WAR is a State of Mind

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Mission Homo Liberatus: The Beginning, Chapter 24. The Iron Cataclysm

The tents, soldiers’ uniforms, and backpacks were made of sand-coloured fabrics. From a bird’s-eye view, all this might have been hard to spot, but up close, everything gave off a strange, repellent smell, not of dirt or human sweat, but of military gear. It was difficult to pinpoint what exactly the soldiers’ belongings smelled of. Simon’s mind was instantly flooded with memories of all the human wars he had seen while wandering the world of men in search of my mother.

“A hundred years have passed, yet the stench of war is still the same!” he thought.

“This isn’t a war, father,” I objected. “They are just staying here and hanging around.”

“War is not an action, son, it’s a state of mind,” he explained. “A miserable human mind, twisted by fear and the hatred of it, in a desperate attempt to get rid of it, to defend oneself, or at least to imagine that there is a force against fear. And lacking a force of their own, homo sapiens use the power of machines and weapons.”

“So, is this the smell of machines and weapons?”

“Among other things, yes.”

Several soldiers slept inside the tents, while others, awaiting an alarm, busied themselves with tasks whose purpose was unclear to us. We saw them servicing machines, checking weapons, and preparing for a possible — our possible — attack. Of course, no one intended to attack them. Moreover, none of this equipment could defeat or capture a homo liberatus, so these healthy men were simply wasting the what precious time remained in their already short lives.

Duty filled the soldiers' mental space almost completely. The rest of their thoughts were occupied by their meagre human relationships with their comrades and families, if they had any, and with the belief in their righteousness as defenders of freedom and the national interests of the American people. Only a few of these men really wanted to kill. The rest suffered from the most perverse form of fear — the fear of making choices. These men were prepared to risk their own and others' lives just to enjoy the luxury of replying to any accusation with, “I’m a soldier. I followed orders.”

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