This essay really has no particular genre, it is one that will be read many ways by many people. It has been published more than once and usually generates some comments.
And The Bugle Called...
Today, the heroes arrive home. The war is finally finished. The battles have all been fought. The soldiers return from the fields of honor. The town is clean and polished with flags hanging from every street lamp snapping in the wind as we await the return of our heroes. At the train station the townsfolk mill around, the band members standing with their instruments gleaming in the afternoon sun awaiting the train. Our small town had three boys go off to the war, and now they are returning, each one a hero.
Timmy Johnson, "Tim", to his friends, signed up in the days of shock that followed Pearl Harbor. He told everyone that he'd be coming back with medals across his chest, and though everyone laughed and wished him luck, no one really believed that he would. Everyone was wrong. On an island called Iwo Jima, at least I think that is right, Timmy saved his platoon, that is what the papers all said anyway. I suppose sometime dad or grandpa will tell me the whole story, at least I hope they do.
Sean O'Malley went too. The draft took him and though he cussed at the heavens and moaned to his kin in his rich Irish Brogue, he went in the end. According to Jim, his little brother and my best friend, his letters to home from overseas were full of the same cuss'in for which he gained his small town fame; the reason my mom wouldn't let me be around him. The food, the weather, the officers, all were predicated by a name. He became a hero on an unnamed hill somewhere in France, one day. I would be willing to bet ya, that as it all happened he was cussing all the way.
John Grimson, the high-school clown, and though he graduated before I even began the seventh grade, he was still every high schoolers hero. It's said that he was suspected by the principal as the culprit behind most every school shenanigan that ever was, though nothing was ever proven. He was the last of the three. I don't think he came home with any medals, but that didn't matter, he was home, and a hero he would be.
There's the train now, whistling its arrival into town, blowing steam as it slows to a stop. The townsfolk wait, and the band begins to play, our heroes are back. Off of the train they come, and into the cars, we march them up main street, the band leads and the town fathers follow, but no one notices them, because today is Tim's, and Sean's, and John's day, they are the heroes returned from war, and they are the ones we all came out to see. The procession is not long, the band, and the fire trucks, and the towns only police car, it's lights flashing, leading the way.
No one waves as the heroes pass by. As the cars they ride in approach the old gate the bugle calls, the notes hold in the air, each one lonely and sweet..., and the heroes don't hear, they each eternally sleep.
