The letter 5

Please  don,t praise me for  being a soldier.... i was  just a soldier... do you know that even my kids don,t know  these stories  i tell you  ? .. not even my mom and Maggy .. they all  know i was in the war  and that,s all ...  because my  mom was  my next of kin  she recieved many telegrams  about me  being missing in action ... HA! ... she didn,t even tell Maggy ..  Then Maggy  says " Why  didn,t you  tell me?" ... my mom would take a  drag  from her cigarette and a sip of her  whiskey and say " no way those gooks  can catch  Tommy " .. HA! ... i didn,t tell nobody ... even my doctors ... those experiences are so  intense i can,t  express them  to anyone  else...  they have always  been  stored deep  inside me ... memories i didn,t  want  to visit .. of course they  would appear during sleep... but  i didn,t  have  an ideoligy.. i wasn,t fighting for a cause .. i was just a soldier trying  to  stay alive  .. those gooks i killed  were fighting  for a much higher  cause   than i was  ...  we had no business being there .. our boys  died  for  nothing ..  for what? ..  nothing ..  i always think of Ellis  Mikalakis . in high school he was  so shy  and quiet.. we sat next   to each other  so often  because  on alphabetical order...  he was a wonderful and gentle boy ... but he was always in  tattered  poor  clothes and i was  in the elite because  of a sports and  music ...  and i became  his friend and took  care  of him  in  a way .. he was very witty  and clever  and funny but so shy ...  i can  remember how his hands  looked  while  he wrote ..  always some  dirt ... he worked  with his dad  on a garbage truck .. he was inocent  and pefect .. after graduation  we went  our separate ways .. eventually i ended  up in the army ... then back to schol ... etc ... then  i began working for  the airlines back ... it was very common for us to get military  caskets from vietnam .. flags draped ... dead soldiers ...  then one  day i was unloading a military casket  with the usual flag and military honor guard... and  i looked at the name ... " ELLIS MIKALAKIS". i began  weeping uncontrollably .. my friend... such a waste  .. my friend ... i should have ben there to take care of him ... he died for no reason ... i feel so guilty .. i know i could have saved him .. but i realy  didnt  know  Ellis  and he didn,t know me ...  i didnt even  know where  he lived ..we never socialized or even saw each other  outside of school ... but i loved him ...  and he symbolized the  brutality and loss and suffering of that stuped war ...  i had the  absurdity of the eskimoes  i trained .. ut the loss and outrage was never real till i saw his name on that casket.. . that,s then i began trying to stop the war ... and few years later i went to meet his father and his  uncle .. they still had their garbage  business but  they also had  a bait  shop  for fisheman .. i was ver shy at this meeting . i did,t know  what to say ... i just shook their hands and told them  i was very sorry  about  ellis,s death ... his father was  a very big man ...  he asked  if  i was  that Tom .. from that high school  .. he said Ellis really liked me ... then he  showed me some letters where  Ellis  really mentioned about me ...  his father said then " He did,t have many friends" ... i didnt asked him how Ellis died .. i  don,t want to know ... i only remember his  mousy colored  greasy  hair .. his dirty  fingernails .. his  shitty clothes ..   his perfect nose ..  no friends...  his perfect  white teeth smiling  shyly ... he remined me of  ME ..  dirty .. poor  and shy ... i,d really  give  anything if i could  just  make  him smile one more time  .. he deserved  to live .. i  moun for  him .. i have been  surrounded by death  ..  don,t ask me why, but i  mourn for Ellis ...