We Should Be the Ones Who Sanctify Life, not Death!

Abstract

I was a member of the military band deployed in Tunceli. If you remember, on June 30 there was the first suicide bombing in Tunceli where four noncommissioned officers and four soldiers were martyred. We were sent there to replace the martyrs. Every Friday, we hoisted the flag after a ceremony and every Sunday we took it down. Naturally, I was a little afraid. Our company commander told us on our first day that they were expecting more suicide bombings. The brigadier general had dramatized the situation even further and told the soldiers in the band the next morning, “Even if they destroy every single musical instrument that you have, you will continue to play the National Anthem with your gendarmerie whistles.” Courage and loss of morale at the same time … There were professional musicians in the company. A guy named Ahmet from the 76/1 term, who was from Hatay and had come six months before I did, was a trumpeter and was packing his bags to go on leave when another guy, a gypsy from Bursa who played with the famous musician Ibrahim Tathses, asked him to rewrite his letter to his mother on a clean sheet, saying, “Your handwriting is much nicer.” Ahmet wrote the letter, attaching to it a poem that he himself had written titled “If I die, if I become a martyr.” They say that the guy from Bursa objected to this, thinking that his mother would be upset, but Ahmet insisted, “Man, soldiers write these kinds of poems and it is a beautiful poem.” Apparently, the female suicide bomber exploded herself along with Ahmet. The other guy, who had his letter rewritten, was wounded. He received the letter when he himself went home on sick leave. You protest against this whole thing: “Damn, why have you killed Ahmet and exploded your damn self?” Excuse my language, but this is how I express my protest. Of course, I never met Ahmet. I just saw his pictures. The noncommissioned officers who died were all twenty-three to twenty-four years old.