You had been in Washington DC and on one day had gone
and seen some of the sights around town. It was late in the
afternoon when you reached the Vietnam War Wall, with all the
names of those who died or who where missing.

You had been looking at the names when you noticed
an old man off to one side. He was dressed in what was left
of a uniform, he was looking at the names, he reached out
and touched one name and a sadness come to his face and tears
fell to the ground. He then turned away and as he did so your
eyes met with his and in them a fire burned almost as bright
as the sun. He walked up to you, he handed you a packet,
"This is all that is left of my son, I want you to take it
home and look in it and the rest will be left to you". He
turned, took a step and died as he fell to the ground in from
of his sons name.

That night on the news there was a short note about
an old man who had died by the wall and by his ID, his sons
name was at the place he had died, that he had no other living
people. You looked over at the table where the package sat,
walking over to it, you had to wonder what was in it.

Opening it up you found the paperwork to access a
bank account, to pay for him to be creamented, and the paperwork
to take his ashs to vietnam.

Months later you found yourself getting out of a car
by a large open field, the driver said he'd return in an hour and
he drove off. You walked out into the field, you had already noticed
that none of the local farmers used this land, that only low
brush and wildflowers grew there now. But by the map you held you
knew that you where standing in the place where the 4th Inf. base
camp, this was where the mans son had died in battle but his body
had never been returned home. For a short while you just stood
there, then you looked at the sun, it was just starting to set in
the west, Dragon Mountain seemed to become a tall flame, you reached
down and opened the box and let the mans ashs fall into the wind
and to the ground. Just as the last rays of the sun started to fade
it happened, the wind died away, but the sound of taps being played
floating across the field, you look around and there standing on
a buncker was a young man with nothing but pants and a flack jacket
on, as he stood there another image formed beside him, it was the
old man and he had on a battle uniform from WWWII, they both turned
to a flag pole where the flag of the USA was slowly going down.

Then it all faded away, and you where left standing in the
field, you looked and the headlights of the car was coming down
the road, so you walked to it and as it pulled up, you got in and
it turned around and headed back.

A week later you stood at the wall again, and you laid down
some pressed flowers you had picked in that field, no one else was
around as the day had been a rainy and cold one, but you had needed
to go there. As you looked up, the name blazed and the image of father
and son looked at you and smiled. They faded away and you knew that
they where together now and they would stand guard in that field until
the end of time itself. You would never forget them either.



--
The Lone Sidewalk Astronomer of Rosamond

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