Here’s a story for you. I am well aware that when the soldier and I were kids, the peanut gallery as in the people I knew) did not want me with him. I did not know there were people on his side talking me down but learned this weekend I did have some detractors. I was surprised. Not because I think I am so wonderful but how come I’d not heard this before?

“Who? What was their problem with me?” I asked. “What did they say?”

“Oh, they said what are you doing with that girl? She doesn’t like the military. What are you doing with her? She’s not a military person.”

“I don’t recall saying anything bad about the military,” I said. “I had never been exposed to it and had no opinion one way or the other.”

“No you never did..”

He went on to remind me I sewed his first stripe he ever got on his shirt sleeve… and I sewed it upside down. “Didn’t you notice that?” he said. “I have a picture of it,” he said grinning. “Me with my stripe upside down. Yeah, P, you sewed my stripe on my shirt and it was upside down.”

“What do you mean, upside down? How could I do that?”

“I don’t know. How could you do that?” he asked. “But you did it and I didn’t have the heart to tell you.”

::stare::

“Not only that, I had inspection that day. Guess who I was inspected by? Guess?”

“Who.”

“George S. Patton. That’s Patton’s son,” he said with a snort. “Yep, it was an honor to get inspected by him and here I am with my stripe sewn on upside down by my girlfriend, P.”

“No..?”

“Yes. Yes, it’s in that picture. You can see it.”

“Show me.”

He went in the other room and came back with a picture. In the picture he is sitting cross legged on the floor holding his son. he is son is a baby, he’s giving him a bottle and he’s wearing a uniform. “See the stripe?” he asked pointing at the sleeve.

“Yeah.”

“See it’s upside down?”

“No.”

He grabbed a piece of paper and drew a stripe with a star in the middle. “Now look at that picture,’ he said.

“No star,” I said.

“Yeah. That’s because you sewed it on inside out / upside down. The star is facing in when it should be facing out.”

“Oh my God.”

“Yeah. But it was still an honor to be inspected by Patton’s son. I couldn’t tell you, P. We were both so happy about that stripe so I just wore it… showed up for inspection with that on my shirt and got my ass chewed.”

I laughed nevously. “Well why didn’t you fix it?  Why did you leave it like that?”

“Because.”

“And why are you wearing that anyway? Why are you wearing that shirt? It’s got to be years later in the picture, didn’t you get another stripe by then?”

“Yeah, I got another stripe and it was years later but I kept that shirt and I used to wear it. I never wore it to inspection again  but as you can see I did wear it. I just wore it around sometimes like on the day that picture was taken.”

“But why?”

“You were my love.”