Last night we were eating the plantains and regarding the little girl who survived selling plantains…

“Yeah, she was a little capitalist,” the soldier said. “She had this cast iron thing and she’d build a fire out of palm fronds and cook the plantains in it.  Then she’d sell them and then she’d take a break, get something to eat and then take the money she made and go buy some more plantains and do it again.  It was bad there. It was incredible, there were pill boxes right in the street,” he said.

I looked at him blankly. “I don’t think I know what a pill box is.”

“It’s a concrete thing, like a box you get in and then you shoot out of them. It’s like a bunker.”

“In the street?”

“Yep, they were all over.” He explained the lousy fighting situation. “But we had the top floor or this hotel… we’d taken it over and had it secured.”  He explained their method of securing it.  “Yeah, it was safe in there so dignitaries could come and what not and that’s where we were staying too.  I had a room there so I took this girl and brought her to my room and told her she could stay there.”

“Uh huh.”

“Yeah, so she’d be safe. I couldn’t stay with her, I was out in the field sometimes for days at a time but I’d leave here there with a couple cases of MREs (meals ready to eat), so she could eat and not have to pay for anything.  I told her to stay there and eat the MREs so she did not have to pay for food. Just keep your money, I said. And then I’d go out and get back as soon as I could and see how she was doing.”

I stared.

“Of course when I’d get back I’d find all the cans open. Yeah, she’d open every can there was and eat the candy out of them.” He laughed. “Yep, she ate all the good stuff and left the cans open so then I had to go hunt her up some more MREs so I’d do that… leave her with a couple more cases of food, go out to work and she’d do it again.  Eat all the candy.”

I didn’t say anything.

“Yep, she loved that candy and I made all the soldiers give her their candy too. You give that girl your candy, I’d say!  Don’t you eat that girl’s candy!  All of you you’re your candy to this girl – All candy is hers!  Anyway, P, I don’t know what happened to that girl but I sure think about her a lot.  She was a nice girl. Real nice and it’s just a shame what happens to people… what they have to go through sometimes. I’d have sure liked to get her out of there, I do know I tried. Yeah, I did everything known to mankind to take that girl home with me – Let her have a life but it was just not meant… I just couldn’t do it so now she haunts me. She is just like you, P. She’s something I can never resolve. I will never forget that girl and damn I wish I could have brought her here. Leaving her was one of the worst things I have ever had to go through in my life.”