Prologue

The following is a story about a man who once had such high hopes for the success of his life. As a boy he had dreams of glory and love, duty and meaning, freedom and temperance. Moreover, the last thing he wanted to become was, in part or in whole, the very thing he felt his destiny was meant to fight.

It was easy to see at an early age that he was born to be a militant. He played a little rougher than the other children. He played at being a soldier and war. He hung around with the older kids and adults, and he had an eerie true sense of honor and duty. He didn't always do the right thing, but he knew when he did the wrong thing.

His clear and sharp mind allowed for him to truly learn from his mistakes, but ultimately it also allowed for regret, embarrassment and shame to crush his soul after he had chosen a life that was less honorable than he would have hoped for. The cold hard facts are a life less honorable than he had always dreamt of as a child.

The time of separation from his childhood dreams to the reality of what life lay out before him begun at the age of fourteen. It was at that time he got a disease that killed well over half the people that contracted it. Being told that he was probably going to die within a year had the affect of combining a little crazy into his militancy. If you are confronted with the prospect of dying, the best way of surviving is screaming out loud to the gods, "Bring it on."