Utterly Mad

We were walking towards the building with the uniforms on, moving past the men that were heading for the front. I saw hundred of faces in the span of a minute and I ignored all of them. But for just a moment it hit me.
These were children, most of them only eighteen years old and already heading for war. They shouldn't be here, they should be home or going to college, not carrying Kalashnikovs or RPGs. Kids who were going to die in a hail of gunfire and shrapnel. Kids with mothers, fathers, siblings, maybe a special someone. And most of them wouldn't make it back.
And as quickly as it came I pushed it out and ignored it. We arrived at the door to the building and Wilhelm flashed our papers to the man and spoke in German, requesting entrance. The men standing beside the door stepped aside and we walked through the door way. The men inside looked up at us and then went back to work, checking files or cleaning weapons.
We walked to the singular hallway and proceeded to head for the munitions room. We were almost there when one of the men in the hallway said "Hello comrades! How is the front today?"
Wilhelm responded with "Well. Now let us attend to business or I'll write you up for interrupting an officer's sworn duty!"
The man stiffened and shut his mouth with an audible clacking sound. We arrived at the Munitions  room and Wilhelm pulled out the explosives. There was no one else in the room so we set the explosives up and verified the detonator.
And of course something went south. A man walked in and caught sight of the detonator, then the blinking lights.  He pulled a gun as Wilhelm slammed into him and tackled him to the ground.
I heard a shot, too muffled for anyone outside the room to hear, and then the enemy was dead on the ground with a slit throat as Wilhelm rolled off him with a gunshot wound. He looked over at me and tried to speak, but I couldn't hear him.
I rushed over and knelt down to try and help him but he pushed my hands away. "I will die either way, shot to an artery. I'll bleed out irregardless. Get out, I'll give you enough time to get out of the blast zone."
"Wilhelm I'm not going to leave you to die!" I shouted, unintentionally.
Wilhelm stared at me in a way I'd never seen. "Four, just go. I'm gonna die. No sense risking your life and the heart of that luck lady. Just leave a glass for old Wilhelm eh?"
His eyes were already starting to glaze over, and without a word I got up and left. No one said anything and as I walked through the snow I heard the explosion. I left a trail of tears all the way to the transport.
--
A brother dead. I'll honor his last request like I'd do for any other fellow operative. But his death actually hit me, unlike so many others. So many faces of the dead.
--
I arrived back and explained what happened to the commander and he gave me his sincerest apologies, just like last time. I wrote the letter to his family and had it translated. It was out before I hit my bunk.