Joyce Oates - Carthage

Most of them soldiers like you, not officers. And all beloved of God, you’d wish to think.

For all are beloved of God. Even the enemy.

Just so, we must defend ourselves. A Christian must defend himself against the enemies of Christ.

This war against terror. It is a war against the enemies of Christ.

I know you did not want to kill anyone. I know you, my darling Brett, and I know this—you did not want to kill the enemy, or—anyone. But you were a soldier, this was your duty.

You were promoted because you were a good soldier. We were so proud of you then.

Your mother is proud of you, I wish she could show it better.

I wish she did not seem to blame me.

I am not sure why she would wish to blame me.

Maybe she thought I was—pregnant. Maybe she thought that was why we wanted to get married. And maybe she thought that was why you enlisted in the army—to get away.

I wish that I could speak with your mother but I—I have tried . . . I have tried and failed. Your mother does not like me.

My mother says We’ll keep trying! Mrs. Kincaid is fearful of losing her son.

I know that you don’t like me to talk about your mother—I am sorry, I will try not to. Only just sometimes, I feel so hurt.

I know, the war is a terrible thing for you to remember. When you start classes at Plattsburgh in September, or maybe—maybe it will be January—you will have other things to think about . . . By then, we will be married and things will be easier, in just one place.

I will take courses at Plattsburgh, too. I think I will. Part-time graduate school, in the M.A. in education program.

With a master’s degree I could teach high school English. I would be qualified for “administration”—Daddy thinks I should be a principal, one day.

Daddy has such plans for us! Both of us.

I WISH YOU would speak of it to me, dear Brett.

I’ve seen documentaries on TV. I think I know what it was like—in a way.

I know it was a “high” for you—I’ve heard you say to your friends. Search missions in the Iraqi homes when you didn’t know what would happen to you, or what you would do.

What you’d never say to me or to your mother you would say to Rod Halifax and “Stump”—or maybe you would say it to a stranger you met in a bar.

Another vet, you would speak with. Someone who didn’t know Corporal Brett Kincaid as he’d used to be.

There is no “high” like that in Carthage. Tossing your life like dice.

Our lives since high school—it’s like looking through the wrong end of a telescope, I guess—so small.

Those sad little cardboard houses beneath a Christmas tree, houses and a church and fake snow like frosting. Small.

EVEN OUR WOUNDS here are small.

IN CARTHAGE, your life is waiting for you. It is not a thrilling life like the other. It is not a life to serve Democracy like the other. You said such a strange thing when you saw us waiting for you by the baggage claim, we were thrilled you were walking unassisted and this look came in your face I had not ever seen before and it was like you were afraid of us for just a moment you said Oh Christ are you all still alive? I was thinking you were all dead. I’d been to the other place, and I saw you all there.

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