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1
April 2015
Tyler, Texas
“Class, if you’ll turn to page 176 in your textbooks, your assignment for tonight will be to complete sections A, B and C,” Lily Hogan somehow kept from smiling as the chorus of disgruntled children reached her ears. She was far too easy on them and knew it. Today, they were running out of time in class and she didn’t have a moment to spare for them to work on their assignments. It was getting to be the end of the school year. If they were going to participate in sending letters to soldiers, they’d have to hurry or else the responses would arrive during summer break.
It was her fault.
She’d grabbed the flyer at church and it had made it onto her counter in the pile of mail to be sorted through. That was seriously not her strong point anymore. Everything was digital, and she kept neat, organized files on her computer. Everything had a place and went somewhere. Her email was full of folders with all sorts of designations. House, utilities, healthcare, funny stuff, continuing education, etc. She scanned and filed everything. So, when she got letters, bills and flyers, they tended to get put in a stack until she sorted through it. When she found the flyer, it had already been a few weeks.
“I have something special for us today,” she announced. “We are going to be sending letters to our troops stationed overseas. I want you to think of something special, something that makes you beyond happy or joyful, and write a paragraph of what it is and how it makes you feel. You’ll get graded on penmanship, punctuation and overall theme. This will be considered a quiz for your grade,” she heard them began to groan again and held up her hand.
“Nope, I don’t want to hear it. This is special and will lighten the heart of someone who has been gone from home. This is a fun project and you get to choose the subject. It can be anything: swimming, your favorite X-box game, a cat, your grandma’s cookies – whatever you choose. It has to be descriptive and at least five well-constructed sentences. Understood?”
Several hands shot up, and she spent the next few minutes fielding questions that were deliberately designed to get her to change her mind. That was one thing- her class was extremely clever!
“Now, if it’s something I can do- I know that you certainly can. So, I will be writing a letter to a soldier as well – in fact? I am so confident that I can craft an excellent letter tonight and have it ready by morning, I will let you guys nitpick my letter apart before I mail it out. Deal? It will be ‘make fun of Miss Hogan day’- okay?”
The high-pitched chime of the bell signaling the end of school rang and like Pavlov’s experiment – the children flew out of their seats in a flurry. She quickly caught them at the door, reminding them as they filed out to catch the buses or walk home.
“Remember! Due tomorrow, five good sentences of your favorite thing. We’ll be mailing these letters out tomorrow. Be creative!” she prompted and rolled her eyes, knowing they weren’t listening. They were too focused on getting out of the school as quickly as possible and within two minutes flat, her room was empty. Slowly, three students trickled in flinging themselves bodily in the chairs and glaring at her. A brutal reminder that she was detention hall monitor for these six weeks. The cream of the crop would come in and give her hostile looks for thirty minutes before waltzing out like nothing had happened. She was glad that the school district put this chore on rotation because she couldn’t imagine handling it all the time.
“Please work on your reading or homework while you are in detention,” she prompted and took her seat. “If you don’t have anything, I’d be happy to assign you sentences to write.” The boys pulled out their text books and opened them abstractly, making Lily smile. She knew they weren’t reading and they thought they were pulling a fast one on her.So be it, she thought and pulled up her computer screen blankly.
Now, what to write about? Her favorite things: coffee, reading, sitting outside and smelling the flowers, peaceful sunny afternoons? Maybe a bit of everything? Nothing? She could simply thank them for their patriotism and their duty. Instead, she found herself dreaming of her letter landing in a broken soul’s hands – her words a balm to a lonely person.
She would hate to be away from family for weeks or months at a time and couldn’t imagine the inner strength they must have to do so repeatedly. She was humbled and proud at the same time for a faceless stranger.
I imagine there are so many things you must be missing about home, things waiting for you here in America. When I am missing my family or need to find peace in my soul – I picture my favorites. I adore lying in cool, green grass on a late spring day, just before it gets to be too warm out. The tickle of honeysuckle and roses from my garden wafting through the air. A well-worn book in my hands, the pages crisp with ink whisking me away to a world I yearn to be in, dreaming of what can never be. These fanciful notions I keep close to my heart and buried deep inside to comfort me when nothing else can. I’m not sure where my words will land, but know you aren’t alone Unknown Hero – dream of happiness, wishes …and Twinkies.
God Bless you and thank you,
Lily
Before she knew it, she’d poured her heart out. Staring at the screen, she read and re-read it over and over again. Personal, imaginative, flowing and she checked for punctuation because she knew her students would be looking for flaws. She almost deleted the part about the Twinkies but decided against it. It was something she loved that screamed Americana.
Gosh, she really loved a good Twinkie.
Those vanilla sponge cakes with the decadent cream center were sinfully delicious and it was no wonder she was about thirty pounds overweight. Twinkies were her drug of choice, and she thought of how good the sponge cakes were with her morning coffee. She had stashes everywhere, including her desk drawer, and it was well known among the teachers. For teacher appreciation day, she got a box of Twinkies and it was well loved and gone within a week.
Nodding, satisfied, she printed a copy for her students and proceeded to handwrite the final version on paper. Struck with an idea, she decided to pick up a box of the beloved snack cakes to include with her letter, especially since the letters were all going in one large box, not as several individual letters. She had to stop at the store regardless to get envelopes and stamps. Her hope was that the letters would reach the troops overseas or in another country and a self-addressed envelope might make it back here in time for the end of the school year.
That evening, she filled out the return envelopes for all twenty-eight students and stamped each one. Sighing heavily, she retired to take a vanilla bubble bath and relax. Tomorrow was Friday and she was relieved the school year was winding down. She needed a break or something to look forward to. Grabbing a paperback book, she disappeared into the bathroom and turned on the water.Ahhhh yes, it was time to dream of chivalrous knights in shining armor, she mused as the rich sweet smell of bubbles filled the room.
2
April 2015
Ghazni, Afghanistan
“GET DOWN NOW!!” John Griffin shouted loudly as debris rained down all around them. They were hidden under camouflaged nets that blended in with the sandy, rocky outcroppings. He had been here for far too long and it was getting at him. When the last of the bombs were gone, he would be glad to see the end of the dirt showers. They had a few more to set off safely before they could move forward. These bombs had been hidden in clay pots and near rock outcroppings. You never knew when something innocent could bring tragedy. He was so thankful for Radar, his German Shepherd.
Radar had an uncanny ability to sniff out bombs and mines, hearing the electrical whine or smelling the chemicals long before he was in danger. She’d been with him from the very beginning when he’d been stationed here. The last K-9 dog had perished in an explosion with his owner, opening the desperately needed position. Radar had saved his life repeatedly since his arrival years ago.
He’d taken some shrapnel to the face a while back, leaving scars near his eyes, but thankfully he still had his eyes. Others couldn’t say as much. He’d seen men walk off to the rocks to use the restroom and had their legs blown right off by hitting a landmine that had been buried. Worse yet, he’d seen women or children come running into camp setting Radar off in a fit of rampant barking, with the merest hint of a warning that had saved him more than once. It was rough, raw and brutal out here and he yearned for the day that he could sleep in his own bed, knowing he was safe.
Here,safewas a relative term. You could be patrolling in a tank and feel safe, yet a carefully timed shot, or an ill-placed bomb, could mean the difference between life and death. That is why he was here and that was why he served. He felt it was his duty to protect the freedoms that we’d built America on. That belief had slapped him on foreign soil more times than he cared for, making him very jaded and feeling significantly unpatriotic for wanting to go home.
