They built the statue after the war.
It was a terrible thing, really. A dreadful war that began when some wide-eyed revolutionaries, armed with ideas and army surplus, took on the reactionary forces of the state, in search of reforms and freedom if I recall correctly. I was just barely past a sapling then, tall enough to lean against but not so tall that I towered over everything, and I didn't understand half of what was going on around me. It all ended with a battle in the city, even right here in this very park. Some poor soldier of the state, pale-skinned and blue-eyed, staggered against my trunk and spilled his blood upon my roots. I l