Killed In Action

• Octavia Ison, Grade 7
• Short Story
• 2016

My father touched my face and looked me in the eye. "I know I can count on you Benjamin to look after your mother and Nelly" he hugged me his hat touched me softly on the head, he took one last look at me and knelt down and whispered in my ear "I love you so be brave my son please try".
I knew the awful truth about the Vietnam War I knew that in a week I could wake up to find my widowed mother in the kitchen crying her heart out for the man she had of loved so dear would have been taken from her, it would be so tragic how two parts of a countries hate would ruin someones love. But its the truth.
My father jumped on the back of a trailer along with my uncle and my cousin. My mother and aunt started crying and made their way inside. I stood their and breathed in the last of the fumes left in my fathers jacket he had given me earlier on it was the only evidence that he had been there before.
2 weeks past many letters from my father came and went and they were all kept in my mothers room on her nightstand. At night I would take them out and read them by the fire it was one of these nights. It was windy and I was snuggling up next to the low burning fire to keep warm from cold drafts coming under the door like a cold kiss from Jack Frost nipped at my toes. I was reading my fathers latest letter over and over again.
There was a large bang on the door which awoke my aunt and I was rushed off back to my bed. I heard them talking he asked for the family of my father and I already knew that I should have savoured the last moments of today. I cried myself to sleep that night and when I woke my mother was a crumpled pile on the floor. I sat beside her and read the letter.
It said many true words about my fathers bravery. I could imagine the whole way in which it happened.
there would be lost of shooting and smoke there would be scared men standing upon the rocking terrain with their blood rushing. The opposing army force in open fire my father running with his life but maybe it was the speed or maybe he was seen but without him knowing he was killed in action and we all had to pay for it.I thought about those words for a long time 'killed in action' three simple words but they are so powerful they are able to tear a family down and they could ruin someones life. My mother believes you have one true love in your life and now hers' is gone. I felt like my father before he died my heart was racing at a 100 beats a minut