Erwin

There's a gross nagging feeling at the back of his neck, crawling down his spine

Like he's left a kid behind, alone and afraid when he thinks about his younger self.

He thinks about kids hes seen clinging to the corpses of their parents in massacred villages and battlefields,

And then he thinks about himself. He thinks about seeing that blond hair and those pigtails and leaving it behind. Rotting with his parents bones maybe, maybe just decaying with the house itself.

Despite the disconnect he feels, Theres no amount of patriotism he could choke on that can convince him deep down that the little kid had to be hung by their neck with a flag. That the rambunctious teen quarterback had to waste his freedom fighting for it, and theres surely nothing that can convince him to bring this up with a therapist.