Yo Yo

     Memi and Kaps were happier than they had ever been. They had a small apartment in Columbia, South Carolina, just off the Ft. Jackson Base, with very easy access for Kaps. He had recently made Sergeant after grueling, long, stressful days of training and was now laid back and relaxed, doing what he loved most - training new recruits.

     Their son Karl was ten and the daughter Kate eight. The two children loved their new home and school and were quickly making friends. Memi had all the finances under control and they were planning a joyous Christmas. Kaps was even going to get three days off for the Yuletide.

     Then the miserable thing happened. Memi was busy cleaning the apartment, while happily singing along with her favorites on the radio, and boom - her favorite song was cut off right in the middle and she was left holding a high note in mid air - “the Japanese have just bombed Pearl Harbor.” At that moment the phone rang. She was straining, trying to listen to the radio and get a message on the phone when she realized that Kaps was talking to her. He repeated the second time, “Are you listening to the radio?”

     “That’s what has me in this awful state of shock.”

     “This is going to change our way of living in a hurry.”

     “I’ll have to hang up so I can cry for a while.”

     “Please don’t cry too long and make your eyes red and puffy. Make dinner light. I just lost my appetite.”

     The evening was very tense and strained with everything so uncertain.

     “What is going to happen to us?” Memi questioned.

     “As a regular army man, having so much training behind me, I may be top priority for shipping. On the other hand, they may need me for training recruits. Colonel said Monday that I was the best. Hope he wasn’t just blowing smoke.”

     “When you do go, I have no idea what we’re going to do, but we better start planning now.”

     “Yeah, we don’t have a bunch of kin folks to fall back on. Most of my buddies have a lot of relatives to kinda help take up the slack.”

     “Since we moved here I’ve never thought of living any where else,” Memi said, with big tears in her eyes.

     The two children just sat and stared. They had never thought about trying to live without their father. “Maybe you could just get out of the army right quick.” Kate suggested.

    “That sounds like a mighty good suggestion sweetheart, but it wouldn’t work right now,” Kaps told her as he brushed the hair on her head with his hand.

    They listened to the news for a little while and then Memi began sobbing. “My gosh, Kaps, we’re going to be fighting the Germans and the Japs at the same time. If you had a choice, which way would you go?”