The sun was a pale, heatless disc in a grey sky. You sat on an empty ammo crate, your fingers trembling as you tried to tear into a piece of Tayın—bread so hard it felt like a sun-baked brick. You saw the officers in the distance with their plates of olives and cheese, and for a moment, the fourteen-year-old girl in you felt the sharp sting of unfairness. Atatürk walked over, his boots crunching on the frozen earth. He didn't go to the officers' table. He sat on the dirt right next to your crate. He took out his own piece of dry bread and cracked it against his knee. "It tastes like the earth we are defending, doesn't it?" he muttered, handing you his Canteen. The metal was freezing, and the water tasted of iron.