The rain comes down in sheets on the window. Headlights blur. If I close my eyes a little, I can almost believe that I’m back in Alton, Illinois. That I’m sitting on the bluff overlooking the Mississippi River. In a few minutes, I’ll get on my bike and head home. I’ll have dinner with my family and afterwards call my girlfriend Sherri. Or maybe go hang out with Leith. It’ll be another quiet night on the river. Except that it won’t. Not now. Not ever. Ever again. My eyes come back into focus and the dim apartment comes back into view. Traffic flows on the rain grey streets. My new world now. My new river.
My name is Thomas Henry Doyle. I go by the nickname Tommy.
I was born 23 years ago in Alton, Illinois. My dad was a maintenance supervisor for Madison County. My mom, when she wasn’t chasing me and my brother and sister around the house was a substitute schoolteacher. She used to talk about going back to college to get her Masters degree. My dad always encouraged her. He believed in education. He believed in a lot of good things.
We had a nice old two story house not far from the bluffs. It was great. We had a yard with a big tree in it. During the summer, I’d sleep out on the porch just so I could watch the stars. I’d go down to the river and fish and walk the shore. It was that kind of life.
I went to my parish grade school and then onward to Bishop Beaumont High School. It was the same high school that my dad went to. I played football and basketball. I dated around until I met Sherri Dimarco and we were an item after that. All American. I was the quarterback on the football team and she was a cheerleader. We first made love in quiet spot on the bluffs above the river. The rushing waters were the music that we touched each other too. I remember when Leith found out he just smiled and said he’d pray for my soul. I asked to throw in a prayer that the condom worked. We both laughed.
I had it all figured out. I joined the Marines after graduation. My great-grandfather, Captain Henry Francis Doyle, was a decorated veteran of World War One. He won the Navy Cross at Belleau Wood and got a battlefield commission as well. He was killed in the Miami Hurricane of 1926. I would like to have known him. Maybe I will someday. Yea, I was going into the Corps. Spend four years on active duty. Get into Special Operations either as a Scout Sniper or Force Recon. Then I’d get out. Go to college. Go ROTC and then go back in as an officer and make a career out of it. If Sherri and I were still together, we’d get married. That was the plan. Sherri had gotten into Northwestern. She was doing pre-law. Leith was going for a theology degree. We all had a future.
The next sixteen weeks was continual roll of calisthenics, training, drill, and being told repeatedly that the better part of me ran down my mothers butt crack. It was pretty much what I expected. By the time I’d finished boot camp, my drill instructors had recommended me for a special leadership development course. I came back home on leave in October with orders for Afghanistan in my pocket. My family, Sherri and Leith all met me at the airport. It was great except for the part where I told Sherri that given that I was headed for a war zone it would be all right with me if she saw other guys. It was difficult to say but I felt I had to say it. We stood there on the bluff for a while just holding each other. She said she’d always be my friend. She also said that her parents were in favor of her finishing her education before she even thought of marriage and stuff. I understood. It was just one of those times where you move on like the river. You just move on.
I moved on toAfghanistan