The year is 1989 and President Zacherov, leader of the Soviet Union, plunges the world into its third and most destructive world war. The lives of ordinary people around the globe are shattered as Zacherov’s armies inflict suffering for the pain and hardships his people have experienced over the last forty years. After reason and diplomacy fail, a risky plan is hatched by the Americans to end the war before Christmas. But, as the death toll rises even higher, the horrors of war become scars slashed into another generation. Can the soldiers, police officers and civilians who have been forced to become frontline soldiers in the cause for freedom find morality in a conflict that strikes at the very heart of everything they believe? Will they be able to come to terms with the horrors and atrocities that they witness? Or will they simply become casualties in a war that has already claimed too many lives? War can take lives in many ways; it is as much a battle of the mind as it is of the physical world.
Richard Say is a graduate of Devon Preparatory School and is attending American University in Washington D C < /st1:State>.