Part 8 – “The Last Uniform”
Robert laid the uniform across the bed.
The fabric was thinner than he remembered—time and moths had softened its edges. The medals pinned to the left chest had dulled, their once-shining brass now muted to a brown-gold hue.
Max sat in the doorway, watching him with quiet eyes.
Lena stood behind her father, uncertain. “You’re sure you want to wear that?”
He nodded. “It’s not for parade. It’s for memory.”
She didn’t press. Just helped him into the jacket, button by slow button.
It barely fit now—his body had shrunk, curved inward by time and bones that no longer held him with soldier’s strength.
The pants stayed folded on the bed. His knees couldn’t take them anymore.
“I’ll sit,” he said. “Not march.”
She smiled softly. “That’s okay. You’ve marched enough.”
The event was small. Local. A ceremony at the veterans’ hall downtown. A wreath, a prayer, a list of names.
Robert hadn’t attended in years.
But this time, he asked Lena to drive him.
He brought Max, of course—service vest on, a small tag hanging from the collar that read “Bataan Companion.”
People greeted them gently, with the hush of reverence saved for survivors of distant pain.
One young man—barely twenty—saluted him. “Sir, thank you.”
Robert returned it, stiff but firm. “Thank you for remembering.”
The names began. One by one.
Some he recognized.
One made him flinch.
Silvano Reyes.
He hadn’t expected it.
Lena had submitted it on his behalf.
He looked at her, tears in his eyes.
“I didn’t think anyone would say it out loud again.”
She squeezed his hand. “Now they will every year.”
1945 – The Ship Home
Robert sat on the deck of the hospital ship bound for San Francisco.
He weighed 112 pounds.
He was twenty-four.
The ocean shimmered like a second sky, and the men around him spoke of farms, sweethearts, baseball.
Robert said little.
He clutched Silvano’s tag in his fist and stared toward the East—the direction they had come from, where so many stayed behind.
He had tried writing to Silvano’s sister once, from the hospital.
But he never finished the letter.
What do you say to someone when your survival cost them a brother?
Back home in Missouri, Robert’s body gave him another sharp reminder that it was failing.
His hip locked while stepping into the porch. Lena helped him sit.
“That’s the third time this month,” she said. “You need to rest.”
“I’m resting every minute I’m not dreaming.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Good dreams?”
He shook his head. “Dust. Heat. Men falling like dominoes. I wake up tired.”
Max rested his head on Robert’s foot, anchoring him.
Robert sighed. “When you survive something like that, people think you get peace. But it’s not peace. It’s permission to carry the weight longer.”
That evening, Lena placed a small package on his lap.
“What’s this?”
“It came from Elena. Chicago.”
He opened it slowly, his hands trembling.
Inside: a photograph—colorized from an old black-and-white print. Silvano in uniform. Smiling, head cocked to one side.
And a poem.
Handwritten.
“March if you must, but leave no soul behind—
For even feet that stop still leave prints in the mind.”
Tears slid down Robert’s cheeks before he realized they had started.
“She said he wrote that,” Lena whispered.
He nodded, holding the poem like scripture.
That night, after Lena had gone to bed, Robert sat by the fire in his uniform shirt.
Max was curled beside him.
He spoke softly, voice nearly gone.
“You stayed with me, Silvano. Every step. Every time I wanted to fall.”
The flames cracked. Outside, wind whispered through the trees.
Max stirred but did not rise.
Robert closed his eyes.
Then whispered one last promise:
“I’ll walk the rest of it for both of us.”