He wracked his brain for some solution. While part of him still clung to his past, everything he had been trained to believe in was slowly crumbling. Military discipline and honour, respect for fellow enlisted men, lending a helping hand for those in need ... Bela had witnessed these noble ideals trampled in the mud and muck of Tittling. He felt like an empty shell, drained of his youth and any hope the future held, robbed of the lofty ideals he had been taught at military academy. He thought of the motto of his military school with disdain. "Fide Virtute Famam Querere" - "To obtain Glory with Virtue and Loyalty." Indeed. It turned his guts inside out to think about how much he used to believe in all of it. There was nothing ennobling about the behaviour of the military men he had encountered on either side. No military honour or regulations were observed here. It was survival of the fittest, rule by the most powerful. For the second time in his life, he realized that he didn't care whether he lived or died.
