14-Sep-2001
Title: Join the Fight
Author: Kimmie (JaenKaeGW@hotmail.com)
Archive: GW Addiction, GW Nation.
Category: mild angst, POV, memorial fic
Pairings: None.
Disclaimer: GW is not mine. The words are mine. The feelings are mine.
Rating: PG-13.
Warnings: Memorial fic.
Spoilers: Set in canon GW, but no real spoilers.
Notes: I wanted to write something in GW canon that was a bit of a
memorial to all of the lives lost Tuesday, September 11th, 2001. I
hope that my take on it doesn't offend anyone. But, if it does, c'est
la vie. I don't write for you. I write for me. Note that Gundam Wing
is heavily based on World War I (the series) and World War II
(Endless Waltz). "History is much like an endless waltz; the three
beats of war, peace and revolution..."and "history repeats itself"
are two oft-quoted quotes which have settled in my mind these past
few days. Read. Get the message. Do your part. Heero POV (obviously).
My name is Heero Yuy. I am fifteen years of age, of Euro-Japanese descent. I was born and raised and trained to kill on assorted colonies in the L1 cluster. I live in a world of war, and I am a weapon in and of myself. But I am not a hero. Not yet.
However, I've studied heroes. Part of my training was to research former heroes of the nations of the Earth and the colonies, and I've come to an important conclusion. Most of the heroes who have existed in this world have died to be heroes. They are considered as such because they stopped someone whose name will always be remembered. There are men who spent their days talking and telling everyone why they should fight and be patriotic and die for their country, but most of them lived to old age. It is the people who sacrifice themselves, their lives, for a cause that are the true heroes. And, true heroes never get the recognition they deserve.
Every war that's ever happened up until now has come about because of a few people standing up for their country's rights, often killing themselves and many others in the process. Kamikaze pilots, who divebombed so many places because it was effective in World War II... it came again as the start of World War III, but on a much larger scale. For the countries that those men came from, those men whose names we will never know, it was an honorable act.
I am in possession of something which could be a thousand times more effective than any airplane, no matter what it was hitting. I fight this war in a Gundam. It's a mobile suit. The self-destruction mechanism, if functioning properly, is enough to take out a well- built colony. It could possibly take out the entire L2 cluster with one single blast, killing me with it. If I choose to self-destruct in the right place, I will be a hero.
I say my name is Heero Yuy, but, in truth, I do not know my real name. Heero Yuy is the code name that I adopted. This way, when I become a hero, everyone will already know my name. I have the name of a man who did great things and said great things... a man who, even though he was assassinated, lived twice as long as I will, at least.
War has never been an easy thing. Every life that is lost because of a battle takes a toll on everyone. It's exponential, as well. Because of a life filled with reading and listening to statistics, we hear these things as numbers. One life lost makes our hearts twist in pain just a bit. One hundred lives lost, and we bite our lips and say we'll do something. One thousand lives lost and we begin to plot revenge. Thousands of lives lost and we band together for revenge, to help, and prove that such a thing cannot take us down, no matter how hard it tries.
It seems like peace can never be a reality. Too many people have different ideas of what peace should be like and as they all try to attain them, chaos occurs and we find revolution, and war once more. Peace occurs during war, too, if you consider peace a time when everyone is helpful, attentive, justified, and when we all work together for a greater cause. Our birthplaces and places of residence, be they Earth or the colonies, may be at war, but when we are at war with them externally, we are at peace internally among the cities and towns of those places which we inhabit.
I know a few girls who embody the ideals of war. There is Relena Peacecraft, a girl whose every step since the war caught hold has been for peace, peace, and nothing but peace. She sees the beauty that there is to find when bloodshed does not keep us going. Then, there is Dorothy Catalonia, one whose every purpose seems to be to make the fight go on longer and to make us all shed more blood. She sees the beauty in the bloodshed; the idea that peace exists within that chaos. They are not friends so much as two sides of the same coin that continually flips and lands, someone calling the shots with a quick "heads" or "tails".
But, in times of war, metaphors lose hold as we try to tell ourselves to rely on fact and logic, even when we fall into the pit of coincidence and speculation.
The end is near, and all because of logic: The war will end soon, I know. This I know because I will fight. I will fight to the end. The end will come with my death. My death will come with the explosion of my Gundam at the sacrifice of my life. My life will be over, but I will have saved others. Others will finish it up. The finish will be the end. I'll be a hero, like anyone who has ever lost their life for that which they are patriotic toward.
I recognize the fact that I've been trained to die, though. The heroes that I look up to most are those ones who never had to learn it. It was instinctive and bred of the fact that in those times of trouble, they were not afraid to die to save others. They put their own lives at the end of the list and saved so many and so much.
I hope that when I die, I'll be a hero like them, or as close as I can be. I hope that people realize that I died to save them, and put their efforts toward tolerance and saving those who didn't die, but are injured or grieving. I hope that everyone who can will give blood, donate money, food, and clothing, and do all that they can to be a part of history: heroes in their own right.
Peace seems to be fighting together. Join the fight.
Owari. ;_;
Jenny&Kimmie
Please send comments to: JaenKaeGW@hotmail.com