One Day It Will Happen Read Free Page B

Roger’s artery to stop the bleeding.  The lieutenant looks him in the eye. “It's okay,” he mutters.  He pulls Chad’s hand away, giving him permission to return to his primary duty; to protect his country over protecting his friend.
    It's only a matter of moments before Chad glances over and notices Roger has lost consciousness. His face is ashen white and he is very near death now. This wasn't the way Chad wanted his deployment to end. He only had 8 more days to go before the fighting would end in here and they would send his battalion back home.  But he wasn't going to make it the last 8 days.
    Suddenly, a bullet tears through his arm.  Two more land behind him.  They are being sprayed with bullets.  He has just earned a one way ticket back home, albeit not at their scheduled deployment.  He needs to return fire, but he freezes.  His battalion is in danger.  The pain is overwhelming him.  He bites his trembling lip and braces himself.  His breath catches when the sand clears and he can see his assailant through the scope of his gun.  
    The assailant is just what he has feared.  It is a young boy who looks to be barely 14 years old.  He is hardly more than a baby.  Damn it.  Chad sees the boy aim towards him again.  Chad finally pulls the trigger of his gun and does the unthinkable to protect his own life.  The bullet hits its intended target, center mass, because Chad is a marksman.  He turns and slumps down behind cover, covering his shoulder and wincing in pain.  He looks over and his comrade purses his lips and shakes his head in dismay. 
    Back home in Virginia a month later, they give Chad a Purple Heart for being wounded and a bronze star for bravery in a big, important ceremony.  But he doesn’t deserve it.  He certainly doesn't feel important.  The truth is: Chad hardly feels human after killing a child in cold blood.  He doesn’t forgive himself just because the kid was shooting at him.  The kid was trained by bad people.  The kid hardly had much of a choice, given the rough circumstances he grew up in.  At least Chad had the choice to sign up to fight in a war.  He imagined that this kid was given a gun, but not many other choices in his short lifetime. 
    Civilian life isn't the same as it is in the military.  Chad doesn't remember quite how to act here after 3 subsequent deployments right after he joined the day of high school graduation.  He didn’t want to spend any more time in Virginia.  His parents could hardly feed a family of 7.    He had to find another way to make a living that didn't entail shooting an enemy in a foreign war.  He has to get an apartment and move out on his own instead of being under his parents’ roof and under their wing.  He has to make some friends along the way. 
    But how does he do all of those things when he feels so utterly broken.  His parents let him come back to live in their home, but he has been away for so long that he doesn't quite fit in there anymore. Ma and pay still treat him like a baby. They haven't found out what he has done in the war, and they haven't seen the things that Chad has seen.  They just wouldn’t understand if he told them.
    Chad’s mother and father try to help him get his first job shortly after their reunion.  His ma buys a nice, crisp business suit in his size.  It was terribly uncomfortable compared to the jeans and t-shirt he lounged around in at home.  Just like when he was with the ladies, he couldn't find the right words when he was interviewing with random employers.  They asked him dumb questions about why he wanted to work there.  Chad knew they would be happy if they would just hire him and let him prove himself.
    He couldn’t understand why they wanted all this paperwork and all these words.  Chad wasn't a complicated or sophisticated man.  His parents taught him to be humble and respectable.  It didn't help matters that he was never strong in his academics.  Most of his