Eyes of a Soldier

As the 21 gun salute went off, she could feel her heart break a little more with each shot fired. Her mind was filled with disquietudes thoughts as a man in dress blues handed her a folded flag. She looked down when she felt a tug at her dress from a tiny child. This little girl looked up at her mother with such sad eyes. Eyes that were an almost exact resemblance to her father’s. This 6 year old little girl however, would never see her father’s bright blue eyes again. She would never be able to stare into those eyes that were filled with so much love for her. And this now single mother would never get to lie down in bed next to her husband at night and get lost in those eyes as she drifted off to sleep. That’s because her husband, this little girl’s daddy, had closed his eyes for the last time in a desert in Afghanistan. And now, here she stands, in such a distraught state, child by her side, as she watches the men her husband had served faithfully beside for many years, lower his casket into the ground.