Home they brought their warrior dead

My thoughts today don an olive green fatigue, speckled with indelible spots of red. Now and then they morph into a muddy foliage with shades of sand and grey under which lie buried countless tales of valour, of laid down lives and shattered families. The reek of damned death and the glory of supreme sacrifice vie with each other for primacy in my simmering heart; the rattle of firearms and boom of bombs produce a cacophony in my head, and the stunning silence that follows drowns in pitch black, a colour into which everything melds - life, death, love, hatred and all that they encompass.

Even as I write this, hundreds of thousands of men and women, hardened by resolve and obsessed with a singular purpose, will be fighting for what constitutes the pledge of their lives. They are all in wars of righteousness as viewed by them through their military binoculars. Diverse in nature but unified by their commitment to a cause that is worthy of giving up life, and convinced that in slaying a foe lies unparalleled pride, they are battling to achieve what to them and to millions supporting them are an honourable purpose. They are in it for one reason - patriotism - a sentiment that makes all things fair and fastidious in combat. They brook no blots in their armor, spare no pity in their heart nor harbour fear in their brain. They are warriors, to whom, as Paulo Coelho said, there are no ends. There are only means. And the means are fraught with contradictions that can never be explained fairly or fully.

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The grit they display has become second nature to them, for the sentiment that fires them stems from the idea of putting duty ahead of everything else and plunging head long into safeguarding that which lies in their territory. This, even at the cost of their own private lives and personal concerns. On the battlefront, they are an entity that has no motives other than victory and when denied that, they seek denouement in death. In it they find honour; an honour that rips lives in the wake of their glorious exit. Their martyrdom is phantasmagoric - it combines frames of pride and sorrow, evokes a collage of feelings that roil interminably and swings between its decorative and devastating qualities. Those left behind spend the rest of their forlorn existence wondering if they have won or lost the battle of their lives.

Absences are hard to come to terms with. Just because the absence is an outcome of a gallant deed that arouses widespread sentiments of avowed reverence doesn't make it easy to endure. The death of a soldier is as hard to accept for those he leaves behind as it is to anyone else that has lost a loved one in other circumstances. Bereavement doesn't discriminate between people, and afflicts even the steeliest of men and women. Even when the world salutes the slain heroes and writes glorious obituaries, the grieving hearts of countless families struggle to keep their welling eyes from spilling, for the unwritten battle code decrees that a braveheart shall not be mourned wailfully. The unflinching pride of a soldier denies his widow and orphans even the freedom to weep openly. Their tragedy finds space to settle in muffled moans and frazzled memories.

The war that stripped their joys wasn't of their making nor is violence part of their everyday philosophy. Given a choice, they would be on the side of amity, yet their lives are defined by the concepts of conflict and hostility.

The odious nature of war becomes a reality to them, despite their conviction about its futility. Wars never solved anything, yet countless men and women march towards the battlefront, brave and intent, preferring to take the bullet to their chest than to flee or face defeat, for mankind has yet to find an alternative way to resolving its conflicts. Peace, though regarded and spoken of as man's ultimate means to happiness, has yet to find its feet in these volatile times.

Every time the doleful notes of The Last Post leads a fallen hero to immortality, every time the wind blows over a listless uniform and helmet, every time the sun sets on the joys of a buoyant family, my aching heart will throw up a numbing question - what is different between the coffins except the colours of the flags that wrap them? The passion that sustained life, the animosity that brought death upon them and the dry tears that will be shed over their untimely passing will remain constant from one end of the earth to the other, and the logic of war will hide behind the camouflage, guilty of failing to find a meaning to its travesties.

Asha Iyer Kumar is a Dubai-based writer