A Soldier's Guide to Single Parenting

Protecting the Family Part 3

I used to love Saturday mornings but that was before the drinking took hold of me. Weekends were a disruption I could do without. No work meant having to stay home and do real work, like fixing fences. I listened to my elderly neighbor Fred, bang in nails from eight o'clock that morning. It put me in a foul mood as I watched him from my bedroom window, aiming an imaginary rifle at his balding head.

I had taken similar shots in real life to kill people who I never knew and felt good about it afterward. They were the enemy and that's what we were there for. What we were paid to do. That's what I had to keep telling myself anyway.

I had lost touch with most of the buddies I made in the army, but there were a couple who remained good friends. One of them was now a police detective working downtown. His name was Richard but in Vietnam he was Rizzo.

He was with me and a guy called Connor in 1967 when we were discovered by the NVA five miles inside the de-militarized zone. We were part of the 5th Special Forces Group on a long-range reconnaissance patrol and we should have been killed that day for sure. We were pinned down in a foxhole by enemy fire; bullets whistling over our heads, and ripping into the ground around us. I was just three weeks away from finishing my second and final tour of duty and it's difficult to believe now how we could have survived.

Connor was killed but Rizzo and I somehow made it out and in the ensuing chaos managed to earn ourselves a Medal of Honor. Friends made in the heat battle are friends forever, and Rizzo and I would still meet up regularly for a drink or a meal. He came to Kate's funeral and visited me a couple of times since, but I hadn't seen him in over a month. The last I heard, his wife had left him.

I made a mental note to contact Rizzo as I watched Fred floundering with a hammer before heading downstairs. For a skilled carpenter who had once worked for the Queen of England, Fred didn't look very much at home with a hammer and nails but I put it down to his advancing years.

Feeling hungry, there was more bad news when I opened the fridge. Milk, eggs, raspberry jelly but that was it. There was a time when it was packed full of food.

"If you're looking for something to eat, then you're out of luck," said Suzanne.

"Where the hell has everything gone? I only went shopping in the week."

"No you didn't," said Jon. "It was the week before. You haven't done any grocery shopping for ages." I didn't know Jon was there, but I might have known he would show up at the mention of food. He was wearing his baseball uniform. More expense.

"I need some money. My allowance, plus the annual club fee."

The annual club fee. Thirty dollars was a lot for a year of baseball and the coach wasn't that good. I had forty bucks in my wallet but we needed food.

"Tell him that I'll pay it next week." He rolled his eyes at me and grumbled as he held out his hand for his allowance and I gave it to him in quarters and dimes. "That's all I got Jon, I need this for food. Looks like I'm going shopping today." It seemed as if that was all I did lately. They were eating it faster than I could buy it.

"I need a ride too."

I hit my head against the fridge in frustration.

"When?"

"Now, or I'm gonna be late," he said before walking over to his sister and kissing her on the cheek.

She smiled but looked confused. "What was that for?"

"For cleaning my uniform."

I thought it was a sweet gesture as well as a cunning move. Keep sis happy and she keeps his uniform clean. She could see straight through him but played along.