AN: This will be a collection of blurbs that I write for War Horse. They will be short, but I really want to focus on how war affects all of the characters. Let me know if you want me to upload more! :D I may go back and edit this piece as I wrote it very quickly after watching that particular segment of the movie.

France 1914: A Memoir of Major Jaimie Stewart.

The day had begun like any other day. The sun had risen, I had issued orders to ensure that the horses were groomed and ready to ride when they were needed. I had even made my typical playful jabs at Jimmy about how my horse Topthorn would be ready and how I hoped for James' sake that Joey would be too. Right now, though, all I can think about how sincere those words should have been.

I'm a British soldier first. I only ever wanted what was best for the men. I see that now, but at the time I wanted my share of the glory. All my life I was raised to believe that serving one's country in war was the highest honor that could be achieved. I was taught that it was an honor to kill to protect my country, to glorify my King. Never once did I think that the enemy was a human being, a man that had been brought up the same way I had been, to believe that to die for one's country was the highest honor. I was so wrong. So very, very wrong.

The actual charge is a vague memory, a blurry watercolor of what I should be able to remember. I was fueled with the need to fight, to make my father proud, maybe make an extra medal or climb a little higher in the ranks of the British Army. Before we lost, before my ranks were decimated from five hundred to a few lucky fifty, that was my main goal. I treated war like it was a game, like the soccer matches that I did so well in in school… and I lost. I lost a terrible amount.

There is one thing that stands out in my mind. No, it is not the thought of my comrades dying around me because I was too blind to think of the machine guns that were waiting. No. It was the sight of a dead German boy. When I was being taken down off of my horse by the Germans, I looked to my left and saw a dead lad on the ground. He was next to his kinsmen, the bastards lying there rotting in the morning air. The red of their blood seeped into the ground around them.

Red… that is all that remains in my memory. I am no longer proud of who I am as an Englishmen. For a German bleeds red, an Englishmen bleeds red, a Frenchman bleeds red. We are all humans, all possessing the same anatomy. We are brothers. And if we are brothers, how is it right to kill one another over land? I am disgusted, sick with grief for myself and Jimmy that I am part of this right now. I do not fear the death that may await me tomorrow. I do not fear my captors.

I fear humanity, and the idea that we have been corrupted enough to kill our brothers over affairs of kings and Kaisers beyond our control. I would take solace that God will judge us, but there is a sinking feeling in my heart that no side is the right one in the affairs of war. We are all murderers to some extent.

Only God can judge us now.