The Price of War
This is just a little one-shot that I was inspired to do when I saw the Vietnam War Memorial.
"Come on!" Clarisse dragged her boyfriend, Chris Rodriguez, through Washington D.C. "You wanted to go sightseeing, you are sightseeing."
"If you count sightseeing as being dragged to all of the things worth seeing and then being pulled away before I can get a good look at them…" Chris grumbled.
"Oh, suck it up!"
Chris just sighed.
Clarisse looked at the map that Chris had found. "We've seen the Jefferson Memorial, the Armed Forces Memorial, the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial, the White House, the Washington Monument…" then something caught her eye. "You want to sightsee? Let's go to the Vietnam War Memorial." She grabbed her boyfriend's arm and pulled him away.
"Okay, we're here!" Clarisse smiled. Finally, something worth seeing. She took out her Leophone (an invention of Leo's, works with demigods) and looked up information about the memorial. 'In memory of the Vietnam war. Almost 60,000 people died, and all were recorded on the wall. It was designed by a 22-year old Vietnamese woman.'
Then she and Chris arrived. It amazed her… but not in a good way. The black marble wall, with all those names carved… '60,000 is a lot bigger than it seems in your head'.
She saw a woman with two children by her, and she was holding a piece of paper up to the monument. She was taking a charcoal rubbing. "He was your Grandfather, you know. He died protecting our country. He was very brave." So many people died.
Then a second horrible thought occurred to Clarisse. My father is the god of war. My father caused this. My freaking father caused 60,000 people to die!
She swallowed. "Let's go, Chris."
"Clarisse, what's wrong?"
"Nothing…"
She walked out as quickly as possible. I don't deserve to be here.