The Color Blue

Chapter Ten - Dear London

“Dear London,

I arrived in Afghanistan three days ago and not much has happened since then. We’ve done a lot of training and drills, but besides that, nothing too exciting has happened yet.

For training and organizing purposes, everyone here is split up into small teams and each team has eight to ten members. You train with your team, fight with your team, eat with them, and sleep in the same area as them. Basically, your team becomes like your family. I’m telling you this because I might as well tell you about the members of my team. Stories about them will probably end up in a lot of my letters.

First off, there’s Dex Lazaro. Dex is my best friend out here. I’ve known him since I first got recruited. He’s one of those people who are the right balance of fun and serious. He’s a major prankster at base, but out in the field it’s all business. Shortly after we met in training, we found out that we even went to the same high school. Funny how that is, how you can go to the same place every day for four years and still not know someone who might have been just around the corner the whole time.

The oldest one in our group is Alex West. He’s been in the service for almost seven years. He’s got a wife and two children back home in Oregon whom he talks about all the time. He can’t wait to go back home to them, but says he won’t resign until he really feels like he’s done something really important.

Then there’s Jed Boone. He has made being in the army his life-time career and says that he won’t retire until he’s dead. He’s a really reserved person and doesn’t talk about his home life at all. We joke that he has one of those dramatic back stories that you hear in movies.  Jed is nice enough, but he’s strictly business all the time. Every once in a while, though, if you’re lucky, you can catch him smirk at one of the guys’ jokes.

Zachary Steele is a character straight from a movie. He’s smooth, he’s got “charming good looks”; he’s a classic player. He’s successfully wooed most of the girls here and three times that many back in his hometown.

Juliette Gonzales-Lazaro is the only girl who won’t give Zachary the time of day. Her heart belongs to Dex. Juliette is certainly one of a kind. She’s fiery, spirited, and the toughest chick on this side of the globe. It took a year for Dex to convince her to marry him. They held a small ceremony here in Afghanistan just a couple months ago.

We’ve got two guys in our group that are fresh off the boat. They joined our squad after one soldier was promoted and another retired. Shaun Grey is as the exact opposite of someone who you would think would join the army. He’s clumsy, forgetful, and as gentle as a lamb. He said that his father put him in military school when he was younger in hopes of toughening him up, but to no avail. He joined the army after he graduated just to get away from his father. Don’t get me wrong, though, he’s an excellent soldier. God knows he’s had my back more than once.

Jack Damon, our other newbie, is a fine soldier. He’s the type that lives by the rule “respect and be respected”. His great grandfather was in the service, his grandfather after him, his father served in the navy, and now it’s his turn to keep the Damon legacy in tact. He’s a fantastic soldier and an even better husband. He describes his wife, Linda, as “the perfect combination of spicy and lovely. She’s my everything.” He just told us yesterday that he received a letter from her telling him that she’s expecting their first child.

The last guy in our group is new to the squad. He’s been in the service for a couple years, but he was relocated to a different troop because of “inappropriate behavior towards other squad members and authority”. You’ll never guess who it is: your cousin, Damien! He sleeps on the bunk above me and he’s as cool of a guy as I remember.  He told me to tell you to reassure your aunt that he’s fine.