☮ 22; voice forever because his beard still hasn't grown back completely
You can stop looking now. Tsuna's back and safe.
[There's a longer pause, and a quiet 'mrrrn', like he wants to add something but is still contemplating.]
...Guess that's a good opportunity to bring up something else that's been on my mind. I'm not really a big fan of rules - or law, I'm the kind of guy that trusts people to use their common sense and make the right decisions on their own. 'Right' and 'wrong' differs from person to person though, so even as a commanding officer I try to not make it a habit to tell people what they can and can't do as long as their actions don't jeopardize our peaceful co-existence and their lives, or make working together at all difficult. Where I come from, men and women from a vast variety of different military and ethnic backgrounds, who were once former enemies, shook hands and were able to get along just fine as long as they kept in mind that at their core, they all wanted the same thing - to survive. Many of them had lost everything; country, home, friends and family, leaving them with nothing but their fighting spirit and the hope that they wouldn't have to die for a petty reason; that there was no absolute enemy to be found but the one they would choose for themselves. There was no prejudice. No hatred, no hostile intent when they fought against each other. We looked past our histories, our mistakes. It was never personal. We fought against each other and with each other, because we wanted to survive. We were all human, and because peace is not a natural state for humans to live in, we created our own peace, in our own home; without any pre-defined rules. We didn't need them, because we never saw fighting as a bad thing. For some people, that's all they're good at, and trying to stifle a person like that...it's only through battle you learn to appreciate the fullness of life. Maybe that's naive of me, but I've seen that it can work. Letting a little bit of peace come to you, instead of trying to meet it half-way.
[Oh yeah kiddos, he's seen you talking behind his back. Now you have to sit through one of his speeches. Ahem. He switches to public, after another pause.]
-
The international Day of Peace is September 21. It was first celebrated in September 1982, then declared permanent date for the International Day of Peace in 2002 by the General Assembly of the UN. That's what I read, anyway. In the time I'm from, we didn't have anything like that yet; instead, we celebrated our own 'Peace Day' every year, though the festivals accompanying that probably weren't very peaceful by most people's standards. [There's a chuckle. DRUNK PARTIES AND BRAWLS...] Still, we all shared the same sentiment; but as a soldier even one day of peace does seem to throw you out of your loop. Come to think of it, despite all the stuff that's happening, the time I've spent here has probably been some of the most peaceful in my life. Call me crazy, but it's true. [And that's exactly his dilemma.] Aaah. [quieter:] Deje el mundo cambiarle y usted puede cambiar el mundo.*
[A sigh, and it cuts out.]
((* Let the world change you and you can change the world. // A Che Guevara quote, naturally.))