“I miss everything,” I said honestly. “I miss the thrill of being in a foreign land. I miss my uniform and my bunk. I miss the feel of that rifle in my hands. Most of all, I miss that feeling you get when you’re in the lion’s den with your brothers. The camaraderie—that’s what was always most important to me.”
“I understand,” Luis nodded immediately. “I have that, too. I’ve been here a few weeks, and I’m already thinking about my next deployment.”
“There are still days I wake up, and I forget I’m home,” I admitted. “For a couple of seconds, it actually feels like I’m back in Afghanistan.”
“It’s about more than just the brotherhood for you, though, isn’t it?” Luis observed. “It’s about a time in your life when things were simpler.”
I smiled. “When you decide you’re done with the military, you can always get into therapy. You might be good at it.”
“I’ll take that as a high compliment.”
I smiled. “It was meant as such,” I nodded. “How are things with you?”
“Nothing much, man,” Luis replied. “I’ve been working out a lot, trying to get ready for my next deployment. Mom’s not too happy about it.”
“Why?”
“My term’s coming to a close, and she was hoping that I’d want to retire after it was done.”
“Which you don’t want to do,” I guessed.
“I want to re-enlist,” he nodded. “I think that’s a hard pill for her to swallow.”
“She’s just worried about you.”
“She’s worried about more than that.”
“What do you mean?”
“She wants me to get married, settle down, and start a family of my own,” Luis said. “And since I refuse to do that while I’m still in the military, she just assumed I’d give up sooner rather than later.”
“This life…sometimes it’s harder on the families,” I said.
“How did your family take your enlistment?”
“It was a mixed bag for me, to be honest,” I said. “I came from a family of soldiers. Every generation has had someone who’s enlisted. My father was a soldier, and so was my grandfather, and I’d been dreaming of enlisting since I was a boy. I had an older cousin… His name was Henry.”
“I remember,” Luis nodded. “He died on duty.”
“He did,” I nodded. “He was a few years older than I was and enlisted when he was eighteen, too. It was my dream to serve, and to serve with him… Well, that was just icing on the cake as far as I was concerned. But before my dream could become a reality, he was killed in combat.”
“Fuck,” Luis sighed.
; “I went to his funeral, and three months later, I enlisted myself.”
Luis raised his eyebrows. “So, your parents weren’t happy?”
“My father was proud, but my mother had a harder time with it—especially given what happened to Henry. Actually, she wasn’t the only one. My aunt tried to convince me not to enlist, either. But it was useless; I was even more determined than ever. I don’t regret anything. I met Daphne, and we had Noah, so in the end, something great came out of it.”
Luis smiled at me. “I like this new positive Jake—he’s much easier to talk to.”
“Yeah, he’s much less prone to punch his friends in the face.”
“Well, some of his friends may deserve a punch every now and again.”
I laughed. “No, you were right to say what you did to me. I was so consumed with my own pain that I turned myself into the victim and forget that I have a child to take care of and a life to get on with. But I’ve finally opened my eyes now.”