Just another morning. Just another paper. Even though Darry owns a construction business now and can make his own hours, he always wakes up early. He grabs the paper - sometimes just moments after it was thrown on his doorstep - makes some coffee, sits in his recliner and reads. Even when he was a kid, he always liked his hours to unwind.
This paper is supposed to be no different, but a few pages in, he stumbles across a large display of different-size black and white pictures. At first, his eyes just scan them quickly, almost ready to skip ahead, when the article title catches his attention: Photographer's Rare Photos of Oklahoma's Vietnam Soldiers Surface Years Later.
By now, almost every American has seen the famous "War is Hell" photograph, a presumably teenage Vietnam solider with the words hand-written on his helmet, staring intently at the camera with a whisper of a smile. His identity is still unknown. They say that a picture says a thousand words, and his says more. Darry remembers. He remembers that photo and what it symbolizes, so he looks at the faces of the others.
Some are group shots, and some are of individuals; high-ranking, low-ranking; young, old; black, white; poor quality, good quality; chipper, melancholy. There are all sorts of soldiers in all sorts of pictures. How this photographer knew they were all from Oklahoma is a mystery to him. Each has a caption or a label under it. "Strength in Numbers," "Defending Us," "Young Soldier," "In the Rain"...
"'Nam Kid."
His heart stops when he looks at the photo above that label. He more than recognizes "'Nam Kid." A handsome, smiling face, a young soldier with a confident posture and a reckless look in his eyes, not yet 20, not yet 19, to be specific. Sodapop.
Darry can hardly believe it. He closes his eyes and opens them again, but Soda hasn't disappeared from the photo, or turned into some soldier that he doesn't know.
Sure, there was always the slim possibility that Soda's picture could be there, being that they were only of soldiers from Oklahoma, but he only served for a few months before...
They don't have any pictures of him in Vietnam. Not a single one.
It's just Soda there, not with Steve or anyone else. He's in uniform, with his helmet hanging loose and sideways, his skin covered in dirt and his clothing tattered, his head angled gracefully to stare at the sky, which even in black and white, Darry can tell is a sunset. He anxiously reads the small description under Soda's picture. This young solider is called "'Nam Kid" because his photograph is considered larger than itself. They were many like him. He's a reminder, his picture timeless.
Darry never even considered that he'd find a picture of Soda until he saw it. For whatever reason, it just doesn't seem possible, like Soda ever being there is a dream, or some fleeting memory. He's been rewriting the way his little brother died in his head because even after all these years, even though he knows he has closure, Soda dying in Vietnam still seems impossible. Then again, him getting drafted seemed impossible at the time, but it happened.
Darry has a family now. It's been five years since the war ended, but he still lives in Tulsa. Ponyboy's close and recently married, writing novels a state over. Close enough. He visits often. It was hard, but they were determined not to drift apart after Soda died. They were all they had at the time, and Soda wouldn't have wanted it. They had to move past that pain they felt when they saw each other. They didn't let their relationship devolve into just a horrible reminder of the brother they lost. So, they honored him.
His photograph's like a trick, an impossible dichotomy. There he is - handsome, smiling, clear-eyed against the Vietnamese sunset, like all's not so bad, like the memories of the war, what he was going through at that moment were forgotten. Soda. Able to change the mood of everyone in the room with that same smile, even if he were faking it. But this one wasn't faked. Still, how could anyone have a genuine smile while at war? What was Soda thinking of when someone nabbed this shot of him where he looks so content?
September 2nd, 1967
Darry knows the date at the bottom right corner, only a few weeks before Soda was killed in this war, this same war in which he could crack a smile, dying two weeks before 19. The kid was always hard to pin down, even by his family. Who really knew all the wild, progressive thoughts going through his head? "Nam Kid". That was his name in the newspaper article. Either it was the author of the article's name for him, or the photographer's when he took it years ago. "Nam Kid," because Sodapop was the perfect image of a young soldier then, staring at the sky like he's trying to find his house from so far away. Whether his picture was supposed to be endearing or depressing, Darry doesn't know, but it makes him smile for some reason. He knows how that story would end, but he can rarely frown when Soda's smiling.
He doesn't know if he'll ever tell Ponyboy about it. He'll probably never see it, being that it's only something published in Tulsa's newspaper. Darry cuts out the picture of Soda and finds a safe place for it. Maybe Pony will stumble upon it when he visits, and they can talk about it then. Or maybe not.
His day passes the same as any other, but before he goes to bed, he calls Ponyboy. His little brother sounds tired, clearly working at different hours than him, but he needs to hear his voice. Checking up on him, like Soda would've wanted. Honoring him.
