Redemption's in the wind.
That's what they always said.
I don't know about redemption. Never really found any of that up here, just a whole lot of blood and death.
But I guess I found a kind of peace up here in the end. A sort of measured tranquility.
Tranquility's in the wind? Does that work?
I don't know. My skillset never really included words or philosophizing. I just flew.
So I guess I'll just tell it as it happened, no excuses no rationalizing, just the truth as I saw it. I guess, in the end, that's all a man can really do.
For me it all started when I was 15. I was full of youthful fire and fervor, cocky and arrogant to a fault. Man I was such a prick back then. So sure of myself, so sure that I was invincible and undefeatable. What I wouldn't give to go back and knock some sense into myself.
I spent so many sleepless nights listening to the sirens blare and the cannons fire dreaming of joining them and finally getting a taste of glory. I don't think the phrase rose tinted goggles even comes close to how I saw the War. The War. So all encompassing it didn't need a name or a designation. It was just the War. At the time I thought it was stupid, always sounded ridiculous just saying "the War". I was full of piss and wind ideas like that back then. Thought I knew everything there was to know about anything.
For a while I dithered about what to do, the prospect of being some shit peddling ground trooper didn't fit with my lofty ideals of glory. Then, they announced the formation of the Sky Core. A new front on which to open hostilities they said. A new set of weapons with which to crush our foes. They were such beautiful machines. It's one of the few things I agree with my younger self about. Seeing those wondrous machines still quickens my heart and makes my breath catch even now. Its the only reason I still do what I do. So I did the only thing a boy like that can do. I ran away, lied about my age and signed up for the Sky Core. For glory, combat and fame. Protecting my country or those I knew didn't even enter into my mind. I was in it for the fight.
I looked old for my age, no one questioned me too thoroughly, I don't think they'd have cared even if they knew. They just wanted fresh meat for the grinder. All those new recruits coming in and snapping off salutes. It was a veritable gala day parade of cannon fodder, maybe one in five hundred of us is still alive from those early days. Not bad odds to have beaten from a personal perspective. Still. That's a lot of dead friends to mourn. I can't even remember all their names these days. There are just too many of them gone now.
