They Called Me Hippie

In the service, they sent me overseas. When I got to my first duty station, I looked around and saw you weren’t there cause you elected to stay at home with the women and the gear.

They sent me to the Indian Ocean for five months with nukes in the hold. I lost three friends at sea during that period and nearly was gone myself a couple of times. You weren’t there, either.

They sent me to Vietnam and told me where to stand. I ducked an explosion and lost my hearing. When I woke up and looked around, bleeding from my ears, you weren’t there.

They sent me to the hospital in Pearl for a while. I didn’t see you there. Thought I might get a letter but nothing ever came.

I was happy to return stateside but nobody was happy to see me. Nobody asked what happened so I volunteered for more. They gave me more, and I saw combat in places whose names I could not pronounce. Of course, you had long ago dropped interest.

They called me hippie because that’s what I was. Well, sometimes you have to fight to stay alive, against both the good guys and the bad guys. It went on that way for bloody years. I never saw you in any of those remote places, I never saw any of you standing beside me and I never heard from any of you until one day not long ago one of you knocked on my door to ask for donations and promises to vote for some commie faggot who also had never stood beside me as the fires raged and the good men dropped in blood and sweat. You didn’t recognize me. I look different. My face doesn’t fit me anymore. I told you who I was and you looked at the ground as you leaned on one foot and then the other. We exchanged pleasantries while standing there on the porch and then it was a handshake, a “Thanks for you service, admiral,” and you walking back to a new $80K truck. You didn’t know me anymore. Maybe you never did. You called me admiral because you thought it would be funny to do so. I stared at my twenty-year-old truck a moment before I walked back inside my little house and laid on the couch for a nap.

When I woke up, I wrote these words. I wanted to say, I will always remember you, as well as all the others who never offered anything beyond a smart comment or ill-timed advice.