Thank You for Your Service
I was a returning hero once. It wasn’t a long-term job.
We seemed to have a lot of heroes back then. Guarding the firebases, refueling the helicopters, wheeling the shells up to the howitzers…keeping track of the properly shelved items in the Brigade Storage Facility (BSF)…no end of heroes. Fewer now defending our freedom; still, though, a steady stream. I know, I greet them. After some rough times I finally found a job. It’s with the county Veterans Affairs Department. I greet the returning heroes. With a letter that thanks them for their service and lists all the places they can go for help, Contains coupons to local businesses too. Sometimes they call the office and I read off to them the various places they can go for help…then send them more coupons. Sometimes I look back on things and wonder what it’s all been about. Sometimes I get lonely. But I haven’t paid full price for a Whopper in I don’t know when.
Greg Farnum has been a soldier, student, soil tester, factory worker, pizza deliveryman, journalist, author of The Pizza Diaries, Helping Hands of the Locust People, and other books.