The Year in Review Through Prose Poetry

True Blue War Hero (L.A. Noire)

Truth: War made cowards of them all, whether they stood over the dead trying to understand their victory or whether they stared up from the mud with milky eyes, just another corpse on the battlefield. They could smell the acrid stench of cooked bodies for days after they burned the cave out. It didn’t matter what country the charred men came from, they all smelled the same in the purity of the fire. Try as he might, he could never escape that moment.

Doubt: In his tent alone at night, sipping slowly from his canteen, which suddenly felt stone-heavy, he was sorry for what had happened. His men said little, but he could tell in the way their eyes avoided his that he had lost them. That’s what war was, though, the ability to make the hard decisions – and live with them. Yes, he decided, not noticing the fly skittering across his cheek or that he had been sipping from an empty canteen for an hour now, he could live with it.

Lie: The badge said it all. He was a true blue war hero and an up-and-comer. An asset to the force. Sure, they gave him flack, like any rookie, but deep down he knew they respected him, the way his men in the shit overseas had respected him. He could make the hard decisions. He had a damn fine head on his shoulders. A keen sense of right and wrong. Of Justice with a capital J. He was ready to defend Justice, ready to show them all – the cops, the crooks, the citizens – that good men still existed, that heroes were still possible.