The Veteran

The man sat on his lawn chair on his porch.  His eyes read the  newspaper, his eyes scanning for the sports score.  His house was empty, it had been since the war.  He read the date on the newspaper, July 4th.  He remembered the countless memories that he had about this day when he was just a child.  When he was just an innocent child, a child with no sense of death and sorrow.  A child who used to love and wait for this great holiday.  He remembered the joy that was once brought to him as he watched the fireworks explode into a bank full of colors.  He remembered the smile that he once held onto.  But those days were long ago, for now a smile barely crept across his face.  The once cheerful man was replaced with a mournful saddened human.  He wished with all his heart that he could relive the days where a smile was planted on his face daily.  Yet he was a veteran, a veteran of a terrible horrifying war.  In fact after he had returned from those terrible green jungles of Vietnam he was welcomed with neglect and hate.  He remembered the day when he returned to the United States.  He had not heard of the riots about the war when he was in Vietnam.  But the man would never forget the feeling of alienation that he felt that day.  He came home in is standard American army gear.  He stood out everywhere that he went.  He saw antiwar posters on streets and in cities.  He understood that he was no longer welcomed.  He thought about the veterans who had returned home from World War II with open arms, yet in his head he knew that this was different.  It was going to be different.  He thought that he would be welcomed with a hero’s welcome, yet he was thanked for his service with a lonely cab.  He no longer had pride in the fact that he was an American soldier.  The man no longer had joy in his training, or the fact that he risked his life for everybody that he knew or would see on the streets.  His involvement in the army would hide inside of him from that day forward.  He would hide his numerous military honors in his basement, trying not to draw attention to himself.  The man pondered these thoughts in his head as he continued reading the newspaper.  It was almost time to make his yearly trip to the cemetery to honor those who just like him had gone to war, fighting for people who could not fight for themselves.  He was going to Arlington.  It was only a short drive from his house.  As he arrived, he began to lose control of his emotions.  This happened to him every year.  This was why he only came once a year.  He could not bear to see the amount of souls that laid their life down for their country.  His arms were full of old army medals and flowers.  He would lay one down on as many tombstones that he could.  Each medal and flower he laid down, the more emotional he became.  He kept seeing one question in his head. Why not me?  Why did these other people have to die? Why was it not me? So the soldier stayed there for hours, so that the other soldiers souls would not be lonely.  The soldier had nobody else to go to.  His eyes were blurry with tears, as he sat next to his deceased brethren.