They say: Our deaths are not ours; they are yours; they will mean what you make them.
     They say: Whether our lives and our deaths were for peace and a new hope or for nothing we cannot say; it is you who must say this.
    They say: We leave you our deaths. Give them their meaning. We were young, they say. We have died. Remember us.

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Why should you join a Reunion Association? Because time is fleeting.

     I now know why men who have been to war yearn to reunite. Not to tell stories or look at old pictures. Not to laugh or weep. Comrades gather because they long to be with the men who once acted their best, men who suffered and sacrificed, who were stripped raw, right down to their humanity.

      I did not pick these men. They were delivered by fate. But I know them in a way I know no other men.

     I have never given anyone such trust. They were willing to guard something more precious than my life. They would have carried my reputation, the memory of me. It was part of the bargain we all made, the reason we were so willing to die for one another.

     I cannot say where we are headed. Ours are not perfect friendships; those are the province of legend and myth. A few of my comrade’s drift far from me now, sending back only occasional word. I know that one day even these could fall to silence. Some of the men will stay close, a couple, perhaps, always at hand.

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