The Soldier's Journal

||Entry Six||

May 30th, 1945

I know it's only been a week, but I'm used to gettin' over things quickly. I have to. I've always been forced to move on in the blink of an eye. But I lost my closest buddy. Sure, I've lost people before. 

I lost Ross when this all started, and we were real close. But I got over that. Sure, I think about it from time to time, but we weren't as close as me and Dagle. We just got along so nicely, he was like my brother, ya know? I have night terrors about him a lot. Almost every night, actually. 

I dream about how he died. How he must've felt. What he would've looked like. How his breathing progressively got slower and shakier. Everything about his death, plays over and over again in my mind, and I wasn't even there. 

I didn't see him or anything. But my mind forces me to.  I got most of his Army belongings, and I don't think I'll ever get rid of them. I don't know how I could ever part with them, truth be told. Ya know, I stopped writin' in this journal, because I talked to Dagle about everything. 

I felt no need to scribble some words on some paper and lean on that for some mental stability. But now, he's not here anymore. I can't sit up late at night with Dagle and talk about everything wrong in our lives, and then end up laughin' about it. That's another thing – if I were to be vulnerable and open up to anyone else, they'd give me a sympathetic pat on the back and tell me "you'll be alright," when I obviously won't. Dagle and I would always end up laughin', and even makin' fun of ourselves. 

I don't know how, but we always ended up gettin' there at some point in the conversation. What am I supposed to do now? Laugh with a journal? Because that's just pathetic. A journal is good for a lot of things, but it's not good for late night laughs when ya need one. 

That was Dagle. And since he's gone now, and there's no one else to do that with, I'll just sit here and go to sleep.

As always,

– Edwin Myers