The Military Arena

Chapter 1: The beginning

I'm an eighteen year old boy living in what was once called The United States of America; it's now called The People's Democratic Nation of America. The change of this nation only occured when I was 9, so I still remember what life was like before then. We were free to do what we wanted, with reasonable limitations, we could eat what we want and go where we wanted to go. It all changed when a president was elected and wasn't a U.S. citizen. It was a big controversy at first, however; since the country was at nuclear war with China, and not a lof of people wanted to inherit this mess, the United States had no other choice, but to allow this man to run for office. When he became president he completely changed our military, and our freedoms. He bribed congress to vote in his favor so that he always won. People will do anything for a good amount of money. However, one of his laws that they passed for him stripped them of their power. He is now a dictator and he is ruining what was once our great country.
One thing he changed about the military is that every year boys and girls 18 to 21 are drafted. He only takes 25% of us, but that is still a lof of young men and women going into war without a choice. Once drafted the young adults go through extremely difficult training. The hardest in the world. No one knows for sure what happens to them, but there are rumors that they're starved, beaten, tortured, and some of them even die in training. This is supposed to teach how it's like to be in war.
The one thing we all know about these unfortunate drafted people is that at the end of their trainning they're put in a sorta arena. The arena gives them a weapon, but not guns or cannons. They're given swords, bows, spears, etc. The goal is to teach them that they can't use a gun in the wild if you're stranded in a foreign country because the enemy will hear your gunshot then track you down and kill you. The "penance" as the government calls the unlucky drafted boys and girls, are put in this arena that can change overnight from a steamy hot desert with endless sand to a rainforest where you can't see the sky, to the artic where all the drinkable water is in ice. This is meant to make sure that the penance are adaptable. The arena lasts for 8 days then the remaining few are taken back to the capitol of Washington D.C. They are then healed and prepared for battle.
The sick part of this entire thing is that the more people that die, the higher the ranks for the ones that survived. And rank is everything in the military, it can get you better food, better jobs, not as much danger, better pay, and stuff like that. No one knows the algorithm for how they decide the ratio of dead to alive and then give them the proper rank to that, it's a government secret. The first year there were 5,553,488 males and 5,284,456 females in the arena. At the end of the eight days there were 4,738,248 males and 4,539,149 femlaes. They left the arena with a senior Airmen rank. But after about 4 years of this the people decided that if they killed people themselves they would get a higher rank. So, on the fifth anniversary of this horrid arena, the penance started to kill each other. That year they left the arena with Lieutenant Colonel rank. And like I said, people will do anything for a good amount of money. So, ever since then people have killed each other in this disgusting arena to try to get a higher rank.
Every year they fight for a different unit, the first year was Air Force, second Army, third Navy, etc. Since it's the ninth anniversary of this sick arena the penance will be trying to see who gets into the Marines with a higher rank.
I really hope I don't get drafted. And the part that scares me is that if I don't get drafted I still have three more drafts I have to face after this.