The tragic ending

[lostnfound]

Young man, I didn't know you. I know your girlfriend's father quite well, though. More than a coworker, he's a friend or a "comrade", as we've commiserated over the horrendous decline of our government and even attended a protest or two together. Six or eight months ago, he started talking to me about you. "My daughter is dating this young man; he just got out of boot camp. He comes to pick her up, and we talk. You know what? I really like him." he said. "He's a great young man. So polite. He just doesn't know the first thing about politics, or world affairs. He signed up because he didn't know what else to do, he was having some trouble with college..and he believed everything he's been taught to believe.."

And later, "My daughter is getting so attached."

Is this the daughter who plays the violin, I wonder, whose father turns wordless remembering what it was like to first hear such beautiful music coming from an instrument in her hands? This is the daughter in college. The daughter who fell in love with the former high school classmate who is now a Marine.

Later, he tells me "the kid is starting to have regrets, wishing he hadn't signed up. But now what can he do but go through with it?"

"The thought of him being sent over to that place, that h*llhole, to fight and possibly kill someone -- somebody else's kids -- and to risk getting killed himself, and for what?"

I heard about you, young man, every week at least, or every few days. "I'm so worried he's going to end up Baghdad."

And then, "He's shipping out next month". My friend talked to you that you should consider going AWOL. Did he tell you "go to Canada..get out one way or another..better than ending up killed over there!" I think so.

I heard about your parents too. My friend thought they were going to be his inlaws. "The nicest people," he said. "We had dinner again," he said. "I can't believe their son might end up going over there someday, but they still support this war." And slowly, or not so slowly, I heard of your mother's growing awareness, of her mind changing and of her anger at the war and the duplicitous forces which were sending young men like her son over there.

Heard, with trepidation in my friend's voice, about your assignment. "He's going to be a machine gunner! Do you know what that means? It's the most dangerous job. He's going to be riding around on a tank or a Humvee in Baghdad next month." My friend is a brave and real man, and by that I mean a man who thinks for himself and has no fear of caring too much, and who starts to have tiny tears well up in his eyes all the while while telling me in an unwavering voice "when I think of that kid -- Luke is his name -- riding around in a Humvee in that place"..and then his eyes dry up but his voice trails off. "I just can't stand it. They take these kids and use them, exploit them, as if they were just raw materials or a piece of machinery."

And then, just two months ago, only the terse statement that you had, finally, shipped out over the weekend.

I ask about you. He says his daughter gets a letter from you every few days. That you talk on the phone to her when you can. That you got engaged and set a date for the wedding.

Then, this morning. This morning, I shed some tears for you, Luke. I am so sorry that you won't be able to have the wedding. By all accounts you were a fine young man -- well, by the only account I knew, which is from a man who would have been genuinely pleased to have you as his son-in-law. So sorry and sad that you will be dressed in your best uniform and that your parents, and my friend's daughter, will never be the same.

Rest in peace, young man.