[ WP ] You were born during the war , and as you grew up , you 've accepted it all as a part of your life . But a few months after your twenty-second birthday . the war ends and you suddenly find yourself in a world completely foreign to you .

When the bombs stopped dropping and the bullets ceased firing, we returned to our homes. It was quiet there, but the sounds of war still rang. 
 
 How often did silence feel *too* perfect? How many times was the silence broken by combat? But in the days that pressed forward, no combat came. 
 
 They thought we would be okay. We would habituate back into society as the fears of dying left our minds. It never leaves, though. 
 
 There's something sickening about walking down the street, having a neighbour start his lawnmower and feeling like you've just been caught in an ambush. There's something haunting about having a child ask for donations and wondering if they're going to explode. Through daily life, everyone seems focussed on their future, on tomorrow, on their bank accounts and their wants. They do n't understand what's it's like to focus on today because tomorrow may not come. 
 
 Their conversations drift between gossip, food, and entertainment. They show their respect when we are in uniform, but without it, they go about their lives as if the young and old did not perish from heat and steel. We are one of them now. We're supposed to act like them, that's what we're told. `` It's a better life'', we're told, yet it feels aimless. We are free, yet we feel caged. 
 
 We had a purpose before. Every day we had a purpose to survive. Wake up, eat, scout, watch, dig, shoot, march, build, carry, sleep. In some order, every day would consist of those things and now the only ones we had to do were, wake up, eat and sleep. We were going to win the war, and we did, but now what were we doing? 
 
 `` Live a happy and free life,'' they say. `` You've more than earned it.'' 
 
 They seem to forget, though, the wounds and scars we earned in the process. How they shaped us and changed what we thought we knew of the world. 
 
 We are home, but we are not the same.
