Thursday October 11, 2001

Zach Armstrong

Editor's note: This is the secodn article of a two-part series by Zack Armstrong concerning his recent experiences and reactions to the war in Afghanistan. Part one of this series ran yesterday.

We continued around the seafood festival filling up on shrimp, crab, fish, hushpuppies, crawdads and funnel cakes - a must at any festival - and once we were full, I had to wait as patiently as possible for my mother and sister to scrutinize every craft and piece of jewelry in the artisan booths. They looked at every piece and walked away with nothing. Time well spent.

We got on the shuttle that took us back to the cars, then drove home, passing by Camp Lejeune, a Marine base situated on the North Carolina coast. It's difficult for me to imagine what life in the military must be like, both in times of war and, even more so, in idle times. This got me back to thinking about Grampa. He had some idle time after his war, waiting to go home.

"What did you do after the war?" I had asked him the day before, secretly hoping for something exciting like hunting down renegade Germans or moving on to Japan.

"I worked in the post office," he replied.

"Oh," I said, admittedly a little disappointed.

"I went through all the mail that was sent to the troops and stamped MIA or deceased on those ones and sent them back to the main office in New York."

"Oh," I said again, wondering what a person had to do to get a job like that.

We turned down Old Farm Road, riding it all the way to the end to Grandma's house. Grampa's white Ford pickup was parked in its usual place, beside his small tomato patch that flourished so much it was beginning to overtake the porch.

"I can grow me some tomaters," he would say, every time he walked around them to get to the back door."Yes sir."

We went inside the house to find Grampa in the kitchen with his hands in his pockets looking out the window like he was waiting for us. Who knows if he really was or if he just happened to be passing through at that exact moment. "Hey there! How was the seafood?"

"It was good," I replied quickly. "Did you see the news, Grampa?"

"Yeah man! They're showing it on every channel," he said with a brief flash of excitement. "It's just the same thing over and over again. They throw a couple of grenades at them over there, and those reporters can't get enough of it," he said, chuckling to himself.

"Yeah. Those guys love to be on television."

"I tell you what· back in the war, back in World War II, those reporters wouldn't have been anywhere near that information. You had to keep that stuff secret, you see, so you could get in there and get the job done. No room for reporters."

"They didn't interrupt your ballgames, did they?" I asked.

"Not too much. Not too much. There wasn't much on to watch anyway."

We all got to talking about the festival after that and moved into the living room. Grampa told us he was glad that we were all full because he already ate and didn't feel like cooking again. Grandma told him about the people she knew who she saw at the festival. The topic of war didn't come up again, and no one seemed to miss it.

Later that night, the family was sitting around, reading and watching TV simultaneously as we are all in the habit of doing. Grandma was sitting on the couch, cross-stitching little American flag pins that she'd been selling to some people in town, when Grampa came from the bedroom after a brief nap wearing his pale yellow pajamas. He sat down beside her, put his arm around her and they whispered to each other about something they obviously didn't want us to hear - which is rare. I buried my head in my book and pretended not to notice. Once they had finished their quiet discussion, they sat in silence for a moment. Then, Rock got up to sit in his easy chair.

"Where do you think you're going? Grandma asked. "You're keeping me warm. You've got to stay here and keep me warm."

"Oh. Excuse me. I'm sorry," he replied with a smile as he reclaimed his seat beside her, arm around her shoulder. "I'm sorry."