Vietnam

I suddenly remembered a grade school chum and put his name into a Google window. I wondered what had happened since I last saw him. Perhaps he was a famous author, a musician or, maybe a scientist. I remembered him wanting to be all of those things at one time or another. Perhaps his dreams had come true. The last time I saw him, he was on the way to boot camp. The Hampshire County Draft Board was decimating all the small towns, leaving the big cities intact. Soon, all the draft-age boys from the villages would be sent off to war, while the children of the prominent city businessmen would remain secure. It did not seem fair, but that is the way it was in the sixties.

I scanned the names and information returned from my Internet search. Too many with that name had already died. Many were killed in Vietnam. I searched another page then stopped. I did not want to go on. I could not bear the thought that he might be dead as many of my other childhood friends. It would be better for him to remain alive in my memories than to be shown dead by the Web. I closed the window. He will remain alive forever.

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