Kelly's eyes welled up with unshed tears as her mother Shannon informed her that unfortunately there would be no phone call from her father for the fourth day in a row. Yesterday she'd gotten a letter and today she'd written her daily letter to him but letters and scant phone calls just weren't the same as having her daddy here when she so desperately wanted him there.

It was fair to ask an eight year old to have to go so long without seeing her father. She'd already survived nearly three months but she wasn't sure she could do it anymore. Perhaps the only thought holding her together was that she had to put on a strong face for her Momma as her Daddy told her. She had to be the brave, well-behaved, little Marine Brat she was growing up to be.

Maybe, Kelly thought, if she wished hard enough then her daddy would be home by her ninth birthday. It was a big wish but it was the only thing she really wanted. She'd asked for it at Christmas time too and she was gonna ask at every holiday because for no day with her Daddy away at war, was Kelly the happy little girl she'd once been. She was, however, a hell of a lot tougher than she'd started out as.

Suddenly she bolted from bed and hurried to the kitchen counter where her letter lay folded and ready to be slipped into an envelope with her mother's.

"What are you doing, Kel?" Shannon asked her daughter affectionately.

"I forgot to write something." The mini-redhead confided as she very carefully wrote out in her neat and elegant script; Semper Fi.

Had she been an army brat than her word would have been HOOAH but instead she was a proud marine's daughter and no matter what happened she would be the very ideal of Semper Fi until the very end.

*** Author's Note ***

I was just kind of thinking about how much I missed my own dad and channeled it into Kelly. She must have felt the same way.

-C.E.S.