Read Once a Warrior for Free Online Page B

favorite meal of fried chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy and home-canned green beans from last summer’s Victory garden. For dessert there’d been a chocolate cake with fudge icing that must have cost a month’s sugar ration. After dinner, there’d been presents to open—a pen and pencil set from his mother, hand-knitted socks from his sister, and some stainless steel Kant Rust razor blades from his brother.
    He hadn’t returned exactly empty-handed himself. For his sister, a fashion-conscious highschool senior, he’d brought two pairs of nylon hose at the PX; for his gangly fifteen-year-old brother, he’d picked up some paratrooper’s boots that hadn’t been off his feet all week. For Millie, he’d arranged an increase in her monthly allotment to be withheld from his overseas pay to supplement her stenographer’s salary.
    “This is special.”  His mother’s eyes shone as brightly as the silver Service Star she proudly displayed in the living room window. “And since you’ll be busy with the wedding tomorrow and you leave so early on Sunday, I wanted to give it to you tonight.”
    Mike sat down in the glider chair beside her rocker to open his present. He remembered to pass both the wrapping paper and the ribbon back to her so she could use them again next Christmas. Then he just stared at his gift with glistening eyes.
    It was a soldier’s Bible, with the word “Godspeed” written in his mother’s fine hand inside the metal cover and, on the very first page, a mimeographed message from his Commander-in-Chief, President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
    “Thanks, Mom.”  He cleared his throat, then leaned over and kissed her cheek. “I’ll carry it in my shirt pocket until I come home.”
    Millie wiped her own damp eyes with a handkerchief. She’d done her best to put up a cheerful front this week, Mike knew. On more than one occasion, though, he’d caught her looking at him as if she were trying to impress her memory indelibly with the image of someone she might never see again.
    “Oh, I almost forgot,” she said on a sniffle. “You have a letter on the telephone table. It’s got a California postmark.”      
    He knew immediately that it was from the naval officer’s daughter he’d dated while he was stationed in El Cajon. “I’ll read it later.”
    “Is it from a girl?”  His mother didn’t ordinarily pry into his personal affairs, but this was an extraordinary occasion.
    “Yes.”
    “Are you serious about her?”
    “I can’t get serious about anyone right now,” he said gravely.
    “I understand.”  She gave him a last, sad smile before she stood and kissed him goodnight. “I love you, Michael Vincent Scanlon.”
    “I love you too, Mom.”  After hugging her tightly, he watched her make her way into the front bedroom she now shared with her daughter. Then, still too restless to head into the back bedroom where he was bunking with his brother, he crossed to the telephone table to get the letter from the girl he’d left in California.
    The blue envelope exuded the same floral scent she’d been wearing the night he’d met her at that USO dance. Her father had been at sea in the Pacific, her mother a Red Cross volunteer. She had worked in a war plant and had proudly called herself a “Bomber-Dear.”
    Mike thought of those late summer evenings when he’d lain in a backyard hammock, eating baby lemons peeled by the dark-haired girl kneeling in the grass beside him. She’d laughed when he’d puckered up after she first dropped the fruit into his mouth. And then one night, when the big orange sun had sunk into the sea and full darkness had enveloped them, she’d crawled into the hammock with him, licking the sweet-tart juice off his lips and whispering “Let’s make love” into his ear.
    She hadn’t been a virgin, which was a relief. Nor had she been shy about expressing her needs. Still, he’d felt a twinge of guilt because he’d yet to tell her that he’d been