Whilst I mightn’t have been physically strong, I can say for certain that I didn’t lack courage, if courage meant not being afraid. It’s not that I wished to flaunt my bravery or the fact that I wasn’t afraid to die, it’s that just during my entire service I never once felt afraid. In boot camp, the sergeant who taught us to fire our rifles, a soldier who had been on the front lines and had returned, was a man we all called the ‘One-Eyed Dragon’. That’s because he had only one eye; apparently the other had been lost during a battle. An explosion had ripped it free and hurled it into the Mekong, where it had been gobbled up by a giant thorn fish – perhaps a big male. He never once told us about his terrifying experiences. Once, when I asked him, he finally opened his mouth. But once he began speaking, he suddenly shut his one good eye and his whole body began to shake. It was obvious he had been traumatized by his experiences. But I never thought that it was frightening. From my point of view, what he experienced simply couldn’t compare to the torture I had endured at the hands of tuberculosis. You could say that this disease had scarred my heart, but you could also say that my spirit had been forged by it. If there were any amongst us new recruits who were afraid of being sent to the front, I certainly wasn’t one of them. I longed to be on the front lines, to be a part of this heroic conflict, to validate my bravery, my belief in myself. My only concern was that some unexpected horror on the field of battle would terrify me and that other people would despise me for it. That would have caused me pain, but I had never imagined that this – not being allowed to the front lines – would be the problem.