THE MEN WHO SAVED THE WORLD

“Move it, grandpa!” Shout some running boys as they bump into the old man waddling down the middle of the mall.
“Grandpa?” he says stumbling back. “Ask me about my grandchildren, you damn punks.”
Gravity seems to be pulling the old man down to the ground, as he slides slouching against the Walden Books’ window. Old age lowers you closer and closer to the earth till it puts you six feet under. Gravity is the lever.
The young man bear hugs his bride like he’ll never let her go, their hearts beating together so loudly it seems like they share one chest. She’s sobbing as he strokes her long black hair and whispers that he loves her over and over again. Tears trickle down his cheeks too, as he kisses her wet quivering lips.
The old man zooms along at 47 miles an hour in a 65 mile zone, where everyone’s going 70 to75. Cars honk and swerve around him as he clutches the steering wheel and stares straight ahead. He’s just too slow for this fast paced world.
The young man is quick and strong as he sweats his way though boot camp. He sleeps with his rifle, but dreams about his wife, who he writes to every other day. He doesn’t know when he’ll ship out, but hopes to get a leave to go home before. He misses his wife so much.
The old man sleeps alone in his king size bed, his wife of 52 years having died of cancer the Christmas before last. Sometimes, just before he slips into sleep, he can still feel her in their bed. His misses his wife so much.
It’s the end of the young man’s ten day leave. He’s saying goodbye to his weeping wife at the train station. Their life together has just been a series of long goodbyes. One minute he’s a farm boy and the next he’s a soldier sailing overseas. Life just goes too fast for him. He’d like to stop it for a moment, put it on his front porch and lazily watch the day drift by, while snuggling with his baby.
The old man moves even slower since his operation. He’s now up to almost 30 pills a day, just to keep going more slowly. He’s been hospitalized three times in the last two years. His body just shuts down regularly for repairs now. His kids call, but the closest one is 890 miles away, so they’re a helluva lot of help, he thinks. Everyone he loves is just so far away, with his wife the farthest.
The young man lands in England. It’s jumping and jiving with Yanks. He’s stationed at RAF Bentwaters, with his wife far away in the states. He walks around the base at night waiting and wondering. They all do. Nobody sleeps at night.
The old man gets up about a dozen times a night to hurry to the bathroom and wait for something to happen. As he’s shrunk in size, his prostate has grown larger. It’s one of old age’s ironies that he’s now enjoying.
They’re launching tomorrow. The young man’s just gotten his orders. He writes his pregnant wife one last letter telling her it might be a while before she hears from him again and that he loves her so much.
The old man uses his cane to walk to the McDonalds on the corner to get his free cup of breakfast coffee for senior citizens. He sits in a sunny booth watching the people come and go, go and come. With the warmth of the morning sun on his shoulders, he closes his eyes and quietly remembers.
The noise is deafening with the roar of the engines, the shelling and the swelling sea. All the men are either praying or throwing up, as the waves toss them about in the boat like a giant game of jacks.
The landing craft door drops open and the air is alive with zipping bullets flying overhead and into helmets, killing men instantly. Bodies fall and leap into the surging surf, with everyone still alive scrambling for the sand.
The young man is surging with adrenalin and shock, just trying to dodge the bullets and burrow himself into the beach like a sand crab. A GI to his right is blown in half, another in a daze searches for his shot off arm and a third tries to stuff his spilling guts back into the huge hole in his belly. They are all in hell on Omaha Beach. It is D-Day.
The old man stops taking his medicine and is discovered three days after he dies by the smell. He wasn’t needed any more, like he was before back in ’44, when he was a young man helping to save the world. Happy Veteran’s Day.