about it. With Jazzy laid up and unable to solicit more, they were reduced to the crappy stuff again. John couldn’t even use pouring himself a cup now to procrastinate getting on the computer because this stuff was barely worth drinking.
John sighed, hearing in his head Jazzy’s voice saying, You could thank her for the coffee. Summer at summer winters dot com .
“Okay, dammit.” He sat at the nearest available console as the three men on the other computers glanced up to see what all the mumbling was about. John was not about to tell them that he was arguing with his friend in his head.
John logged into his military email account, the only one he had, the same one he’d had since joining up so many years ago. Jazzy always teased him about the fact he’d never opened a personal email account. Not a Hotmail or a Yahoo or whatever the hell else everyone used nowadays. Why should he? The army.mil address the military had provided him when he signed on worked just fine for his purposes, that being the few times he needed to send official correspondence, such as now. He justified writing this message to this pen pal —he hated even saying the words—as nothing more than an official duty of a superior officer to help out his injured crewman.
John had written too many letters of condolence to the families of fallen soldiers, twenty to be exact. It was a dreaded but necessary part of war. This, however, would be John’s first email to a pen pal. He sighed, bowed his head, thought for a minute and then set to work.
Dear Ms. Winters.
He stifled the urge to roll his eyes at the obviously fake name he was being forced to use for this missive that his supposed friend had coerced him into writing in the first place.
I regret to inform you SPC Joshua Zipkin was wounded during a mission.
Sincerely,
SSG John Blake
There. That about covered it. Reading the email over one more time, he verified there were no typos and then hit send, relieved that particularly nasty duty was done.
In the meantime, he realized he needed to order himself some underwear and socks. At this rate, with the laundry service losing things as fast as he dropped them off at the quartermaster’s, he would be going commando. John was about to search for an online retailer that would ship to a military address when into his inbox popped the last thing he expected to see—a response from Summer Winters.
With a feeling of dread, he opened the email.
Oh my God. I knew something was wrong when I didn’t hear from him. Please, is there anything more you can tell me? Is he all right? He must be if he asked you to email me, right? But he must be very hurt if he could not email himself. Is he in the hospital? Did they send him back to Germany? I know how busy you are, but I am going crazy here. Please, please, please write back if you can.
Summer
John leaned back in his chair and stared at the screen. Hindsight was twenty-twenty. All his good intentions had done was manage to upset the girl. Now what?
Then John realized that his image of Summer Winters had suddenly changed in his mind yet again. She had gone from his first impression of little old lady do-gooder sex novelist to a concerned young woman. When had that happened? He glanced at the email again and decided it was because she sounded young when she wrote. Like a worried high school girl. Although he certainly hoped she was older than that considering what she wrote. She must be in her twenties.
But all this pondering didn’t solve the issue that he had to respond to her and fix what he had done. He hadn’t wanted to write her the first time. Now, because of his screw up, he had to write to her again.
Deciding the road to hell was paved with good intentions, he hit Reply and faced his penance.
Ms. Winters,
Jazzy was severely wounded when a vehicle-born IED exploded in his vicinity during a mission. His condition is stable. However, he remains hospitalized here in Iraq for the time being. You
John sighed, hearing in his head Jazzy’s voice saying, You could thank her for the coffee. Summer at summer winters dot com .
“Okay, dammit.” He sat at the nearest available console as the three men on the other computers glanced up to see what all the mumbling was about. John was not about to tell them that he was arguing with his friend in his head.
John logged into his military email account, the only one he had, the same one he’d had since joining up so many years ago. Jazzy always teased him about the fact he’d never opened a personal email account. Not a Hotmail or a Yahoo or whatever the hell else everyone used nowadays. Why should he? The army.mil address the military had provided him when he signed on worked just fine for his purposes, that being the few times he needed to send official correspondence, such as now. He justified writing this message to this pen pal —he hated even saying the words—as nothing more than an official duty of a superior officer to help out his injured crewman.
John had written too many letters of condolence to the families of fallen soldiers, twenty to be exact. It was a dreaded but necessary part of war. This, however, would be John’s first email to a pen pal. He sighed, bowed his head, thought for a minute and then set to work.
Dear Ms. Winters.
He stifled the urge to roll his eyes at the obviously fake name he was being forced to use for this missive that his supposed friend had coerced him into writing in the first place.
I regret to inform you SPC Joshua Zipkin was wounded during a mission.
Sincerely,
SSG John Blake
There. That about covered it. Reading the email over one more time, he verified there were no typos and then hit send, relieved that particularly nasty duty was done.
In the meantime, he realized he needed to order himself some underwear and socks. At this rate, with the laundry service losing things as fast as he dropped them off at the quartermaster’s, he would be going commando. John was about to search for an online retailer that would ship to a military address when into his inbox popped the last thing he expected to see—a response from Summer Winters.
With a feeling of dread, he opened the email.
Oh my God. I knew something was wrong when I didn’t hear from him. Please, is there anything more you can tell me? Is he all right? He must be if he asked you to email me, right? But he must be very hurt if he could not email himself. Is he in the hospital? Did they send him back to Germany? I know how busy you are, but I am going crazy here. Please, please, please write back if you can.
Summer
John leaned back in his chair and stared at the screen. Hindsight was twenty-twenty. All his good intentions had done was manage to upset the girl. Now what?
Then John realized that his image of Summer Winters had suddenly changed in his mind yet again. She had gone from his first impression of little old lady do-gooder sex novelist to a concerned young woman. When had that happened? He glanced at the email again and decided it was because she sounded young when she wrote. Like a worried high school girl. Although he certainly hoped she was older than that considering what she wrote. She must be in her twenties.
But all this pondering didn’t solve the issue that he had to respond to her and fix what he had done. He hadn’t wanted to write her the first time. Now, because of his screw up, he had to write to her again.
Deciding the road to hell was paved with good intentions, he hit Reply and faced his penance.
Ms. Winters,
Jazzy was severely wounded when a vehicle-born IED exploded in his vicinity during a mission. His condition is stable. However, he remains hospitalized here in Iraq for the time being. You
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