It's late. Again. Can’t sleep. I mean, I don't even — whatever. My brain just keeps going. And going. Like a broken record player, skipping over the same groove. Or a tape deck, those old ones, where the tape gets all tangled, you know? And you try to pull it out, unravel it, but it just snags and snags. That’s my brain these days. Snagging. I went to the VA clinic today. For my annual physical. The usual. Blood pressure, cholesterol, the whole nine yards. And Dr. Chen, she’s a good doc, she always asks if I’m… what’s the word she uses? Engaging. Yeah. Engaging with my community. And I tell her, sure, I volunteer at the library. I mean I do. But it’s not… it’s not the same. It's just not. She mentioned the new veterans’ outreach program. Said it’s a good way to connect with others who understand. You know, shared experience. And I smiled, said I’d look into it. But I won’t. I already know what it’ll be. A room full of young guys. Fidgeting. With their smart phones. Or their tattoos. Or both. Not that there’s anything wrong with tattoos. Mine just faded. Like everything else. I remember my unit. Charlie Company. The 1st Cav. Mostly from Texas, Louisiana. A few from up north, Ohio. We were a mix. But we were brothers. And we knew each other. Really knew each other. The way only people who’ve seen… things… can know each other. The jokes we had. The way we could just look at each other and know. Telepathic, almost. A certain kind of psychological symbiosis. It's just… they're gone now. Almost all of them. I went to Big Jim’s funeral last year. From Shreveport. Lung cancer. Smoked like a chimney, that man. But he was a good man. And at the wake, there were maybe five of us left. From the company. Just five. And we sat there, in that quiet room, drinking lukewarm coffee. Trying to find the words. But there weren't any, really. Not the right ones. One of them, Billy, he started talking about the new VA programs. The ones for younger vets. PTSD, depression, all that. And I just nodded. I mean, what do you say? My generation, we just… dealt with it. Bottled it up. Or drank it away. Or divorced. That was my method, I guess. The divorce. Mid-life. My wife said I was emotionally distant. She wasn’t wrong. After the divorce, I was alone. Really alone. All my friends, they were her friends too. Or they took sides. Mostly her side. Which, again, fair enough. She was easier to be around. So I started over. At 50. Rebuilt from scratch. Got a new apartment. Found new hobbies. Tried to connect. But it’s hard. It’s always hard. And now, even the few connections I had, the old war horses… they’re dwindling. It's like a game of musical chairs, but the chairs keep disappearing. And soon, there won't be any left. And I'll be standing alone. Again. And there's a certain… existential dread, I suppose, that comes with that. The feeling of being the last one. The last one who remembers. The last one who was there. I don't know. Maybe I’ll try that outreach program. Maybe I'll surprise myself. But I doubt it. It’s just… a different war. Different struggles. And the kind of stories I have… they’re not really meant for strangers. Or for young people. They’re for the ones who lived them. And those ones… they’re almost all gone. And I just wanted to… put it out there. Somewhere. Before it's all just… gone. You know?