[The following takes place during World War II.]
Mike Strank returned to Franklin Borough worn out by battle and a case of malaria he had contracted on Bougainville.
His friends Mike and Eva Slazich took him out for an evening on the town. They saw a movie, a war movie. Slazich asked his friend what he thought of the movie. Mike Strank remarked quietly, “It isn’t really like that.”
At the end of the evening Mike turned to his friend and said, “I doubt if I’ll ever see you again. I don’t think I’ll be coming back.”
”Don’t say that!” replied a shocked Slazich.
Mike was sure that his next battle would be his last.
[…]
[Later] Mike, tired from Malaria, convinced he would never come home again, looked into the eyes of the father he would soon leave for good and said: “Dad, there’s a war going on out there. Young boys are fighting that war. And Dad… they need my help.”
Before departing Franklin Borough for his cross-country trek back to the Pacific, Mike took his little sister aside. He urged her to keep goading their parents, so tentative with the English language, to keep writing letters to him.
”Keep those letters coming,” he urged eleven-year-old Mary. “You might not get an answer, but keep ‘em coming.” Shortly after that he was gone. Little Mary would never see her big brother again.
Source:
Bradley, James, and Ron Powers. “Call of Dity.” Flags of Our Fathers. Bantam Dell, a Division of Random House, Inc., 2006. 91-2. Print.
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