Father talked about the Great War only once, when I was eight. He caught me out in the woods poking at a dog with my Red Racer pellet gun. I didn’t kill it, but he wouldn’t listen. He yelled at me about not respecting life. About death. Father had never raised his voice at me but this one time, when he told me of having to shoot blindly into the fog and finding later a child laying in the street. Of looking into your brother’s eyes as he begs you to end his pain. Of all the blood and guilt and misery that happens when you pull the trigger. I couldn’t bear to look anywhere but my feet. When he left, I buried the dog as well as I could, and I left the Red Racer down with it. I have never killed anything in my lifetime, and I thank my father for doing what he did so that I would never have to.
