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darwinatrix[Major-General Armstrong is standing in her small, Spartan office, her back to the camera. As always, she's in her blue Amestris army uniform, though this time, she's also wearing a long, dark coat lined with fur at the collar. She very deliberately reaches up to grab a long, ornately decorated saber from where it hangs on the wall.] So it's come to this.
How many of you know war, I wonder? Not the violence of a brawl, or play-acting at being heroes, but war. I know it far too well. Back where I come from, I command a fortress at the border my nation shares with its greatest enemy. Amestris and Drachma have been at varying states of war for decades.
[She turns to the camera, resting the tip of her saber on the floor.] What they do not tell you is that war is boring. If you were under my command, every day you'd sweep the battlements for icicles. You'd maintain our weapons, our tanks. You'd ensure our supplies are sufficient to withstand a siege. War is drudgery, day to day.
And then, one day, you're awoken by artillery shells exploding twenty feet from your head. You scramble for your rifle, to get dressed in the pitch black of night, wondering if the next shell is going to be twenty feet closer. You're too scared to even piss your goddamn pants. And even when your orders cut through the chaos, you won't stop being scared. But you damn well do your duty, as you've been trained.
The sound of bullets... it's a curious sound. Quite beautiful, in its way. Bullets whistle, coming past your ear. [She mimicks the sound, a little thwip, with her own mouth.] In that instant, you don't realize that hearing the bullet means that if you'd been standing six inches to the right, your brains would be over the floor. [A tiny, cold smirk tugs at her mouth.] Hearing the bullet is good, because it means you're still alive to have heard it.
This declaration of war is a declaration of war not just on this nation, but on imPorts. We are under attack, and if they want war I damn well mean to wage it.
The courageous, join me. The rest, stay behind our backs. War is no place for the weak-hearted.
How many of you know war, I wonder? Not the violence of a brawl, or play-acting at being heroes, but war. I know it far too well. Back where I come from, I command a fortress at the border my nation shares with its greatest enemy. Amestris and Drachma have been at varying states of war for decades.
[She turns to the camera, resting the tip of her saber on the floor.] What they do not tell you is that war is boring. If you were under my command, every day you'd sweep the battlements for icicles. You'd maintain our weapons, our tanks. You'd ensure our supplies are sufficient to withstand a siege. War is drudgery, day to day.
And then, one day, you're awoken by artillery shells exploding twenty feet from your head. You scramble for your rifle, to get dressed in the pitch black of night, wondering if the next shell is going to be twenty feet closer. You're too scared to even piss your goddamn pants. And even when your orders cut through the chaos, you won't stop being scared. But you damn well do your duty, as you've been trained.
The sound of bullets... it's a curious sound. Quite beautiful, in its way. Bullets whistle, coming past your ear. [She mimicks the sound, a little thwip, with her own mouth.] In that instant, you don't realize that hearing the bullet means that if you'd been standing six inches to the right, your brains would be over the floor. [A tiny, cold smirk tugs at her mouth.] Hearing the bullet is good, because it means you're still alive to have heard it.
This declaration of war is a declaration of war not just on this nation, but on imPorts. We are under attack, and if they want war I damn well mean to wage it.
The courageous, join me. The rest, stay behind our backs. War is no place for the weak-hearted.