"A Soldier's Choice" by Lubrina Burton

 – no soldier left behind

If only I could move those clock hands back and change time.

Lubrina Burton lives in Lexington, Kentucky with her husband and pug, Lucy. She earned both her Psychology degree and post-baccalaureate certificate in Paralegal Science from Eastern Kentucky University. She is an alumnus of the Carnegie Center in Lexington, where she discovered a network of friends and fellow writers. Her work is featured in The Personal Story Publishing Project anthologies, That Southern Thing, Trouble, and Curious Stuff. Currently she is working on a memoir about her time in Europe with a pre-9/11 United States Army.

Author’s Talk

Lubrina Burton

Over 20 years after leaving the Army, the stories of that time still live in me. One thing I will never forget is the comradery between soldiers. Our relationships were often forged from the mundane, boring tasks of day-to-day living. It was not the stuff of military movies. But our bonds were tested, even in peacetime Europe. Some friendships were severed, while others became unbreakable. 

We were young, and life was exciting and a little dangerous. For the first time, there was no parent or teacher to tell us what to do. It was up to us to figure it out. We were faced with choices that had big consequences. Our decisions would define what sort of soldiers and people we were. 

In “A Soldier’s Choice,” I write about a decision I had to make and the potential repercussions: Do I leave my buddy behind and save myself so that I might report on time, or do I stay for him and hope we can still make it back without being late? If I make the “wrong” decision, what might happen to both of us? 

The entire story was impossible to tell in under 800 words. After several attempts, I abandoned the effort. With so few words, I could not tell why I was in the predicament I was in, the choice I made, why I did what I did, and what happened to my friend and me. 

The story called me back. I started over. This time, everything would occur within a single moment and place. The tale would unfold as I sat in a car stopped at a red light, wrestling with a decision. I would not reveal the outcome. I would not reveal the soldier’s choice. 

During my struggle to come in under the word count, I realized why this story was so important to me and why I wanted to tell it. It is not about which decision I made all those years ago. It isn’t about what happened to my buddy and me. The story is about how when forced to make a choice, in a single moment, I learned who I was. — Lubrina Burton