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graduate—either that or I’ll join the Navy.”
    “Honey, your father and I have plans for your future that don’t include a third-world country or military duty. We’ll discuss those plans later.
    “ Now it’s time for us to go.”
    As the scene with his mother faded from his mind, Mark realized that, right up until the year both his parents died, he had accused them of trying to arrange his future.
    This notion must have been sowed that day, at the end of eighth grade when his mother’s impulsive remark — probably made to stop him from whining — had irritated him enough to make the Navy his goal.
    ‘Would I want to see them again? With all my heart! I want to make up for the shameful way I’ve treated them, and for using them as my scapegoat.
    ‘ Those dear people meant the world to me and I rarely let them know.’
    “They know.” Zachri assured him.
    “What did you just say?”Mark asked.
    “They know.  I know your parents. We are members of the same community. I assure you, they know how much you love them.  I am their messenger, too, relaying what they want you to know: that their love for you never waned, even through the years you hardly spoke to them.”
     
    Mark’s expression was beseeching, saying without words that he wanted to believe but that it was a monumental struggle. In the heat of his struggle, it came to him that to believe this he would have to admit that everything Zachri said was true.   
    “If I follow you, can I count on being restored to my family and to Janie?”              
    “I can only promise that you will be allowed to choose the next phase of your existence.”
    “I’m not sure what that means, but I won’t argue. I’m beginning to believe in you. Let’s get going.
     

 
     
     

10
THE FIRST JOURNEY BACK
     
    The few ‘hootches’ set into the hillside were all empty on this gloriously sunny day.
    Every single resident of those thatched peasant dwellings who was not away serving in the North Vietnamese Army was standing within the circle; a ring of broken hearts.
    The villagers, from newborn to weather-worn, stood facing the casket of one of its own; a young father of two, a man revered by the whole community.
    Their faces were in stark contrast to the day’s radiance. The anguish on each face ; the despair in the eyes of the young widow; the piteous cries of the young children and old grandmother all signaled their unwillingness to let go of this precious youth whose only, fatal, mistake was in having been a dutiful soldier.
    If the mourners could see into the casket, their eyes and hearts would have been forever mutilated by the image: the ravages of a death by black powder and explosive materials. What they would have seen were the torn pieces of a body which, until three days ago, had kissed and caressed; had handled tools more adeptly than weapons, sung songs and breathed prayers.
     
    Mark, invisible to everyone but his traveling companion, Zachri, watched over the shoulders of two of the diminutive Vietnamese adults. As it dawned on him who was in that box in the ground, a terrible pain gripped his heart and raced upward; every heartbeat seeming to strike in his head with the force of a sledgehammer. He looked over at Zachri.
    “It feels like shards of glass in my skull and my heart but why? Wasn’t this was one of the dinks stationed in the war zone where I almost died? What are you doing to me?”
    “You were taught to believe the enemy is less than human.
    “ Now, for the first time, you are identifying with the very human pain of the relatives of a dead enemy.”
    “You said you’d help me.  Do you really think striking my heart is helping me; or them? I think it’s cruel.”
    “This is real, Mark. I am just showing you what happened beyond your field of vision.”
    “I wasn’t responsible for this! If that squad of dinks had not been killed, many more American military would have met his fate; so how do you expect me