You were one of our heroes, a ‘Knight in Shining Armour’, who rose up to the challenge of taking on the dragon. When you won, we won, the whole country won, sans a few. The dragon was elusive, but its evil-hearted offshoot was freely wandering and quite vocal out in the open, denigrating and insulting you and every move you made to defeat their master. When they did, they also denigrated and insulted our people and all patriotic forces, who stood by you and what you stood for, in the name of our country. Despite all their attempts, the country was saved due to your leadership and your men’s valour, dedication and sacrifice. In contrast, the nature of the villains of the nation became all too clear and we could see the depths that they could stoop down to, in order to stall the progress of our nation and attain their own ends.

Thus, when the traitors of the nation sneered in jealousy at our heroes, we were angered and compelled to speak against them and speak in support of our heroes in whatever way we could and we did that with so much pride and a feeling of oneness. We did not do that to bet on the winning horse but out of love for our motherland. We, as a people, prayed to see you silence them with your actions; actions that we knew for certain would free our country.

We wanted to see you win. They wanted to see you fail. We had faith in you. They had faith in all unpatriotic forces to stall you in your advance. We supported you in your every move. They criticised it. We held you in the utmost esteem. They disparaged you as a misfit. We celebrated the elimination of the dragon, at last feeling the feel of real freedom as a proud nation. They faded into darkness, hiding their faces for a while. We knew we had beaten the dragon and its offshoots and we knew it would not have been possible without you. They knew they had been fairly and squarely defeated and would have no future. It was clearly a battle between those who wanted to see the country freed and those who wanted it to suffer to make a living out of the country’s ailments. When all the victory celebrations were over, we wanted you to be safe and serve the country for many years to come. They wanted to destroy you at the earliest, one way or the other, for their own greed and survival.

We are quite perplexed to see the same enemies of our nation, who ridiculed you, now singing hosannas to you and we are feeling dejected as they say that you will be leaving us to join them. We would not know what to believe until we hear from you, but we hope it is not true.

Dear General, we cannot, in this lifetime or in any other, afford to be on the same side as they are. We are not yet dead and born again. I hope you know that too. We still remember the days that we shed a silent tear when they betrayed the nation without any resentment. The Millennium City episode may be a distant memory, yet an unforgotten one. We know how they berated our heroes who valiantly attacked arms carrying enemy ships during ‘peace time’. We were so fed up with their betrayals of our nation that we were praying for a recurrence of the Dutugemunu-Nandimitra era. Therefore, the patriotic masses deposed them from power, made way for a regime that was capable of entrusting heroes like you with the challenge of taking on the dragon, while effectively holding fort until you finished your sacred job. We know it like the back of our hand that if you are to join them now, and as a result, they are given the reins of our beloved country again, they will always go to Pamankada and Medawachchiya even if the country needs them to go to Killinochchi. We know that they will actually capture empty jungles and let the dragons escape and try to masquerade as saviours.

We also know that, once their evil plans are realised, to them, you will always be a misfit, who is not even fit for the Salvation Army.

To us, dear General, you will always be our hero. We are indebted to you for your courage and achievements and we will always cherish the memories of your incomparable services to the nation. We need our children to grow up hearing your name annexed to the long list of selfless heroes in our history. Therefore, we cannot bring ourselves to stoop low to boo, jeer and sneer at you even if you choose to stand and address us from the same podium as they do. We are not bastards. However, if you really are to join them, we will watch you with sadness, wishing you were still here with us. We, today, have a country because of heroes like you and we will continue to safeguard our beloved motherland from them, with or without you on our side. We hope you would not ask us to hand our beloved country over to them once again, as a thank you note for what you have done for the country. It is a price that we cannot afford to pay. We know that the country cannot lie with dogs and expect to rise without fleas.

Therefore, dear General, we will opt to look away from you as long as you are with them, if that is to be the case. We hope you will sincerely understand and forgive us, as we do not mean to be disrespectful or be ungrateful to you. We are just determined to see that the forces that tried to undermine us when we were slowly but steadily progressing in the war-front are kept away for the country’s sake. For that, we need to sink them en masse, but the last thing we hope to see is you in that doomed ship. We cannot help it if that is your choice. But we stay hopeful, until you prove the rumours wrong.

So Long and May the Triple Gem Bless you, dear General.