The beginnings of his military career were bittersweet. He was elated, surrounded by like-minded youths, all humming with purpose and ideals. He had studied and could read and write, gaining him preferential treatment among the other youngsters. But the hard side of war also became apparent. He learned of the death of two of his older brothers, who had died in the RPF’s final push to take Kigali in 1994. Then there was the genocide, when the countryside was filled with stinking corpses, when you couldn’t even drink the water in the wells because bodies had been thrown into them and
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