`` Are you the devil '' the child asked [ WP ]

It's a question that will haunt me to the end of days. 
 
 `` Are you the devil?'' the child asked. And I stopped and wondered why it had come to this. 
 
 I suppose the question was not out of line. I had, after all, joined an organization that killed so many people. We were always propped up as the good guys, ensuring peace and tranquillity. 
 
 Of course, those who stood in the way of our conquests did not see us as the good guys. To them we raped and pillaged. We came and conquered without respect. And it was n't just human life. We destroyed more than villages, we destroyed religions and cultures. 
 
 I, too, often had blood on my hands. So often I was the last one standing over a lifeless body that weeks, days even hours before had held so much promise. 
 
 It often made me sick. 
 
 Despite our capacity for evil, we sometimes did good. Even though we did not trust the citizens of this land, we recognized that they had done nothing wrong. They may have chosen an extremist president, yes, but they had not chosen to live on a fault line worse than anything in California's night terrors. 
 
 And it was our goodwill that I had hoped would at least anaesthetise the hatred of us, even if for a moment. This hope was pushing me to continue digging through the rubble, while all around me, my comrades did the same. The dogs of war were frantically searching. Swords had been beaten into shovels. Machines used to fortify bunkers were now dismantling death traps. 
 
 I was forcing my heart and nerve and sinew to continue digging through the rubble of an orphanage. The engineer on the team pointed out the orphanage, named for a leader who had upheld pillars of strength and toughness had crumbled because of the shortcuts and corruption he was known for elsewhere. 
 
 The irony was, of course, lost on the children. 
 
 We grunted and screamed as we tore through the rubble. We wept as we found body parts, large and small.but we kept digging. 
 
 After eight hours, though, we had a breakthrough. Trapped behind a wall was a young boy, perhaps seven our eight. I raced up to him, but he recoiled in fear. 
 
 `` Are you the devil?'' the child asked. 
 
 `` No,'' I replied. `` I'm a doctor. I'm here to help.''
