He never prayed before the war, not in pews, not in hospitals, not even when his family died.
God was a story for the weak and the dying.
He had fortitude and training, and that was enough.

Until the first shot cracked, and the man next to him folded like paper.
Until blood ran in the dirt and didn’t stop, until the screams got quiet not because they ended, but because he stopped hearing them.

That’s when he started to pray.
Not to be spared, he’d already accepted his number would come.
Not for victory, he stopped caring who won what by the second week.

He prayed because he needed there to be someone watching.
Someone counting, weighing, keeping track of the things he did when the orders came fast and the choices came faster.

He needed God to be real so there was something to reedeem him.
Because if no one sees, if there’s no forgiveness, no fire, no grace, then it was all just blood on his hands, and somehow that was worse.

Now he’s home.
Smiles come easier.
He sleeps beside his wife and not his brothers, plays with his kids without looking over his shoulder.

He still prays, but not out of fear, not out of desperation.
He prays because he believes now, because something bigger walked with him through the fire and never left.

And that belief, not soft, not easy, but earned, holds the weight he couldn’t carry alone.
It doesn’t erase the past, but it makes room for the future.
And for a man who once begged for death, that’s more than enough.