Chapter 5: Close-ups

I had just finished taking a shower and was back in my room putting on my clothes when Susie knocked on my door.

“Uncle Charlie, are you decent?”

“Yes, you can come in,” I responded, pulling the hem of my T-shirt over my pants.

“You said you had some pictures of yourself and promised to show them to me.”

“Well, there really aren’t that many,” I replied as I went to remove from the top drawer of my dresser a vinyl covered planner where I kept my personal documents and notes, including a few pictures.

We sat at the edge of my bed. Susie looked on intently as I opened the planner, intrigued by what secrets it might hold.

“Wow, Uncle Charlie, were you afraid when you had to go fight the bad guys?” she asked seeing me in combat gear out on patrol somewhere in Iraq.

“Yes and, at the same time, no,” I tried to explain. “You always had to be on your guard and, if you and your buddies looked out for each other, chances were we didn’t get killed.”

Susie held and looked at the picture for several moments. “I think I know what you mean, and I’ll always look out for you.”

“Thanks Susie, that means a lot to me, and I promise I’ll always look out for you, too.”

I started putting the pictures away when Susie noticed there were more.

“I don’t think you should see those,” I said grinning.

“Why not?” Susie insisted.

“Well, you’re a girl. I’ll show you this one,” I conceded. It was a picture of our female driver showing a little too much of her cleavage.

“She’s pretty and looks a lot like Miss Hicks.” Susie looked me in the eyes and said, “Why do you have a picture of her? Was she your girlfriend?”

“No, she was a combat buddy, just like all the rest of the guys. When they put me in charge of packing up her stuff, I kept this picture as a reminder that not everyone returns home alive at the end of their mission.” With that said I lost my composure and for the first time I actually started to cry, remembering the moment when I had to carry her dead body away from the burning Humvee.

“I’m sorry, Uncle Charlie.”

“Me too,” I said wiping away a tear in my eye.

“And what about that picture?” she asked.

“Well, Susie, I hope you don’t freak out, but this too is a reality of war.”

She gasped and quickly covered her eyes, then looked at the picture again. “Oh, my God, is that really you naked?”

“I was taking a bath with a basin of water after a long week out in the hot desert. Just being able to get out of our sand filled clothes was a relief,” I explained as she studied the obvious details of the picture. “Ok, you’ve seen enough of me for one day. Give me back the picture.”

“Don’t you have any pictures of yourself when you were little?” she asked.

“I kept one my mother took of me when I was ten. Let’s see. Here it is.”

“That’s a funny picture,” Susie giggled. “What were you doing?”