> Dave: Join the army.
Except that was exactly what happened. It turned out Dirk Strider had the reflexes to fly a plane and the wits, even with his eighth grade education, to pass every test the air force could throw at him. Still, it wasn’t a huge change. He’d go to the base, come back, throw some leftovers in the oven for the both of you and that was that. It became a daily routine. War broke out in Europe, and from what you bothered to read about it in the news, it sounded like bad business, but it didn’t involve you. Roosevelt had said America wasn’t going to be in the fight.
Then they bombed Pearl Harbor.
When your bro shipped out to Mississippi to join the Second Air Force, you didn’t cry or even hug him. You weren’t a little kid anymore, after all. He didn’t seem too wrecked over it, either – just promised to bring you back a swell souvenir, like maybe some exotic Asian booze or something, or if you were lucky, a real samurai sword.
Just before he turned his back on you for the huge monstrosity of plane that had been sent to collect all the worthy young men Texas could produce, though, he slipped his aviators off and tucked them into your pocket. To hold you over, he said, until he could get you something better. He’d bought them immediately after making the cut for the air force. Your bro was proud as hell of those glasses. You didn’t cry saying goodbye to him, but you almost did, right then, being an adult and the fact that you’d see him again in a year or maybe two at the outside be damned.
The letter came six months later.
His plane had gone down in the Pacific, off the coast of Okinawa. The official designation was “M.I.A.” – missing in action. That was the worst part; they never said “dead”. Wouldn’t even give you that, the bitter closure of at least knowing. There were some words about how he had done a service to his country and an honor to his family. At the bottom, below the haphazardly scrawled signature (how many of these letters got signed, stamped and sent out in a day? it had never occurred to you to wonder before), was a phone number and an address.
You showed up at the recruiting station at 8 a.m. sharp the next morning, your bro’s aviators firmly seated atop your nose and a grim determination in your face.