Story of Joe and John
May 19th
– May 28th, I had shared a series of posts on my Heart-chords blog
in honor of our armed forces. In each of
those posts, I included another scene to a patriotic short story. Below are all of the scenes compiled. For the corresponding posts, check out my
Heart-chords blog at www.heartchords.blogspot.com.
The summer
afternoon found the Hartsfield International Airport alive with activity. People milled about, saying their last
goodbyes to their loved ones- friends and relatives; others rushed by, hurrying
to arrive at their terminal gate on time to catch their flights. Amidst the chaos of the crowd, however, two
men attired in military camouflage stood with their families.
Setting
his duffle bag down upon the floor, John inaudibly drew a deep breath, bracing
himself for the goodbye. Bending down,
he placed his hands upon the little shoulders of his seven-year-old son. “Christopher, you take care of Mommy and your
sister for me while I’m gone, all right?” he instructed gently. “Mommy’s going to need your help with Lily
and the new baby, and she’s going to need a lot more hugs now.”
His
little son solemnly nodded his small head.
“Yes, sir. I’ll help,” he
promised.
John
forced smile. “That’s a good boy.” He drew him closer into a bear hug, his son’s
little arms tightening about his neck as the tears ran silently down his cheeks
and onto the shoulder of his father’s camouflage jacket.
“I
wish I could go with you to help, Daddy,” he whispered.
“You’re
helping me best by staying here to take care of Mommy and Lily,” he assured
him. “I’ll be back home before you know
it,” he promised. He gave the little
back an encouraging pat as his son straightened again, and rising to his full
height, John ruffled his son’s hair affectionately with a supportive smile.
He
turned to his wife standing there beside their son. “Amy, I will make it back again,” he
assured her.
She
nodded slightly, forcing a smile through the tears that threatened to fall at
any moment. “Of course, you will. You always do,” she agreed. The tears broke from her control as he drew
her closer in a last embrace. “Honey,
please be careful,” she whispered.
John
swallowed hard against the choking knot of emotions in his throat. “I will.
I promise,” he whispered in reply.
Releasing her, he drew back slightly, and reaching up a hand to her
cheek, kissed her other cheek, eliciting a tearful smile from his wife. He turned his attention to their one-year-old
she held on her hip. Taking his baby
girl in his arms, he kissed the head of soft, thin hair and smelled the baby
scent that lingered in the folds of the little neck… perhaps for the last time.
On
the other side of the airport, stood a young man having just graduated from
high school. Joe returned his father’s
strong embrace. “Joe, you keep a good
head on your shoulders,” his father instructed.
Joe
nodded, stepping back slightly.
“And
don’t do anything rash or foolish,” his dad went on. “Make sure you use your head.”
Joe nodded
solemnly again. “Yes, sir, I will.” He turned to his mother standing there, the
tears running down her cheeks freely.
“Bye, Mom.” He managed the words
as he hugged her.
“Joe, be careful
now. Make sure you don’t forget your
habit of reading your Bible,” his mother insisted.
He nodded again,
releasing her. “I won’t,” he
promised. “And I’ll write,” he added.
“We’ll be
praying for you,” his mom assured him.
Joe reluctantly
turned away from his mother. Seeing the
tears his mom was shedding hurt his core with an ache he couldn’t
describe. He shifted his attention to
his teenage sister. “Bye, Lauren…
Froggy,” he addressed her with her childhood nickname. He hugged her. “Hey, I’ll email you, all right?” he told
her, forcing a smile as he stepped back.
She nodded,
offering him a smile in return. “All
right. I’ll check my inbox every day,”
she promised.
He drew a deep
breath, casting a last glance sweeping across the faces of his family,
wondering when he would see them again.
__________________________________
Joe sighed
heavily that night as an unpleasant memory returned to his thoughts. He could still hear the sergeant’s reproach
screaming in reverberation through his memory.
Giving another sigh, he shook his head in discouragement, vainly
attempting to alter the course of his thoughts to a pleasant diversion- his
family.
“Hey,
Watkins,” a voice called out.
He
turned at the sound to see a man approaching to meet him where he stood at the
threshold of the barrack door. As he
drew nearer, Joe recognized him as one of the fellow soldiers in his platoon.
“Listen,
I’m sorry for stopping you,” John apologized.
“I just wanted to let you know that you did good work today. I know the sergeant was pretty hard on you,”
he added sympathetically.
Joe
nodded. “Yeah, I admit, even after boot
camp, being out here isn’t what I had expected.”
With
a smile, John gave the younger man’s shoulder an encouraging clap. “Everyone has to start somewhere… even
after boot camp. You’ll get a feel for
it soon,” he assured him.
“I
hope so.” Joe took a seat on the step
leading up to barrack door, his companion taking a seat beside him. “So you’re married?” he spoke up abruptly,
giving an indicating nod toward the wedding band on the man’s left hand.
John
nodded. “Married, and have a
seven-year-old boy, a thirteen-month-old daughter, and a baby girl on the way,”
he replied with a proud smile.
Joe
smiled. “Congratulations. How far along is she?”
“Five
months.”
“Well,
you won’t be around too much longer before going home on leave then,” Joe
remarked.
The
smile faded from John’s countenance as he sighed. “Maybe not.
I’m hoping to get time off not too far after she’s born.”
Joe’s
brow furrowed in concern. “You’re not
gonna be home for her birth?”
John
shook his head. “Probably not,” he
replied. He sighed heavily again, his
thoughts now miles away, and a brief moment of silence followed. “Well, how about you?” he finally broke the
quiet of the evening. He turned his gaze
to his young companion. “What about your
family?” he questioned in feigned light-heartedness.
“Well,
I just got here a couple weeks ago,” Joe began, “but I was living with my
parents still. And my sister Lauren…
Froggy,” he added with a smile. “When we
were growing up, she had a favorite kids’ book about a frog and loved anything
that had to do with frogs. I started
calling her “Froggy” and I guess the name just kind of stuck,” he
explained. “She’s fifteen.” He paused to retrieve his smartphone from his
pocket, and after several gestures made on the touchscreen, he held out the phone
and pointed to a picture of a man, woman, and a girl. “That’s her there,” he told John as he
pointed to the girl in the picture. “And
that’s my mom and dad.” He slid the
picture to the next photo, one of a golden retriever. “And that’s our dog Simon.”
John
watched the young man return the cellphone to his pocket, and noting the
wistfulness that shadowed Joe’s countenance now, he decided to change the topic
of conversation. “So what are your plans
for after you serve your term?” he asked.
“Truthfully,
I haven’t really given it much thought,” Joe confessed. “I just knew I wanted to come out here to
serve and see some action after I graduated.”
John
nodded with a smile. “I was the same way
when I first enlisted.”
“Have
you been in the military for a while?”
John nodded
again slightly. “About eleven
years. Now that our family’s growing and
our situation in life’s changing though, Amy and I prayed about it, and we
decided it’d be best if I don’t reenlist again after this term.” He paused.
“I only have one more year before I’m a full-time family man,” he added
with a smile. Another moment of silence
passed before John finally spoke up.
“Well, come on. Taps is going to
be playing soon.” He rose to his feet,
Joe following his example, and together they disappeared inside the
barrack.
__________________________________
Entering her
mother’s sewing room, Lauren took a seat beside where her mom sat at the sewing
machine. “Oh, Mama, it’s turning out
beautiful,” she remarked. Reaching out a
hand, she carefully fingered the fabric of the quilt her mother was working on.
Having
stopped the sewing machine, her mother smiled as she surveyed the quilt she
spread out across her lap, the heavy folds billowing down. “Well, it’s certainly turning out nicer than
I thought it would,” she agreed. “After
I send this one off, I’ll start another one with a diamond pattern this time.”
“I
know the soldier that gets it will appreciate all the work you’re putting into
it,” Lauren assured her with a smile.
__________________________________
We’re all doing
fine here at home. I wish you could’ve
seen Chris’s face when your letter came in the mail. He was so excited. Tomorrow I have another doctor’s
appointment. The baby’s fine
though. It’s just a check-up. Yesterday she had hiccups for the first
time. Lily’s becoming a little steadier
on her feet and doesn’t fall as much now.
I think about
you all day, Honey, and you’re always in my prayers. Every night Chris includes you in his bedtime
prayer. If you only knew how much you’re
missed.
Pausing from her
writing as her thoughts drifted to the foreign soil overseas, Amy smiled as she
instinctively reached a hand down to her middle, now enlarged in her pregnancy.
“Mommy, don’t
forget to send Daddy my picture,” a little voice piped up from beside her
chair.
She turned her
gaze to where her son handed her the picture he had drawn. “Of course I’ll make sure to send it to him,”
she assured him. “Daddy will love it.”
“I wanted to
make the truck green, but Lily sat on my favorite green crayon by accident and
cracked it,” Christopher added, studying the picture his mother admired. “I didn’t have much of it anyways so there’s
wasn’t enough to use afterwards. That’s
why I had to make it blue,” he explained.
Amy smiled. “Well, I know Daddy will like it no matter
what color you chose to make the truck.
The fact that you drew it for him makes it special.”
__________________________________
With a heavy
sigh of exhaustion, John took a seat at the table, retrieved a fresh sheet of
paper, and picked up his pen in the dim lamplight piercing the darkness. The pen of black ink slowly made its way
across the paper as he began the letter.
My dear Amy,
I
received your letter this morning.
Chris’s picture put a smile on my face.
Tell him for me that I loved it and have it on display where I can see
it every day. I’m doing well, holding
out. Our base is well-supplied; there’s
nothing I’m lacking except for my family.
I miss you all more than you know and I’m counting down the days until I
can come back on leave for a visit…
And on the other
side of the barracks sat a young man…
A few weeks ago
I met a man named John Carpenter here on the base. He’s in my platoon and got here about the
same time I did. He’s been in the
military for eleven years already and had to leave his family back home in
Atlanta. Dad, I know you’ll be glad to
hear that he’s really strong in his faith and has been a great guy for me to be
around. He’s really been an
encouragement to me.
Mom, I’m still
reading my Bible every day. Thank you
for sending me a bag of your cookies.
They’re already gone. They were
so great, I had to hide them from the other guys.
I thought of you
today, Froggy. I saw a girl here on the
base whose hair was naturally as stick-straight as you spend hours to get your
hair like. Of course she can’t do much
with it as long as she’s in the military though. I know I used to make a big deal about the
mess you’d leave on the bathroom counter and the fumes from your flat-ironing,
but truthfully, I wish I had to clear off all your hair goops and gadgets
again. I guess the novelty of being
here’s wearing off a little.
I’ll try to call
you all tomorrow night, and I’m sending you a picture in an email when I finish
here. I know email’s a lot faster, but
it just isn’t the same as writing and getting a letter in the mail. Thanks for all your prayers. I think about you guys all the time.
With Love,
Your son and
brother Joe
__________________________________
As the beep followed his wife’s voice on
the other end of the line, John left a voicemail for her. “Hey, Darling, I guess you must be busy
getting the kids ready for bed. I know
it’s hard with the change in the time zones and call period’s almost over, but
I’ll call you again tonight and maybe we can catch up. I’ll talk to you then. I love you.”
__________________________________
Gunshots
rang out from the middle of nowhere, splitting the air with the sound of round
after round. Explosions came from nearby,
sending a thick cloud of smoke and debris into the air, making it difficult to
see ahead. Joe coughed as the dirt in
the air choked his throat. The squeal of
another bomb being launched came along with more gunfire, more screams reaching
his ears before the sound of another explosion followed. The generals’ voices came hoarse as they
hollered instructions amidst the chaos and commotion. From everywhere there came gunshots and
screams.
Another
scream rang out from close at his side… too close and the voice too
familiar. Joe shifted his gaze away from
the scene before him to cast a quick glance at his side, panic striking his
core as he made out through the thick air the form of his comrade’s body lying
crumpled and motionless on the ground.
“John.” His call was lost in the
raging commotion of the encounter.
Hastily
he knelt down beside the man, laying aside his gun, and reaching out, rolled
the man onto his back to examine him as best as he could. Still he was motionless from unconsciousness. Joe checked his pulse. It was weak, but still beating.
His
training from boot camp returned to his recollection, and he realized he would
either have to move the man from the situation and from harm’s way or leave him
to die. There was no hesitation in the
decision. Joe turned, calling for
assistance from a fellow soldier nearby, but his voice was once again lost in
the uproar. Still he took no time to
consider the task. It was instinct and
ingrained duty. Straightening from where
he bent over the man, he attempted to move the wounded soldier from the field
of warfare, dragging the man heavy in unconsciousness. Suddenly another bomb launched screeching
through the air. Joe heard the sound
near behind. A single thought of
horrified panic flashed through his mind but had no time to react before the
explosion followed a second later, leaving his thoughts blank and
silenced.
__________________________________
“Joe sent me
another email yesterday,” Lauren spoke up as she set the table for dinner that
afternoon. “He sent me another picture
too,” she added. “I saved it to my
computer while I was at school so I can show it to you all after dinner.” The doorbell sounded from the foyer, and she
shifted her gaze up from the cutlery and napkins.
“I
wonder who that could be,” her mother remarked.
“I don’t think we’re expecting any packages.” She laid the knife she held down on the
kitchen counter beside the bell pepper she was cutting and started toward the
foyer, Lauren following her steps.
And
on the threshold of another front door, a similar messenger stood, bearing the
same news, and rang the doorbell. At the
sound, Amy entered the foyer, carrying Lily on her hip. She halted abruptly in her steps as her gaze
fell upon the man standing on the other side of the front door glass pane.
“Who
is it, Mommy?” Christopher asked, coming up behind her.
She
gave no response. She couldn’t. The knot of sickening dread and horror that
tightened in her middle rendered any speech impossible. “Dear God, no,” she silently
prayed. Reluctantly she made her way to
the door and unlocking it, swung it open on its hinges to reveal the uniformed
man standing there. One glance at the
solemnness of his expression, and she knew her fear was true before he even voiced
the grave words of her husband’s mortal fate.
She shook her head against the reality as the tears came quickly. “John.”
The name faded from her lips in a whisper. She pressed a hand to her mouth to suppress
the sobs while they came more violently as the man began to relay his message.
