World War Z_ An Oral History of the Zombie War ( PDFDrive )

see my tears. “When we get back,” I told myself, “I’m going to kill that son of a bitch.”
General Lang.
I had it all planned. I would not look angry, not give him any reason to worry. I’d submit my report
and apologize for my behavior. Maybe he’d want to give me some kind of pep talk, try to explain or
justify our retreat. Good, I thought, I’d listen patiently, put him at ease. Then, when he rose to
shake my hand, I’d draw my weapon and blow his Eastern brains against the map of what used to
be our country. Maybe his whole staff would be there, all the other little stooges who were “just
following orders.” I’d get them all before they took me! It would be perfect. I wasn’t going to just
goose-step my way into hell like some good little Hitler Jugend. I’d show him, and everyone else,
what it meant to be a real Deutsche Soldat.
But that’s not what happened.
No. I did manage to make it into General Lang’s office. We were the last unit across the canal. He’d
waited for that. As soon as the report came in, he’d sat down at his desk, signed a few final orders,
addressed and sealed a letter to his family, then put a bullet through his brain.
Bastard. I hate him even more now than I did on the road from Hamburg.
Why is that?
Because I now understand why we did what we did, the details of the Prochnow Plan. 1
Wouldn’t this revelation engender sympathy for him?
Are you kidding? That’s exactly why I hate him! He knew that this was just the first step of a long
war and we were going to need men like him to help win it. Fucking coward. Remember what I said
about being beholden to your conscience? You can’t blame anyone else, not the plan’s architect, not
your commanding officer, no one but yourself. You have to make your own choices and live every
agonizing day with the consequences of those choices. He knew this. That’s why he deserted us like
we deserted those civilians. He saw the road ahead, a steep, treacherous mountain road. We’d all
have to hike that road, each of us dragging the boulder of what we’d done behind us. He couldn’t
do it. He couldn’t shoulder the weight.
YEVCHENKO VETERANS’ SANATORIUM, ODESSA, UKRAINE
[The room is windowless. Dim, fluorescent bulbs illuminate the concrete walls
and unwashed cots. The patients here mainly suffer from respiratory disorders,
many made worse by the lack of any usable medication. There are no doctors