I am a soldier in the German Wehrmacht, stationed in the Crimea since March 1944.  
In the quiet hour before the dawn's battle, I write in my journal some thoughts 
that gathered in my head during last night's guard-duty.  In the few months that 
I have been here, I lost something that I always wished I would lose, but now 
that it is gone, I wish that I had back.
     I remember as a child, I played with toy soldiers.  I used to dream of being a 
strong and brave soldier, fighting for the Fatherland.  It is funny in a terrible way, 
for even though I am a soldier, I am neither strong nor brave.  In those care-free days 
of my youth, I would take those tin figurines and charge the enemy, my guns blazing and 
raining death upon them.  Now, I crouch and shiver in my bunker, praying to anything 
that would resemble a benevolent force in the universe to stop the shelling and the 
screams of the dying.  Yes, a very strong and brave man that I dreamed I would be.  
I even sometimes dreamed that I would rescue some fair maiden in distress from the foul 
clutches of a sadistic and evil enemy.  Lately, all I can do is try no to listen as the 
other members of my platoon take their pleasures on screaming and helpless female captives.  
I always knew when I played that I would fight in the right.  We would wear white and the 
enemy would wear black.  Yet as I look, my uniform in not only grey from the falling dust, 
but also for the reasons we are here.  Our ideals reflect the valley we are in: once green 
and beautiful, now dark and corrupt.  In my games, my troops never died.  If a figurine 
fell over, my hand picked it up and set it back on its feet and the battle continued until 
final victory.  In the Crimea, no healing hand comes from the sky, only death and horror 
as enemy planes provide close cover for the endless columns of the enemy.  When I was 
a child and felt like crying, I would pretend that I was a man and hold back my tears, 
for no real man cried.  Now however, I cry every night.  I cry not only because of what 
is happening around me, but also for my lost childhood.
     The class I came from consisted of forty six graduates.  It took many years for us to 
grow and mature.  The last few months has seen all of my classmates perish from the war.  
As their lives were ripped from them, my innocence was ripped from me.  That is the true 
irony of it all.  What takes years to nurture and shape, takes but a moment to destroy, 
like this valley, like a childhood dream.