The Last of Sunset (One Soldier, WWII) A Short Story

grandfather stood in the last sunset in the open door, with his fingers on the end of his pipe, and his other hand and arm wound strongly and steadily for a broom, it was in the last months of the war, 1945.

When the message was Frank, he lowered the broom on its side against jackets hanging near the door in the screening. And went to sit in a kitchen chair to the corner of the room, the table against the wall, I was eight years old, would be nine in two months. Saturday Grandpa slowly and looked at the paper, his older son, Wally got from the mailbox on the porch, he had it to him. He knew beforehand what it was. He did not speak for everyone in the house. Only saw the characterless envelope, it had no stamp on it was not necessary. He waited for his son, the elder, in order to come back from his attic bedroom.

"I can not open. You open it, please." He said to Wally.

"Damn Italy! Damn them, the Germans!" And then he grabbed his father and held him, trying to keep him. And that was all.

One day there was a call to arms, a war to fight, as my grandfather in the first World War, six thousand miles away. And he went, and Uncle Frank is now twenty years later, have the same appeal. He has until one morning out of bed and had breakfast and he was gone, just like that. He went to boot camp, somewhere to the south and then in Europe, to Italy, and that was everything to him.

And in the coming months and years to come, he would see images in the cinema, and in the newspaper, with a war that was. Names and pictures of dead soldiers, again and again and again. People who like their sons and brothers, as we all loved Frank.

((The Beginning) (A soldier))

"I have the war Paw," said Frank.

"Why? He said hesitatingly," I do not see any use in which it no longer, our country is not occupied. "

" Germany and Italy, and Japan began to take us in Pearl Harbor, in addition, it is the right thing to do. "

" My brother Wally paw went, was a POW, now he is at home, he got a Purple Heart, I must go. "

" The good it is for everyone, I never know. I went into the war, Wally in the war, a country to protect the unprotected. "

" Anyway, I must go, I am now eighteen. "

" Of course you have to go, "said my grandfather," the Germans "

" Get me a handful of tobacco from my bedroom, "Grandpa asked Frank.

So Frank got ready. And Uncle Wally came from Attic bedroom with him a ride to Minneapolis' induction center. mother washed and mended, his clothes before he left. That night, I had overhead her in conversation with Anne, her older sister on the phone, she said: "I want him to go, and I think Paw wants him to go, but none of us want him to go. I do not understand it, and I will not always, and so do not expect me to. "

Then I went back up stairs to the attic room, and still, and my head fell back into a wild pillow throat and Aunt Betty and Grandma before she died in 1933 at a pneumonia-pillow stuffed with chicken this feathers. And I was not talking to me, I was not in conversation with someone, but I heard a voice in my head, "He has to go, nothing you can do about it," she said. And I said loud , "she Germans"

"Shoo," said Uncle Wally, "we can not do." I

over gently, and the kind of heaved over on its side, look at the carpet beside my bed, on the ground in the darkness.

"In any event," said Uncle Wally, "he's okay."

But I knew, even at this age, people are not "in the war for the maintenance of IT, nor their family for the fun, but Wally wanted me to sleep, he said he had to give Frank a ride in the early morning hours on the induction center, he had to his oath, I guess. I turned to my bed on my back, I said that the voice in my head to "shut up", the secret vote. And went to sleep.

The next morning, we all have to Uncle Wally, me and Maw and Grandpa, and my brother Mike, and Uncle Frank, we ate breakfast, under the dim grayness of the morning, and all of us a bit grim, all busy trying Keeping Maw try breakfast on the table for everyone, and I ate. Then we all are ready, uncle Frank, and packed a small suite case of substances. Maw said: "Honest people need clean clothes, even if they are in the forefront in the war, and a decent breakfast."

I have Frank's coat and hat, it was October 1944, and throat and Grandpa still does not cry, I somehow expected it, but I wanted to, she stood before Frank, and did not move. For all they cared, the land and everything in it, they had to stay as long as they are our family alone. We were not rich, throat and did not care to have her brother to fight and die for the rich, because they believed that our blood was as good as any blood out there somewhere, and somehow forget that the rich, and they wanted it remind you of it. And she kissed Frank, Grandpa and hugged him and I hugged him and held my tears for later.

4-30-2009?

((The End) (The Last Sunset))

 

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