An Event

Poised ready to go,
His heart beating rapidly,
Waiting for life's trial.

He knows no matter how good the training,
or the plan,
or the equipment,
that lives would be lost.

Poised ready to go,
The breathing short and rasped,
Waiting to prove something to himself.

He can feel the butt of a weapon of death pressing into his
shoulder,
Capable of wiping out entire hereditary lines.
That simple barrel of metal given its power by simple man.

Poised ready to go,
His eyes bloodshot with weariness,
Waiting for the event thousands of men have been dreading.

Then a single whistle blows,
This small contraption heralds the start of unthinkable
bloodshed.
Loyally he surges forward, over the top of the trenches,
Into the lost realm of No-mans land.
Unmerciful, unforgiving, unknown.

This medic, did not return.