~Other Places~

By WordWulf, 29th Jan 2011 | Follow this author | RSS Feed | Short URL http://nut.bz/206xvh9a/
Posted in Wikinut>Writing>Personal Experiences

~He looked at me from eyes that had seen much too much~a young face that knew much too much~“There’s the Koreas,” he said sadly, “and other places I try not to think about.”~

~Other Places~

I spoke to a young man one day who had spent the last year in Iraq soldiering. He was awfully glad to be home, especially since he would get the chance to become acquainted with the son born while he was over there. His wife sent him pictures but he couldn’t bear to look at them (he would never tell her this). He buried the pictures under other papers he kept in a shoebox. He said lots of soldiers do that, unable to come to terms with what they left behind.

I complimented him on his inner strength and resolve as he paid for the $125.00 worth of movies he was purchasing, all new and past new releases he would share with his wife for the first time. There were also a couple of Cd’s, Led Zeppelin’s greatest hits and the best of Hank Williams Junior. I commented on the broad range of his interest in music and he told me the Zeppelin was for himself. He planned to take Hank back to the mid-east to give to his best buddy who liked Country Western. How could he pass it up for $5.99? He said he had a lot of catching up to do and intended to savor every precious moment with his young family because he knew sometime within the next year he’d be sent back to Iraq. “Maybe they’ll get it all under control,” I said hopefully, “Then you could stay here at home and raise your son.”

He looked at me from eyes that had seen much too much, a young face that knew much too much. “There’s the Koreas,” he said sadly, “and other places I try not to think about. The war thing is like some crazy machine run amok and out of control.” Time stopped then and he wasn’t with me anymore. He had become a thousand years of man. “Yeah,” he said, his voice a thin painful whisper of gravel, “I’ll be going back somewhere, if not to Iraq, then to one of those “other places” that are next.”

I shook his hand, told him I appreciated his sacrifice and wished him well. A hundred miles inside me I knew he was right. The machine was rolling, the grinder of war awaiting fresh fodder.

Tom (WordWulf) Sterner

Meet the author

WordWulf
Tom Sterner lives in Redding, California and Arvada, Colorado with wife Kathy. He has been published in numerous magazines and on the internet, including Howling Dog Press/Omega, Skyline Literary Review, The Storyteller, and Flashquake. His interne...(more)