There is nothing glamorous or romantic about war. It's mostly

Host:
The rain had long stopped, but the air still carried the scent of gunpowder and ash. The sky hung low and heavy over the desert, the last red embers of sunset dying behind a line of wrecked vehicles and burnt sand.

The wind whispered through twisted metal and tattered canvas, carrying with it the faint sound of something too quiet to be peace — the echo of loss, still wandering among the ruins.

Two figures sat beside a small, flickering fire: Jack and Jeeny. Their uniforms were stained with dust and time, their faces hollowed by fatigue. Between them lay a dented canteen, a crumpled letter, and the silence of too many unsaid things.

The night was still. The world, almost gone.

Jeeny:
“Jon Krakauer once said, ‘There is nothing glamorous or romantic about war. It’s mostly about random pointless death and misery.’”

Host:
Her voice was quiet, almost afraid of the words themselves — as though they could summon back the chaos they described.

Jack didn’t look up. He tossed another stick into the fire, watched it flare, then die into embers.

Jack:
“He’s right. Every war I’ve seen was built on the lie that dying for something makes the dying less senseless.”

Jeeny:
“You don’t believe in causes anymore?”

Jack:
“I believe in survival. Everything else is decoration for the obituary.”

Host:
The fire cracked, sparks lifting into the dark, vanishing into the endless void above. Jeeny’s eyes followed them — tiny flames that dared to rise and failed.

Jeeny:
“I used to think war made heroes. My father did. My grandfather. They said war reveals who you really are.”

Jack:
“And what did you find?”

Jeeny:
“That it reveals how much we can lose before we stop calling ourselves human.”

Jack:
“Poetic.” (He said it like an accusation, not a compliment.)

Jeeny:
“It’s the only way to survive it. To find poetry in the wreckage. Otherwise, it’s just noise and corpses.”

Jack:
“And lies.”

Host:
A faint breeze shifted the ash, the smell of burnt rubber and flesh stirring again. Jack’s jaw tightened, his eyes cold as stone.

Jack:
“They sell us stories about courage, about duty. But in the end, it’s just kids bleeding out in the dirt while politicians give speeches about glory.”

Jeeny:
“Maybe it’s not about the speeches. Maybe it’s about the ones who still believe in something — even here.”

Jack:
“Belief gets people killed.”

Jeeny:
“So does emptiness.”

Host:
A long pause fell between them, heavy as the air before another storm. The firelight flickered over their faces, painting Jack’s features in sharp shadows — a man carved out of disbelief — and Jeeny’s, soft but resolute, as if she still held light in the folds of her silence.

Jack:
“You think there’s still something romantic about all this, don’t you?”

Jeeny:
“No.” (Her answer came fast, fierce.) “There’s nothing romantic about it. But there’s something human. That’s different.”

Jack:
“Human?”

Jeeny:
“Yes. The way someone still writes letters home. The way a soldier shares the last of his water. The way you still light this fire even when there’s nothing left to warm. That’s not romance — that’s refusal. Refusal to let the dark define everything.”

Host:
Jack stared at her — long, searching. His hand trembled as he reached for the canteen. He drank, then handed it to her, the motion mechanical, but the meaning unmistakable.

Jack:
“You always have to find beauty in the broken parts, don’t you?”

Jeeny:
“Because if we stop finding it, the broken parts win.”

Host:
The flames hissed in protest as the wind rose, scattering a handful of ashes that once were something — or someone.

Jeeny pulled her jacket tighter, her eyes glinting in the fire’s dim glow.

Jeeny:
“You used to talk about glory too, you know. Back when we first got here.”

Jack:
“Yeah. That was before I watched glory turn into smoke.”

Jeeny:
“And yet you’re still here.”

Jack:
“Because leaving would make all of it mean nothing.”

Jeeny:
“Maybe it already does. Maybe the point isn’t to make it mean something — maybe it’s just to not let it unmake you.”

Host:
The wind stilled again. In the distance, something shifted — a faint sound, like the world trying to remember its own heartbeat.

Jack’s gaze dropped to the crumpled letter on the ground. He reached for it, smoothed it open. The paper was torn, the ink blurred, but a few words were still legible: “Come home soon.”

Jack:
“I wrote back once. Told her I’d come home when it was over. But this —” (he gestured to the dead landscape) “— this doesn’t end. It just pauses long enough for us to start lying again.”

Jeeny:
“Maybe the lie keeps us sane. Maybe the dream of home is the only thing that makes this bearable.”

Jack:
“I used to think that too. Now I think it’s cruel — to promise yourself a world that doesn’t exist anymore.”

Jeeny:
“Then why do you keep that letter?”

Jack:
(quietly) “Because it’s the last thing that sounds like love.”

Host:
Her eyes softened, her hands trembling slightly as she took the letter, folded it, and placed it back into his pocket.

Jeeny:
“Then keep it. Not as a lie — but as proof. Proof that even in hell, someone waited for you to come back.”

Host:
The fire dimmed, leaving only a faint, pulsing glow — the color of wounds that never close.

The sky above them was vast, unpitying. The stars, distant and cold, offered no meaning — only reminder.

Jack:
“You think we’ll ever stop doing this? Pretending war is something noble?”

Jeeny:
“No. Because people need stories that make death seem less pointless.”

Jack:
“So we’ll keep lying?”

Jeeny:
“Maybe not lying. Maybe hoping. It’s a thin line, Jack — but it’s all we have left.”

Host:
He looked at her then — not as a comrade, not as an argument, but as a mirror. The two of them, fragile and human in the midst of devastation, holding a conversation that the world would never hear.

Jack:
“So you still think there’s something worth saving?”

Jeeny:
“I think there’s something worth remembering. Even if it’s just this — sitting by a dying fire, still talking about what it means to be alive.”

Host:
The camera would pull back slowly — the fire a shrinking heartbeat in the vast, indifferent desert.

Two soldiers. One belief worn down to dust, the other burning stubbornly against it.

And as their voices faded into the night, the wind carried the last line — neither cynical nor naive, but simply human:

Host (softly):
War has no glamour, no romance.
But sometimes, in the ruins,
we find something rarer —
the fragile proof
that even amidst random, pointless death and misery,
two souls can still refuse to stop feeling.