[ WP ] Describe a massacre from the perspectives of one of the killers , a soldier .

3rd platoon had gone missing. We found them in one of the forests, frozen over and partially buried by the snow. They had been shot, but this was not the result of a lost battle. They had been massacred. Captured, stripped of weapons and equipment, rounded up and gunned down with their bodies left to the elements. The troops of our unit were no strangers to bloodshed, but each one of us was shaken to see the remains of these men, our friends, our brothers, rounded up and slaughtered so unceremoniously. So with vengeance on our minds and hatred in our hearts, we buried our brothers and left in search of retribution. 
 
 We would find it two days later. 
 Some two dozen enemy were holed up in an apartment building located a few miles from the site of the massacre. Our unit was sent to capture it, after a brief exchange of fire the defenders surrendered and we had succeeded. Their apparent eagerness to give up seemed to enrage the platoon even more, we saw them now as cowards as well as criminals. We dragged them out, kicked them and cursed them, herding them at bayonet point into a nearby square, their backs to a ruined wall. It had not been formally ordered or spoken of beyond hushed words around the platoon the two days previous, but we all knew what we were about to do. I stood as part of a line facing the mass of miserable, defeated, pleading enemy and was soon joined by the rest of my comrades. My hands shook, both from the cold and the apparent wrongness of it. We raised our rifles and took aim. Though none of us protested it seemed none were willing to fire the first shot. It was n't until our lieutenant gave the order that we opened up, the pleading and praying drowned out by the roar of gunfire. My hesitancy seemed to disappear in the midst of it all, I saw a man still standing the others had missed, I aimed, fired, and saw him fall. I saw, aimed and fired at another, then another, and another, until my weapon was empty, the bodies no longer moved and the cacophony of weapons-fire and the ringing in my ears had died down. There was now a stillness and a silence as we looked at our work, the bodies of the enemy beginning to be covered by the falling snow like those of our comrades two days before. We stood still in the line, smoke rising from the barrels of our weapons. I looked at the man to the left of me, his expression was still, stoic and emotionless. The man to my right was quietly shaking, tears were falling from his eyes. I looked down at my hands and noticed my own shaking had stopped. A strange feeling of warmth and relief fell over me. 
 
 We had avenged 3rd platoon.
