His face is unlined, glasses gone, his hair thick, dark, but I recognize his concentration the forehead furrowed, and his arm, bent at the elbow, directing each beat, in front of his polished brass buttons. I could never picture him fighting in Germany, jagged, broken cities open to the sky, nor in the red mud of Korea, a whole batallion at his command. Mother told us of a classmate killed by sniper fire in Nam, but I could not picture him with a helmet or gun, weeping for his friend. I see him hunchbacked, the cursed Rigeletto, dragging the Duke of Mantua's body to the river, not knowing the heavy canvas sack holds his daughter, murdered.
Most kids have a treehouse or a swingset.
When I was six I had a foxhole to play in. It was four feet deep and eight feet long. Every house had one. I could jump over it. I could lie across it and make a bridge.