September 2, 2607 (ARCHIVE DATE: OCTOBER 7, 2162)
SOMEWHERE IN SOUTH AMERICA
UNITED NATIONS MILITARY BASE
[PAKISATN-4]
Dear Michelle,
I am approximately 10,000 miles from France, maybe more. The company is restless. The jungle is leering at us from every direction. The insects are as annoying as the soldier from Indonesia that, for some reason, despises everyone in our unit, particularly me. Ah, but you would love it here, my love. Simplement magnifique ici.
The other day we had been part of a unit that assaulted a major Koslovic outpost. My company was in the outskirts---in the thick of the jungle, in the thick of the fight. Our blood was pumping all right---the explosions, the sporradic gunfire cutting through the jungle. Eventually, we called in Pakistan-4 and several jets screamed over our heads. A second later, brilliant flashes---like several flowers suddenly blooming, the outpost was engulfed in brilliant orange and brown. Everyone in it had died.
Or so we thought.
There was a woman from Denmark that began to uncover a wreckage of a building when a rifle was pressed up her chin, and the next few seconds---oh my dear, you would have mistook it for a watermelon exploding.
I was the one who shot the assailant. My fingers, already numb from the repeated firing in the outskirts, pressed the trigger and the Koslovic fell back into the smoking rubble. I looked into the man's face---and instead stared into the face of a child, no more than 12. A fresh pool of blood seeped from his head. My bullet.
Pakistan-4 was supposdely "proud" of our success. "We could not have secured La Poz without the complete oblideration of that outpost!" one man whom I swear came from Yemen said. The words spilled all over me, all these commendations, but why? I had found out that the air strikes had not only destroyed the outpost, but burned down a building that had refugees displaced by the Rain Forest Wars. Innocent people. Their charred remains inside, when I uncovered them from the smoking ruins of the building, are still scarred in my mind.
I look at my hands now. They're trembling. We go out the next day to support an armored convoy to another Koslovic base, this time much better armed and dangerous.
Paris. Will I ever see its splendors again? Will I ever see the individual whom this great city hides---my wife?
My dear Michelle, if they come with the letter, if they come towards your door, I want the kids to see the letter. I want them to know what their father did to serve not just France, but the United Nations against these Kosvlics and fascist Frieden.
I await this next assault with bated breath.
To be honest, I am afraid of dying. I will not feel you again, I will not kiss you again. I will never see my beautiful country. And I will never be able to serve again. I will do everything in my power to survive. For you, my love. For you, Michelle.
[Corporal Xerviere was killed in action the next day by a sniper shot.]