Five Reasons

You Have One Hour

"It has been brought to the attention of all the officers at the station that it is very likely many of you will not emerge from this battle today unscathed," Corporal Stinson says. No one moves a muscle. We're all standing at attention in the barracks. It's been about two hours since he received orders from the Grand Master Sergeant two stations over. He's just been delaying the talk, though we all knew it was inevitable.

"We would like to recommend to each of you a tribute. Your own tribute. You each now have access to a recording device, which will immediately transfer any video you record into the military's database," he says. "You may record any message of your choosing, directed at any audience you select." He means for us to tell our families we love them. To tell them that if they've received this message, it means we perished protecting them and their freedom. To tell them that this place that we came to not by choice provided us a swift and wonderful opportunity at life.

"You have one hour today. Please take this time to determine who you will record the message for and what you will be telling them," he continues, "and if you last through the day, we'll see about recording a few more messages." We all salute as he passes by to leave once more. I shake my head and look down at my boots when he leaves. They shine in the swinging lights, despite the sand outside coating them each time I break the perimeter.

One hour to tell the people that mean the most to us that we're dead if they can see the message we leave. Super classy.

I sit down on my bunk, more like a hammock, swinging in the breeze, and consider who I'm going to record for. Mom wouldn't even get the message. God knows where she's at now. Dad and Stella would get it, but what would I even tell them? "Hey guys, it's me, I joined the Army and I've been knee-deep in bullets and sandstorms for years" just seems a little abrupt. It's been four years since I've even seen them. I never even met Charlotte.

No, I have no family to talk to.

But I do still have an audience.

I pick up the "recording device," as Corporal Stinson put it, meaning the tablet that has extremely limited access to anything, and hold it in my lap, my legs dangling over the hammock's edge. I can already hear the hushed whispers of the women around me, telling their spouses and children that they love them and wish the best for them. Occasionally, a stifled sob will escape someone as she finishes recording.

I sigh and turn on the front-facing camera. I scrunch my nose at my hair, pulled back into a tight bun. I look bald. And the lack of eyebrows I've always had thanks to my ginger roots is no help now. I straighten my Velcroed-on name tag and brush my pants free from the desert dust. I shake my head, look myself in the eyes, taking in their blueness, and press the red button.