I can still hear the echoes of gunfire, the desperate cries of the wounded, and the sound of my own heartbeat pounding in my ears. The battlefield was a nightmare of smoke, blood, and death. The ground beneath me was soaked in the sacrifice of my brothers, and the sky above was dark with the ashes of fallen dreams.
We were just boys, many of us barely men. Some had never held a gun before, yet we stood side by side, ready to give our lives for our homeland. There was no time to feel fear — it was swallowed by duty. Hunger gnawed at our stomachs, thirst burned our throats, but none of that mattered. What mattered was the man beside you, the promise you made to fight until the last breath.
I remember my best friend, Mehmet. We had grown up in the same village, played in the same fields, dreamed of the same future. He was always smiling, always hopeful. But war does not care for smiles. One morning, as we charged forward, I heard his voice cry out. I turned, but he was already on the ground, his uniform stained red. I ran to him, held his hand, begged him to stay. He looked at me, his lips trembling, and whispered, “Tell my mother I kept my promise.” Then his grip loosened, and he was gone.
I wanted to scream, to cry, to stop the world from moving forward without him. But there was no time for grief. The enemy did not wait for us to mourn. I wiped my tears with trembling hands and picked up my rifle. Mehmet was gone, but I was still here. And I had to fight — for him, for all of them.
Çanakkale was not just a battle. It was the place where we learned what it meant to love a land so much that you would die for it. It was where we became more than soldiers — we became legends. But what is a legend to a mother who never sees her son return? To a father who waits at the door, hoping for a miracle?
Years have passed, but the memories never fade. I still wake up in the night, hearing Mehmet’s last words. I still feel the weight of his hand in mine. And I still whisper back to him, hoping he can hear me wherever he is: “I told her, my brother. I told her.”