My grandchildren want to know about the war but there is no war, there was no war. There was sad slow moments when rain dropped down windowsills and children traced their path with closely clipped finger nails. There were funerals and wives handed flags red with their husbands’ blood and empty caskets. There was a girl in every port in one woman’s eyes and in the man’s there was but one girl he looked for in all the ports. There were students in the streets with picket signs and blocky letters, and mad eyes to mask their fear. There were men taken away daily, locked up and shaved, striking comparison to concentration camps with their skulls so raw. Some days there was Cronkite on the news and his same slow voice and thirteen more Americans were killed overseas this week. There were deserts that men walked alone, feet burnt by angry sand and rats that ate everything and nibbled at finger tips.

There was no war, that much I’ll say but there were people, surviving. Because of that, it is no different than any other day in history, simply that those days had fewer survivors.