When Matthew Klein, Jr. had heard about the attack on Pearl Harbor, he knew that he had to sign up as soon as he could. It was the good and honorable thing to do.
The next day after the bombing on Pearl Harbor, Matthew went to go sign up with a few of his buddies. Matthew signed up to be a part of the Marines, who were said to be the toughest of them all. Matthew wanted to be with them. He wanted to fight.
Matthew was only nineteen when he signed up to be a part of World War II.
After he told his family about what he had done, Matthew received three different reactions: silence, sobbing, and anger. The silence came from his father and his youngest sister. His mother and youngest brother began to cry (however their mother reacted, the youngest Klein would act the same way). The anger came from his other sister.
When Madison Klein heard what her brother had said, she stomped upstairs. Matthew heard the door to her bedroom slammed closed. This took their father and Morgan—who was Madison's twin—out of their trances.
"Where did Madison go?" Morgan asked, looking around.
Matthew sighed. "She went upstairs. She's mad at me."
Without saying anything else, Matthew went upstairs to his sisters' room. He knocked on the door once, twice. She didn't answer. He waited for a moment, wondering if he should just walk in. He decided to test the waters and he slowly opened the door. He could see her silhouette curled up on the bed. He gulped.
"Madison?"
No answer.
"Madison?"
"Go away, Matthew. I don't want to talk with anyone right now," Madison croaked. Matthew didn't say anything as he slowly walked to her bed, sitting on the edge of it so he could talk to her. He studied her features. Her bright, blue eyes were trimmed red and he could tell that she was crying.
"Madison, please understand that I have to do this," Matthew started to speak. "I have to do this for our country. I have to do it for our family. If I sign up, I get money. If I get money, I can send it back here." The Kleins weren't the poorest, but they were definitely not the richest either.
Matthew watched as Madison slowly sat up against her bed frame. "Matthew, I do understand. I just don't like that you're leaving us. I don't like it one bit," Madison took a deep breath. "You're being shipped out into a foreign land. You could get hurt. I'm scared that you're going to die and if you did, what would happen to us? Mother's heart would absolutely shatter. We would all break. I couldn't bear it." Madison started to hyperventilate at this point and Matthew wrapped his arms around his younger sister.
So that's what she was afraid of, Matthew thought to himself. She's afraid that I am going to die.
Matthew knew that there was a good chance of him getting killed out there. But he wouldn't voice his fears to his little sister. He had already hurt her with his decision.
After a long moment of silence, Matthew pulled back to look down at his sister. He stared into the blue eyes that were identical to his own. All the Klein children had the same blue eyes, but it seemed to appear that Madison and Morgan had the brightest pair out of all four of them.
"Madison, I will not die out there, okay? I promise. I am going to survive this war and return home to everyone here." Matthew held out his pinky finger. "Pinky promise."
Madison gave a small giggle. This made Matthew smile. She wrapped her small pinky finger around his, sealing their deal. "Okay."
It was silent between the two before Madison asked him what he signed up for.
"The Marines," Matthew answered.
"The Marines?" Madison asked. "That's…that's good, I guess. I hear they're stone cold killers."
"And where did you hear that from?"
"From Ryan White."
Matthew couldn't help but laugh. Ryan White was a boy in Madison and Morgan's grade that did nothing but annoy the living hell out of Madison. "And why would you listen to him? I thought you hated him."
"Oh, I do," Madison verified. "His old man was a marine. At least, that's he told us." Madison paused for a moment, scrunching up her eyebrows. "You're right. Why did I listen to him? I can't stand him!"
Matthew laughed at his little sister's declaration. This was something he would most definitely miss while he was away from home.
Matthew left Dayton not long after he signed up. He was shipped out to California for his basic training. He mostly stayed to himself on the train ride there and for the first day or so at camp. During his time there, he was assigned to a motor squad. This is how he met Romus Valton Burgin and Merriell Shelton. Matthew found out that they were both from the south. Burgin was from Texas while Shelton was from Louisiana.
"You're a northern boy, huh? Never met one before," Merriell Shelton said one day.
"I'm from Ohio. That's in the Midwest," Matthew corrected.
"It's still up north," Shelton bit at him. Merriell Shelton was a man with bronze colored skin and black, curly hair. He had a monotonous accent. "Are the people nice up there?"
"I suppose," Matthew shrugged. "What about the people down in Louisiana?"
"Fucking terrible," Shelton answered, taking a long drawl from his cigarette. "They all hate me there. It don't bother me, though. I hate them too."
"How come?" Burgin asked. He was drifting on and off in their conversations.
"They're white and I ain't. Simple as that. It ain't just the white folks. I don't enjoy my family's company all too well, either," Shelton answered. "Any of you boys got family?"
Matthew didn't listen to Burgin's response because he was too busy thinking about his own family.
"What about you, Matt? Do you got anybody?"
Matthew shot his head back up, not realizing he was drooping. "I do, yeah. I'm the oldest out of four. I have twin sisters, Madison and Morgan. They're both fourteen—"
"They're both fourteen? I'd never knew," Shelton interrupted.
"—and a younger brother who is six. His name is Michael," Matthew elected to ignore Shelton's sarcastic statement. So what, he messed up. It happens.
"Aren't your sisters' names male names?" Burgin piped up.
Matthew couldn't hold back his sigh. "Yeah. I guess our parents just really wanted boys. Speaking of which, I got a letter from my family the other day. I guess Madison joined the Red Cross or something."
"I thought you said your sisters were fourteen? The both of them," Shelton said, hiding a smile as Matthew scowled at him.
"They are. I guess Madison lied about her age," Matthew shrugged and got up. The other two Marines followed suit.
"Hey, Klein, I got a question," Shelton said.
"Go for it."
"Is all of your family as tiny as you?"
"Fuck off, Shelton."
The training was hard and tough. They had to get up before the sun did. They ran for a couple miles. They had to do obstacle courses. They were drilled in hard and it went from before sunrise till well after sunset. Matthew had never hated anything more in his entire life.
Well, that was, until he got a letter from his mother and Morgan one day.
"Klein!" someone shouted in the loud mess hall.
"Over here," Burgin called out. Matthew rose his hand so the letter runner could find him.
"You Matthew Klein, Jr.?" the runner asked.
"Yeah, it's me."
"Here you go," the mail runner handed him two letters and before Matthew could tell give him thanks, the runner ran off to go find someone else.
"Who sent you those letters, Klein?" Shelton asked as he dug into his food.
Matthew shuffled the envelopes. "They're from…my mother and sister. It's Morgan," Matthew quickly identified his youngest sister's handwriting. Matthew suddenly got a feeling, one that didn't feel too good.
Matthew opened up his mother's letter first, then his sisters. His mother's could be summarized as: the family misses you, how he was holding up and if he was being treated right at boot camp. She also shared neighborhood news. Morgan's was similar. She said that he missed her big brother, wondering how he was doing and if there were any cute men there (as a joke of course, but absolutely not), complaints about the youngest Klein, school, and acquaintances. But both letters, however, gave him a nasty surprise. His mother and sister both wrote about how Madison went down to Toccoa, Georgia and to make a long story short she was now a paratrooper, apparently.
"WHAT?!"
The mess hall went dead silent as Matthew rose, yelling. He gripped onto the letters tightly. His little sister was now officially a part of the United States Army? There was no fucking way. That was—
He felt someone yank him back down into his seat. It was Burgin who had done so.
"What's wrong?" Burgin asked. Matthew couldn't answer for a moment. He was too angry to give a response.
"Hey, Klein, are you alright? You're looking kind of pale," Shelton offered.
Matthew took a deep breath. Finally, he answered.
"It's my sister, Madison. She…I guess she joined the paratroopers."
"…What?"
"Apparently my sister is now a fucking paratrooper. Mom didn't go into much detail about it, but Morgan did. Apparently they messed up Madison's orders. She's now a medic-slash-paratrooper or some shit. I'm not really sure. But she's training for both medicine and combat. Combat medicine. Yeah, that'll do."
No one said anything else after that. Later that night in their bunks, while Matthew scribbled a very furious letter to Madison, Shelton stopped by Matthew's bed. Oh, God, what the hell did he want?
"Hey, Klein?"
Matthew ignored him. He still scribbled out his letter. He hoped Madison would be able to read it. Knowing his little sister, she would be able to. She was a bookworm in the family.
"Klein," Shelton started again.
Finally, Matthew looked up from his letter. He suddenly jolted back as he realized how close Shelton was.
"Jesus Christ, Merriell, don't you know what personal space is?"
"You weren't answering me," was all Shelton offered. "Now, I wanted to tell you something."
"What?"
"I read an article or two about those paratroopers, once," Shelton started. Matthew noticed that his fingers were twitching. That wide, fish-eyed boy was up to something, Matthew just knew it. "They jump out of the sky and into combat, yeah?"
"…Yes." The thought of Madison jumping out of a plan actually scared Matthew, and it wasn't only because he was afraid of heights himself. That would mean she would be jumping out of a plane hundreds—wait, thousands…right?—of feet above the ground. How the hell was she going to manage that? She wasn't even five foot for God's sake! Goddamn, she was going to die.
Shelton whistled. "Your sister is one crazy bitch. She's gonna get squashed like a bug, by the way you've been describing her."
And that was how Merriell Shelton got a black eye.
Author's Note: This story is a spin off of a sorts to my Band of Brothers one. While Matthew is in the Pacific, one of his younger sisters (Madison) is in Europe. This chapter isn't very long but that's okay. I don't think this story is going to be as long as my BOB one. It all depends, really. The title for this comes from Lorde's "Yellow Flicker Beat".
