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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