Three years Elias Williams was in Vietnam. He was 19 when he was drafted and 22 when he was withdrawn--  when everyone was withdrawn.He couldn’t believe he was really coming home. None of them could. 

The rumble of the transport aircraft drew Elias from his thoughts; he shook his head to rid himself of the cloudiness. Looking up, he saw Michael Johanson, his commanding officer, sitting across from him. There was a look of relief in the lieutenant’s eyes. But at only 24 years old, there was also a tiredness that seemed to burrow deep below the surface. Elias knew the feeling; he could feel it in his bones. There was a growing fear that it would never go away. 

The sun was blinding when the rear ramps cranked open. Elias shielded his eyes against the gleam, blinking rapidly to get his eyes to adjust faster. Back in the jungle, there was no time for blindness. If you were blind for a second, you’d be dead. Gradually, everything started to clear up: colors differentiating, shapes coming into focus. That’s when he saw it. 

The city skyline. 

It had never looked so beautiful before. It was a jarring change of environment, the cityscape and tall skyscrapers instead of tall trees and marsh. He felt grateful and bitter all at once.

In the distance Elias  could hear someone calling his name. He tore his attention from the scenery to look into the small crowd of people who had gathered a few yards from the plane. 

“Elias!” He squinted into the crowd, trying to seek out the voice. “Elias!”

A woman was standing at the front of the crowd, a man by her side. She had a hand waving in the air, an almost hysterical smile on her face. It wasn’t long until she was splitting from the man, her legs carrying her as fast as they could along the tarmac. With the sight of a person running directly at him, Elias couldn’t help but feel his instincts lock up, alarms going off in his head. It took him a moment, for the face to jog a memory in his head. 

A son never forgets his mother’s face. 

Almost immediately his body relaxed. A smile spread across his face as he took a couple steps towards her, dropping the bag that carried what few things he had. She practically flew into his arms, hers winding tightly around his back. It was a surprisingly short hug, for she quickly pulled back, grabbing his face in her hands and shooting off questions.

“Do you still have ten fingers? Two legs? Two arms? Any injuries?” She rambled, worried eyes darting back and forth across his being. He shook his head, grabbing her rapidly moving hands, holding them tightly in his. 

“I’m fine, Mom.” He said. The word mom felt unfamiliar on his tongue. It had been absent from his vocabulary for quite a while. She stared at him for a moment longer, almost not believing him. Pulling him into a hug again, she knocked the breath out of him. 

“I was so worried I would never see you again.” She said, and Elias thought, so was I. That had been the common mindset among the troops. Elias pulled back when his father, hobbling along on a cane-- the result of an old war injury--made it to them. He was a stout, stern looking man, but soft at heart. He placed a hand on Elias’ shoulder, giving him a hard but knowing look before he, too, pulled him into a hug. 

“It’s good to have you back, son.” His father said, and Elias smiled, hugging back. 

“It’s good to be back.”

He could remember all the home-cooked meals he used to have when he was young. He could also remember getting tired of them when all he wanted to do was hang out with his friends and be anywhere but at home with his parents. But tonight he felt like he would never get tired of them. They were a hundred times better than C rations and anything he’d had back in the jungle. 

It felt like a lifetime since he’d seen his room and, in reality, it was. War changes you. You never come back the same person you were when you left. He looked at the posters that hung around his room. They were the trend back before the end of the war. He wondered if they still were. He wondered about his school friends, wondered how they were doing, and if any of them had been subjected to the same fate he had. He wondered if they had come back. He flicked the lamp that hung next to his bed, remembering the many nights he spent reading comic books. 

One thing he was surprised about was how little it had been touched since he’d left. There were still clothes strewn here and there.

Looking out his bedroom window, he saw the houses that lined the road, each surrounded by a picket fence. The setting sun splayed purples, reds and yellows across the sky, the tree beside his window casting a shadow along the front lawn. It was bigger than he remembered. He could remember sneaking out onto it when he was young, remembered falling out of it and breaking his arm. 

The feeling of the mattress sinking beneath him brought feelings of nostalgia, memories of a happier, ignorant time. He stared up at the ceiling, hearing the crickets chirping on the other side of the window. 

It was getting late now, the sun had set a while ago.

He rolled over, turned off the lights and closed his eyes. Somewhere in the distance bombs fell. Deep in his ears he could still hear shouts and gunfire. He could hear Michael yelling into the radio, the medic running over to a soldier who had shouted for him, the choppers and planes overhead. And he could see the blood. He could smell the death.

War changes you. 

War changes everything.