I fidgeted nervously with my pen, jotting down bullet points and whatever else came to mind that might help prepare me for one of my first interviews. The problem was that, after a while, nothing came to mind. My thoughts ran dry, and every bullet point I wrote down seemed meaningless. I had no way of knowing how to steer a conversation with someone that I had never met. The man I was preparing to meet seemed nearly a century older than I, a living legend. I felt like I was on the way to the chopping block, about to meet a legend of a man that I was supposed to interview.

For the briefest moment, I wondered if I should have changed my major from journalism to biochemistry.

As a college student in Mali, I've had the benefit of an education, but no real experience to help me make my transition into the real world. So there I was, a journalist in the making, riding in the back of an old army jeep to interview an old veteran. I knew nothing about him except his name and military involvement. The rest was up to me to find out, after all, this was my senior assignment, and that's one of the tough things about being a journalist; everyone expects you to be the one to do the investigating. Granted, that's the job of a journalist, but it's also what makes entering journalism so amazingly intimidating. When you're new to something (and that something happens to be finding out things on your own), you might as well be up the creek and without a paddle; or a canoe, for that matter.

I fidgeted some more, frantically trying to map out some train of thought that would help me hold my ground in a conversation so that I wouldn't completely fall. In retrospect, I really should have just resigned myself to the realization that I wouldn't need to be doing any talking. A veteran's story alone is enough for an interview, if not a short story or a novel.

And then, my fidgeting was interrupted. The jeep hit a bump in the road, sending my pen and paper flying out the back.

I confess that at this point I uttered a word that would not have pleased my grandmother.

For the next half hour, my body was covered in a cold sweat. If I wasn't prepared before, I certainly wasn't prepared after having lost my journal. What's a journalist without his journal? I pondered this question for the remainder of my time in the jeep. When the jeep came to a stop, I had no answer, no pen, no paper, and my body was covered in sweat that had recently dried and did not smell fantastic. Although the time between when I lost my bullet-pointed journal and the time I arrived was decently long, it felt like only minutes. The fact that things one dreads seem to approach eons more quicker than things one anticipates has convinced me that God is a huge fan of irony.

My internal ramblings came to a screeching halt when the driver told me this was my stop. At this point in my venture, I was tempted to fake/force myself into some sort of panic-induced seizure that would get me away to a hospital. Or a cemetery. Basically, anywhere that wasn't here. Thankfully, my logic prevailed and I got out of the jeep. I thanked the driver for the lift and waved at him as he drove off. I waved a little longer than I should have. Part of me thinks it was because that, inside, I was waving for him to come back. The other part thinks it was because that I was regretting my career choice as a journalist and not an army jeep driver.




I walked to the door of the veteran's hovel. And when I use the word hovel to describe the man's habitat, I am speaking nicely. For reasons of solitude and general peace, this soldier chose to move out to the country-side upon retirement. Being a man of war, I suppose it made sense for him to favor a tranquil location over an aesthetically pleasing home, but it's run-down appearance wasn't exactly the most welcoming. However, the fact that only someone from the army knew where he lived was fair warning enough.

I knocked, and after a few minutes, the man answered the door. Finally face to face, I noticed two things immediately. One, he was not the 118-year-old artifact I imagined; granted, he looked old, but not overly so. Two, he was blind.

At this moment, I forgave God of his cruel taste in irony and was immensely grateful that the man I came to interview could not see me shaking like the wimpy college student I was. Having felt naked without my journal, I didn't feel so bad about it once I realized that "looking stupid" was no longer on my list of things to worry about.

Sounding stupid, however, was a different matter.

Feebly, I breathed in deeply and mentally prepared myself, and just as I was about to greet him, he yelled "Who's there?" using what appeared to be his indoor voice. If old age had robbed him of his hearing, it had definitely not robbed him of his voice. Quickly, I responded, "The journalist you agreed to have an interview with, mister Zende. The one your friend set up between you and me for today."

"Oh, why so quiet then? I figured I'd have you talking my ear off before the first two minutes, been a while since I've had any conversation with a civilian who ain't familiar with me. I apologize for any oddities that I have, but yer gonna have to put up with 'em. I'm old you know," he said, chuckling at that last remark. After exhaling a sigh of relief, I laughed a bit too. I had been afraid that he would have been the stoic kind of old veteran, statuesque and nigh unapproachable.

Having gotten off to a good start, things flowed a lot more smoothly after that. Considering my chaotic arrival on a bumpy road, the smooth conversation we had was refreshing. I found out in the first few minutes that I was the first interviewer the veteran had spoken to. Although I’ve always been familiar with Mali’s history, it never occurred to me the intricacies that would accompany each major event.

“We weren’t welcomed home by smiling faces, for the most part,” said Mister Zende, “after all, we lost the war. Everyone knew we were going to lose it to begin with, but it was a war we all knew we had to fight. We were eager to fight, it was a war we all knew was coming for a long time. We knew that the enemy would set their sights somewhere close to home eventually. They had already claimed a close ally of ours decades prior, and they were about to claim another. Nobody was willing to lie down again and let ‘em pick us off like that no more, so we fought for a vision fading.”

The legend spoke slowly, but with purpose. A silence lingered amongst the air after he said fading, and I realized he had struck a note close to home. His sightless eyes stared into the darkness for minutes, and I wondered if I should stay true to my purpose interviewing him and asking him some questions to keep him going. But I was too awestruck to say anything.

Slowly, he picked up his story again, “Everyone armed for war, not even the children were spared their innocence.” He stopped for a few seconds, and I realized that he must have been a boy when this war happened, considering just how incredibly old he’d have to be to still be alive and have been an adult when this occurred. “A certain understanding fell upon all of us. For the first time, every citizen was a soldier. The call of battle pulled us together, and nothing pulled us apart save death itself.”

“I was assigned to the defensive portion of the army due to my age. I obviously was too young to fly, and any other part of the army would require the smarts way beyond me. All the young ones were expected to learn how to defend themselves quickly. After the adults died endlessly in planes and tanks on the offensive field, few were left when the war became purely defensive. Those who survived the counterattack our government launched to help our allies were few and far in between. When the enemy came for us, most of us were just kids. Kids dressed up as soldiers.”

“I wonder…” he briefly stumbled over his words but picked up again,” I wonder what it felt like being the other men. I killed dozens of ‘em, but I wonder what they felt mowing down lines upon lines of kids. Marching over a field of dead boys, with the odd man or woman every twenty corpses or so. What it felt like to stare us in our eyes when we were dead, or about to become dead. I know they had choice, but I just wonder what it felt like.”

I wondered if he would start crying, but he held strong after a moment of gathering his thoughts.

“I’m sorry, don’t mean to waste time talking about random thoughts I have and whatnot,” he said. I shook my head no as to indicate that it wasn’t a waste, but didn’t realize my folly until he started speaking again. “I lost my sight to grenade shrapnel,” Zende said, “in case you were wondering. I was lucky though, apparently the blood pouring down my face convinced the soldiers I was dead. They left me for dead after they overran the meager defense my platoon had managed to set up. When I woke up, everything was dark, and I was alone, afraid, and terrified. I hid as best I could, not knowing where I was hiding. Luckily, someone found me during a ceasefire and sent me to a hospital. I was nearly starved to death at that point, having only survived off of the water from my flask. I usually try not to think about those weeks I spent surviving. They’re both hazy and terrifying.”

That last sentence lingered in the air, as it connected with my own thoughts about the future.




We sat silently for a long time before the conversation started up again. I have trouble remembering everything he said after this point, considering how I couldn't write anything down, but I remember the gist of it. After a while, we both stood up and shook each other’s hand. The interview had lasted around two hours, it was so invigorating that I had more than enough to write about in my senior paper. On his front porch we chatted a bit, whilst I waited for the jeep driver to return from the other errands he had to do in the area.

I talked a little bit about myself and he commented with cryptic advice and the occasional joke, but mostly I steered the conversation back to him. Having had a few minutes to finally think about it, I had a few questions about current events and what he thought about the more recent Karma War. About the Karma War, he didn' really have any attachment to it, and any other issue he either felt was folly or had no comment. I’m glad he had so much to talk about, because when I asked questions, it seemed like I didn’t get much of anywhere.

What really struck me though was his lack of attachment to the Karma War. With all the commotion and happiness, I would have figured that he, if anyone, would have been the most proud of those days of reckoning. But instead, it meant nothing to him, as if it were some distant relative he had never met. The idea that this victory was meaningless to him, a victory my generation was celebrating as a righting of the wrong done to our ancestors, was startling. I’m still unsure what to think of it.

As of now, I’m working on my thesis for my senior paper. It looks a little something like this right now.

Mister Zende had been a part of the “No Vision” War, a war that Mali had lost. Although my homeland had fought and surrendered honorably, severe damages were still incurred. Entire communities, destroyed. Three generations of soldiers dead on a lost battlefield. Hundreds of thousands of sons lost, leaving their grieving mothers behind. The war did it’s toll, but time has passed. The scars of the war have long since healed up, and people have stopped trying to forget. But when those scars still burned, people didn’t want to remember it. Nobody wanted to interview the few surviving soldiers, there were no parades. Before Mali entered the war, everyone understood that they were fighting for a lost cause, but it was a cause that Mali believed in and that Mali almost died for.

Now, decades later, the climate has changed. There are parades, there are celebrations, but not for the No Vision War. Having seen the conclusion of the Karma War, the war that picked up the cause that Mali fought for decades earlier in No Vision, people are excited. Despite the fact that Mali’s involvement could be summarized as a few skirmishes, an air of pride fills the country knowing that the cause our ancestors died for has been revived. Amidst all this was me, looking for a creative topic for my senior paper. And I found it in Mister Zende, one of the few surviving soldiers of that ancient war. Finding Mister Zende wasn’t easy, but hearing him talk was one of the most enthralling experiences of my life.

It’s a work in progress.