Shattered Image by J.F. Margos Read Free Book Online

a posthumous Purple Heart and qualify for burial in Arlington National Cemetery. His family would have closure and his fellow American citizens would lay him to rest with full military honors. It seemed a cheap price for the life of such a man and it was long overdue, but it was more than a man like Ted Nikolaides would have ever expected or asked for his service. But then, that is the hero’s way and my friend Ted had been a hero long before he ever gave his life for his country.
    Sergeant Major Tomlinson and I agreed that I would arrive in Honolulu at Hickham Air Force Base next week to begin my work. I would make my own travel arrangements.
     
    It was three in the morning. I sat on the patio behind my house, barefoot, wearing my jeans and a pullover sweatshirt, with a mug of root beer in my hand. I was slumped down in an Adirondack chair gazing up at the stars and the elliptical track above me. I had picked out a couple of planets, but couldn’t remember which one was Mars and which one Venus. My brain was otherwise occupied and all other data had slipped off-line.
    Teddy Nikolaides had great teeth and a brilliant smile to show them off. His smile was broad, engaging and completely sincere—consequently, it was absolutely mesmerizing. It was painful at this point to remember the joy of that smile.
    The last day I saw Ted was supposed to be his last day in Vietnam, not his last day on this side of life. The weatherhad been incredible that day. Ted had orders to go home. He was supposed to leave for Saigon and then go on to Hawaii, where he would change planes and continue back to the mainland—to Chicago. There he would be with his beautiful Irini and their two children, Eleni and Gregory. Eleni was four and Gregory was almost two.
    From the moment he got up that day, Ted had been more energetic than usual. He had been jubilant. He had to fly one more mission and it was supposed to be a short one, and then he was leaving. Before he boarded the plane, he had come to say goodbye to Jack and me. He wasn’t sure there would be time when he got back before he headed off for Saigon. The three of us talked of Ted’s trip home, of how Jack and I would get together with Ted and Irini in the States, and of all the incredibly good times we knew the four of us would have together. Ted was talking of moving his family from Chicago to Texas. He and Irini had already discussed it. Irini and I had talked on the phone and began to write one another. She wanted to move, to live in a place that was more like her home country.
    As the three of us finished our conversation, there was a moment where sorrow almost overcame us, but Ted wouldn’t allow it.
    “No tears,” he had said. “There will be such good times for all of us, and it will be soon.”
    We all hugged and laughed as Ted made jokes. He walked out to his plane and climbed on board, pulled on his helmet and raised his hand high in one final greeting, beaming his beautiful joyous smile.
    I tilted the mug over my lip and let the carbonated beverage flow in a long swallow. It was my second glass. In spite of the hour, I was seriously considering a third. Afterthe two reconstructs I had done for CILHI, I knew what to expect in terms of remains. The skulls I had worked on previously had been put together from pieces—lots of pieces. The one on which I would do the reconstruct this time was only in five pieces. The forensic anthropologist had put them back together already. Apparently, the only reason there were pieces of the skull to reconstruct was due to some fluke of protection that had been offered by the pilot’s helmet, and the nature of the crash.
    All that was left were just pieces of bones, bones of those long dead—dry bones.
    I laid my head back against the chair and whispered, “Dry bones…”
    I thought about death and life, about dry bones and prophecies of resurrection and the words of the prophet Ezekiel flowed into my mind: “The hand of the Lord was upon