Personal Log
Noemi Laporte
UEFg Indus

Tomorrow the war could be over. If we bloody the Tevs badly enough, if we take down the Carthage and kill ten or twenty thousand in a single day...we might shatter their political will. Their people will turn against the war.

And yet, in a sense, I will not be one of the survivors. I am not the person I once was. The Noemi Laporte who first wrote in this journal is dead.

I have heard nothing from Kassim since he was shipped home, as much a casualty as the people I have killed. I know that he never found a reason to fight, and it destroyed him. 

He had a lot of options. 

People fight for their beliefs, but in a war like this, only the blind could pretend that we hold the entire moral high ground. That way lies fanaticism.

Some people fight because they are told to. I...well, I have discipline issues. The relief of blind loyalty was never an option for me.

Some people fight because they love it. I am desperately afraid that if things had gone a different way this might have been my reason. I kill too easily for my own comfort.

And yet, ultimately, my reason to fight is the one that I think drives most soldiers.

I fight not for my nation or my beliefs or my own sick thrills, but for the people by my side. The Wargods. My comrades.