The soldier stands stiffly in his starched and pressed uniform. In those threads that mark him out as a fighter, a protector, a defender, he is barely recognizable as the boy he was only seven summers ago. His shoulders are no longer those of a youth but of a man. He has learnt so much. How to shave, how to iron clothes, shine boots and run for hours in mud; over rocks and through rivers. He has learnt how to get along with others in his troop, male and female. He has learnt how to be independent away from home and his mother. He has learnt marksmanship, how to shoot a human form on a target or a dummy in a simulation. But he has not yet learnt how to kill, how to take a life in the line of duty. He wants to be a hero and a patriot, to serve with courage and dignity. He is everything his c
