I am dead. My name doesn’t matter anymore. It’s carved on some weathered stone, maybe a memorial wall, maybe forgotten entirely. I was a soldier, one of countless who bled out in the mud, the sand, the jungle, or some godforsaken trench for causes we were told were noble. Freedom. Liberty. The defense of our way of life. Lies, all of it. I speak from the grave to shake you awake, to scream what the living are too afraid to whisper: the wars we fought, the lives we lost, the pain we endured – it was all a waste. A cruel, calculated waste orchestrated by those who never held a rifle, never buried a friend, never woke screaming from the nightmares that don’t end.
You honor us on your holidays, with flags and parades, with tears and speeches about sacrifice. You call us heroes. But I’m no hero. I was a pawn, a body thrown into the meat grinder of war to serve the ambitions of men who see human life as a tradable commodity. They sit in their boardrooms, their war rooms, their ivory towers, reshaping the world to their liking while we – the poor, the desperate, the idealistic – pay the price. They don’t care about us. They never did. To them, my death was just a number, a statistic to justify the next budget, the next contract, the next conquest.
Do you know what it’s like to lose? Not a battle, not a war, but everything? I watched my brothers die, their eyes wide with shock as life drained away. I carried their letters home, stained with blood, to widows and orphans who’d never be whole again. I saw men return broken – not just in body, but in soul – haunted by what they’d seen, what they’d done, what they could never unsee. Families shattered, futures stolen, all for what? For promises of freedom that were never kept. For a world where you still beg for permission to travel, to build a home, to live without the state’s boot on your neck. You’re not free. You never were. Those parades? They’re a mockery, a distraction from the chains you don’t even see.
They told us we were fighting for liberty, for justice, for the right to live as we choose. They fed us stories of enemies who hated our way of life, who’d destroy us if we didn’t strike first. We believed them. I believed them. Young, naive, full of fire, I thought I was defending something sacred. But it was all a lie, a script written by those who profit from death. The war industry grew fat while we starved, bled, and died. The politicians, the bankers, the legacy families – they sent us to kill and be killed, and they reaped the rewards. New borders, new markets, new ways to control you. And us? We were just tools, disposable, replaceable, forgotten.
The true enemy wasn’t the man in the other trench, the one I was trained to hate. He was like me – scared, tired, fighting for a lie he thought was truth. The real enemy was the one who sent us there. The ones who shook hands over our graves, who signed deals while our blood soaked the earth. The ones who taxed you to death to fund their wars, who stripped your rights and called them privileges, who turned your labor into their wealth while you struggled to survive. They’re the ones who betrayed us, who betrayed you. And they’re still doing it.
Look around. You’re not free. You’re taxed into submission, watched, controlled, told what you can say, where you can go, how you can live. Your rights are illusions, revocable the moment they inconvenience the state or its puppet-masters. The wars we fought didn’t change that. They never will. They’re not meant to. They’re meant to enrich the few while the many suffer, to keep you divided, distracted, and obedient. The poor fight, the rich profit, and the cycle never ends.
I’m not asking for your pity. I’m asking for your anger. Stop pretending our deaths meant something noble. Stop letting them use our sacrifices to justify their greed. My life, my brothers’ lives, the countless others – they were wasted. Not for freedom, not for you, but for power. For control. For a world where the average man gets shafted, always. Honor us by seeing the truth: the wars we died in were not our wars. They were theirs.
From the grave, I beg you – wake up. Stop believing their lies. Stop fighting their battles. The enemy isn’t across the sea or behind a rifle. The enemy is the one who sent me to die, who’ll send your sons and daughters next. They don’t care about us. They never will. And until you see that, my death, and all the others, will remain what they always were: a waste.
true all true ask those who lived tho any war