Like all soldiers, their minds are full of memories of what they left behind and reflections on the nature of war, its stark contrasts of life and death.
Abdel Khader, a red scarf framing his boyish face, is too young legally to drive, but “don’t let my age fool you. I’ve been fighting for five months and have killed a number of soldiers,” he says. His school closed because of the fighting that has rocked Syria since March 2011 and that observers say has cost more than 44,000 lives.
“Every day I watched on television how the army was killing innocent people, and I didn’t want to stay at home waiting for them to kill us also. I remember the day I decided to go off to fight, and my parents began to cry. I speak to them once a week to let them know I’m okay, but my mother always cries when we say goodbye.”