It is well documented that children make the most dangerous and cruelest of soldiers. It makes sense since they are vulnerable, uneducated and insecure. They simply react without thinking. Put a powerful gun into their hands and in close combat they can be very dangerous. As a child, I thankfully was not afforded such weaponry, but I did make bows and arrows, sling shots and walked out of Canadian Tire stores with stolen pellet rifles. Usually, the targets were a tree, then a piece of paper, right down to toothpicks and even blades of grass. We'd hit them all with proficiency, but like all unattended children, grew bored and became reckless, even cruel. We had war games with other children who had pump rifles in the nearby forest, but our CO2 pellet guns quickly sent then running home. But the cruelest thing I can remember doing was collecting field mice into a brown lunch bag. Me and my buds would run over it with our bikes several times. Every once in a while we'd open it to see what damage we had done. And you know, those little fuckers were as tough as nails. It would be several passes before our parents would intervene, if at all, and it would be many more before the mice were dead. What possessed us to be so cruel? Today, I feel bad just brushing a spider aside so I don't trap it underneath some trim I am installing. Is the child being foolish or have I become soft?