After all, good ole boys like us had been raised to represent our country and do it proud.

After I made my choice to go, he swore to join me after he turned eighteen. We shook on it.

On the brick steps leading to our front door, my father hugged me to his chest. “It’s what we do,” he said into my ear. As a Vietnam veteran, he’d seen and done his share.

My mother’s tears weren’t silent as I left home. She was proud but terrified.

“I’m proud of you. But what about school? Your football scholarship?” She reminded me of my old plans, worry etched within her words.

“When I come home, I’ll finish it all up. I swear.” I hugged her, but she shook in my arms as I kissed her good-bye.

Four years later, Dad died of prostate cancer. One year after that, my mama died from breast cancer. And, two years after that, Aaron was gone when a roadside bomb went off in Iraq.

And my world turned.

Some hearts are full of gratitude and joy, eager to make the earth a better place. My heart? It’s disfigured, and it can no longer be trusted.

I retired to an empty house with nothing inside but furniture, photographs, and ghosts. In my bed that first night, between stale sheets that smelled vaguely of my high school gym locker mixed with my mom’s detergent, I stayed up late to watch TV, hoping to adjust to the time change. A commercial came on for gourmet cat food served in a shimmering crystal bowl. In my mind’s eye, I saw children rummaging, barefoot, through trash, looking for scraps to eat. Meanwhile, here in the USA, cats ate salmon out of gemstones.

What is this world coming to?

I became angry.

It took a few weeks, but I called friends to try to reacclimate. Reading the pamphlets, I was urged to reconnect. But it was all in vain.

I called my high school girlfriend, Sally.

She had been the cheerleader, and I had been the football captain. Cheesy, sure. But we had some real good times. We were innocents back then. Not that we weren’t partying, having sex, and drinking beers from kegs because we were. I’d always been the type to enjoy life. Still, we were innocent in our thinking. All I thought about were grades, college, sports, and getting laid once or twice a day by my sweet and super-hot girlfriend. It had been a fun life. A simple life.

I picked up the phone and dialed with hope in my chest. Turned out, she was married with three kids. I could barely hear her over the sound of children screaming in the background.

Next, I called Tex.

He told me he was running the town auto shop and married to Jane, his own high school sweetheart. “Let’s get a beer sometime.”

Sure.

Hanging up, I called Billy. A CPA now living in Connecticut with his wife, whom he’d met at Yale. Always was a smart guy.