all. Maybe we were just made to fight, kill, and die.

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Uno Ramirez's First Day of War

Today has been the most painful and fearful day of my life, not only did I loose my family but I was recruited into a world of hate and never ending cruelty. They said I was going to make my country a better place for everybody by “volunteering” to join the war but truly I wasn’t even given the option. On the ride back to the camp I was trying to block the picture of my family out of my head so I wouldn’t have to think about how they will make a living with my mother having to take care of the babies but it kept on coming back to me.

When I got to the camp as I looked around I could see and feel the sadness on the other boy soldiers faces and how they were probably going through the same problems as I was. In that sense I felt understood but the feeling that all I really knew how to do was to heave bananas over my shoulders all day made me feel very out of place. But there was a certain boy (Juan) that by being so confident about what the revolutionaries were doing made me feel like everything was going to be alright even though inside I knew everything he was saying wasn’t entirely true. Senor Diaz and Ramirez didn’t make matters any better by constantly screaming in my face and reminding me that I am not a soldier. This only really hit me when we were being given our AK-47s and after loading and reloading our magazines did I remember that this machines were made for killing, and over and over again I tried to remind myself that I am not a killer or a soldier in any way, and that by making me do these drills they can’t make me a soldier!

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