*Kicks this one HARD* (Heh... it needed bumping up. It's a damn good one....)
After reading many of the responses to this one, I thought that perhaps it should not be left to languish, near-forgotten, in the depths of the archives. There are those among Us who have served, or are serving even now, and on this day I thought it especially appropriate that We read again the thoughts of Our veterans, and perhaps add new ones as well. So, for My own two tarsk bits' worth........
I too am a veteran. Nearly ten years' worth in fact, for like Arlon I am not a young man. Unlike others among Us I served in peacetime; when Desert Storm first broke out I was on inactive-reserve duty and was never called. Later I served once more, as an active-duty soldier with others who had come home from Desert Storm. Again by the time war once more came, this time as a result of the September 11th attacks, I was once more a private citizen, my time long since finished.
I am too old to volunteer again now, and being asthmatic the Army would never accept Me a third time in any event. Like My father before Me, whose enlistment was up six months before Vietnam got hot, war simply passed Me by. Still, I am proud of My service. My timing sucked, but still I served, and served willingly and well. Inside every Man, somewhere, there is a Warrior, and for a time Mine was able to serve. For that I am grateful, as that service had much to do with making Me what I am today.
The Warrior, from the simplest foot soldier to the oldest general, is a man of deep passions. I was first a medical-supply specialist, and then a tank mechanic; in both capacitites I met many Men, and even Women, who embodied the very soul of the Warrior. My own passions run deep; to this day I cannot hear Taps without shedding a tear in memory of those I have seen buried to those haunting tones, and to this day I will defend My country to My last breath. I work hard, play hard and love fiercely. That's just Me.
Arlon is, in many ways, what I could not become in this life. He is a Warrior who has seen more than His share of death and destruction, as a line soldier and, later, as a mercenary. Love is new to Him, as is the concept of a peaceful life. Perhaps that is why He feels so at home among the Tuchuks: no matter how peaceful His Clan, a Tuchuk is a warrior first. Arlon has been seen to lift His sword in a cold rage, in the defense of a mere slave; He has also been seen to smile very softly into the eyes of His Beloved, and to take the time to touch a slave on the cheek or the hair if she has pleased Him.
More than one very wise Man has said that tears are no shame to a Warrior. It may not always be suitable for those tears to be seen -- there are times when what is needed is the Warrior's strength of character, His solidity, when He is needed to be the Rock upon which His Family may lean for strength and comfort -- but it is no shame that He sheds them, even when He must wait and do so in private, where only His Companion and His slave may see. It is a privilege granted to them, the Companion and the trusted slave, to see those tears which their Man may not that day shed publicly. Such is the true strength of the Warrior: not that He does not shed tears, for He does... but that only those closest to Him ever see those tears.
As for what His enemies see ... well. I'd say ask Them, but a Tuchuk does not leave a living enemy behind Him.
....Arlon
