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Weekend Writing Warriors 6/16 #8sunday

Skipping ahead a bit, today’s excerpt is from the third of five connected stories, each about a different generation of guys in a military family.  Today’s is about Artie, Joop from last week’s grandson, who is less than thrilled to be drafted and headed to Vietnam. It’s especially hard for him because his grandfather was in WWI, his father was in WWII, and his older brother John is about to head off on his second voluntary tour of Vietnam.

In this scene, John has called Artie a coward for not wanting to be a soldier.

“I don’t want to die for something I don’t agree with, John. I wanna stay here, with Gina. I wanna be alive for my kids, to be able to fight for them. If that makes me a coward, then yeah, I guess I’m a coward. I’m proud to be a coward.” Artie stared his brother straight in the eyes. “There ain’t nothing brave about being all tough on the outside if there’s nothing tough on the inside.”

Quicker than Artie could react, John punched him square in the jaw.

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7 Comments

  1. Well I didn’t see John’s response coming but it makes sense. I feel for both these guys. So well written, as always.

  2. An excellent excerpt and always sad when brothers have such different views…

  3. Very nicely done, and very brave for Artie to admit to. I applaud him for having the courage to stand up to his brother like that. Fantastic snippet !

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  5. Umm….John took that personally, didn’t he? The draft was tough on some people. Maybe John didn’t have a wife and children. (Sorry, I needed to edit my punctuation.

  6. I totally agree with Artie. Courage has nothing to do with throwing your life away. People need to fight for what they believe in. Terrific snippet.

  7. An excellent expression of both their views there.

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