I
always admired my grandfather’s courage. He had fought in the war on what we
nowadays think of as the wrong side, but he had never been a believer in the
cause. Sometimes a rifle is pressed in your hand and your choice is either to
fire and worry about being shot from the front, or not to fire and be sure that
you’ll be shot from behind.
He
was young when he was drafted, barely 16. Before he left he gave his first kiss
and a promise to a girl.
She waited five years until the end of the war,
surviving on just five or six letters that she kept as treasure.
