I'll Walk Alone
He wasn't much a soldier, but then he didn't pretend to be. He didn't join up like many of his friends, but was drafted. But now that he was here, he wouldn't have changed places with anyone for the world. Back home he'd been a clerk in a shoe store, or a bag boy at the local A&P, a ditch digger perhaps or a New York cabbie, a farm boy. Back home he was an every man. Here, in the European Theater of Operations, he was indispensable. He had no real name. In fact, he doubted most of the men spared a thought as to what his given name might be. To the soldiers in his squad he was Doc. Just Doc. He didn't take lives, he saved them. In war he was an anachronism. He was proud to be so, though he'd be the first to admit that wasn't always the case. In many ways he thought he walked alone in this man's war. Being a medic made a man a loner of sorts. But he soon came to realize walking alone and being alone are nothing the same. When this war ends, as it must, he knew he would never be alone again. All those he helped, all those with whom he served, walked beside him now and always.
Ash, out