War Letters: Please Don't Worry

Dear Mom and Dad,

        I miss you. I miss home. Everything is different here. Everything is raw and real, too raw, and too real. The ground is red and muddy, and it sticks to your clothes, to your boots, it smudges and stains. The landscape is green and beautiful. The people are strong, and rough, and resigned to whatever fate may bring. The deaths are short and quick, and irrelevant—day to day occurrences. People are shot, blown up, slaughtered. The reality of death seems tangible, because at home you know people die everyday but when they do they are mourned for and grieved for, and you weep because it was unexpected. But here we seem to carry expiration dates. The ground keeps smudging and the birds keep chirping, and after the body of your friend is picked up by the helicopter you and your buddies grab your things and keep on walking. The faces don't change, mission isn't cancelled, death is what it has always been: inevitable.

         You find yourself doing things you never thought you would. Things you never want to speak of again because when you flashback to that time and that place you get chills down your spine, and you are suddenly cold, and full of regrets, and find yourself grasping at anything that will take the memory away. This is not a battle we are fighting for our country, but for ourselves, for our loved ones, this a matter of survival. You shoot to scare the evils away, to keep yourself safe.

          I know the last two paragraphs have scared you, I know they have worried you. But I am asking you not to, not to worry, not to be frightened. I am fine, I'll make it out of here. I know I can. In a few months I'll go back home. I'll get on with my life, go to college... I don't know, but I'll make it, for you.

Love,

Maria Gabriela

 * I chose to write to my parents because of how important they are in my life, I'm an only child and I know that if I went to war I would write to them.

I chose to tell them what is really going on because I feel they should know

I may have exaggerated the hope I have in myself because I wouldn't want them to get too worried, the fact that I am scared wouldn't have helped them.