Easy for You to Say

That "one other thing" was that somewhere along the way someone decided that my wound had actually killed me, and my parents received the "We are sorry to inform you" letter. Because of things I didn't get around to writing home for about three weeks. I can only guess at what went on when Alice got a letter from me dated three weeks after I was reported killed in action. It was bad, according to the next letter I got from home. When Connie got the news she broke down and ran crying into her room and wouldn't come out of it for three days. When she finally did come out she was a mess. Her parents actually had her on a suicide watch after her mother heard her crying in the bathroom one morning and mumbling something that sounded like "If I can't be with him in life I'll be wi-." She didn't hear the rest but assumed it was "With him in death." Connie dropped out of school and wouldn't leave the house and spent most of the time in her room crying.

The rest of the family took it hard, but not as hard as Connie. For them, it wasn't anything they hadn't gone through before. Dad lost a brother and two cousins, and Mom lost a brother and an uncle in War II. A bit closer to home, maybe, but they had been through it and knew how to handle it. When they got my letter and knew I was really alive, Connie came out of her shell and told Alice to tell me that if I wanted my ring back then I was going to have to come home and personally pull it off of her finger.

I made two more runs under fire before the fighting was stopped due to what went on at Panmunjom. I still made runs to move supplies to the troops, but I never heard another shot fired.

*****

I finished my sixteen-month tour in Korea and was sent home. At Ft. Lewis, I was issued new uniforms and informed that I'd been promoted to E-4 (Corporal) and reassigned to Ft. Hood, Texas. I took thirty days of my accrued leave, and along with a ten-day delay in route, I headed for home.

The letters from Alice told me that Connie had stopped dating and hardly ever left the house except to go back to school. I called ahead and let them know I was coming and about what time I expected to be there, so I was not surprised to find a house full of people there waiting for me. Notably absent was Connie. Alice old me she was afraid to face me. After spending some time with the guests at our house (which included Connie's parents), I left the house and went next door to Connie's house, walked up to her room and knocked on the door. She opened it and before she could say or do anything I grabbed her left hand and pulled my ring off it. She looked at me shocked and started to tear up. I dropped down on my right knee and asked:

"Constance Marie Dennis, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?"

She started crying and when I stood up she threw herself at me, wrapped her arms around me and cried into my shoulder sobbing out, "Don't leave me; please don't ever leave me again."

After a bit I tried to pull apart, but she wouldn't let me go. She hugged me tighter. I finally said "Come on, sweetheart; we need to go and tell the moms to start planning the wedding."

"You mean it? You really mean it?"

"I do."

The same two words I said four months later in front of eighty-six family and friends.