The Old Veteran

The Old Veteran

There once lived an old veteran in a European country named Eraldo Aalmers who lived on a farm with his family. He was a hard-working old man who woke up everyday at 5:00 AM to work in his garden. Eraldo also took his grandchildren to school everyday where they learned mathematics and science at a local church. To his community, he was a hard-working and honest man who was a pillar of the community. He was also popular with his neighbors as he frequently hosted events at his church where he played games with them and told them stories about the past. There was one story that he frequently told his neighbors, which he told with a lot of pride.

During an autumn harvest, he was preparing a feast for his neighbors and decided to bring a lot of food from the rest of the county, including candies and fruits that many of his neighbors couldn’t afford. “You shouldn’t need to do that,” said his wife, “we don’t have a lot of money right now.” His wife was more concerned about their family’s finances than he was.

“Nonsense,” said Eraldo, “we can afford it, because the government offered me a generous pension for my patriotic service.” Eraldo was more than happy to share with his neighbors as the pension offered his family what would be the equivalent of tens of thousands of dollars in American money.

His wife, however, was more concerned about whether or not they could afford to send their children to a university. “You wanted them to attend university,” she said, “you pushed them to study so hard that they often that they didn’t have time to spend with their friends.” Eraldo wanted his children to study medicine, but his wife was concerned that they didn’t have any friends and would become lonely.

“I am friends with the head professor at the university,” said Eraldo, “he will help me with tuition.” Eraldo had known the professor for decades from their time in the war and was confident that he would help pay for his children’s education.

His wife, named Gabrielle, was more doubtful that this would happen. “You mean the professor who kept breaking his promise that he would help pay for your education,” she said, “you wanted to be an engineer for decades, but he couldn’t have been bothered to help pay for your education.”

“Don’t be so cynical,” said Eraldo, “he said that the university was out of money, and I believe him.” “We have been friends for decades, and I don’t think he has ever lied to me once.” Gabrielle was aware that her husband was being overly optimistic about his friend; s loyalty as the university had plenty of money, but they only paid for the education for students from the upper class.

“I have had enough of this arguing,” said Gabrielle, “we should get going or we will be late.” Eraldo and Gabrielle began to quickly finish packing the food, which was so plentiful that it almost caused the wage to collapse. “What are we going to do if the wagon breaks.” Gabreille was being to sound more and more annoyed with Eraldo.

“No worries,” said Eraldo, “I know someone who would help us fix it cheaply.” To Gabrielle, Eraldo’s optimism began to sound more like denial and aloofness, but she decided against confronting him about it as Eraldo had spent so much time and effort preparing the food for the church that she knew it would be cruel to do so.

“Fine,” she said, “but is we lose this wagon, we won’t be able to work for a while.” “We won’t even know how long it would take to fix it, and we need it to bring produce to the local market.” Gabrielle was trying to contain herself as she didn’t want to kill the excitement that Eraldo had cultivated.

“No worries,” said Eraldo, “like I said, when have I ever been wrong about any of our neighbors helping us.” Gabrielle stared at him for a while as she knew that was not a correct statement. Eraldo had told her that he had friends who would help her before only for them not to help them and leave them to solve their own problems, which could take weeks, but Gabrielle decided against arguing with him and the two of them went to the church with their expensive food.

“Look at all these people,” said Eraldo, “it is indeed nice to have such optimism in our community.” Gabrielle could only stare at him, knowing that he spent most of their year’s money on the food. Eraldo, however, ignored her and brought the supplies to the local priest, and helped him prepare for the meals.

The church held almost a hundred people who were either eating or playing games, and Eraldo began to unpack the wagon and helped set the tables with the expensive food he brought. A local priest named Lazzaro went over to Eraldo to greet him. “Hello old friend,” said Lazzaro, “it is nice to have you here.”

Eraldo smiled as he greeted his old friend. “Hello Lazzaro,” he said, “it is nice to see you.” Eraldo then reached the wagon to offer his friend a gift. “It is a new Bible. I got it from the capital city. It took me weeks to reach there, but I managed to get it.” The book was beautifully decorated as Eit took Eraldo hours of shopping in order to find it. The priest was elated to see the gift.

“Thank you, my friend,” said the priest, “words cannot describe how grateful I am.” Eraldo smiled seeing that his friend was happy with the gift. “Now come here, there are people waiting for you to tell your story.” The priest seemed excited for Eraldo to tell his story about when he was in the war. Eraldo seemed all too happy to do so and raced to the area where the listeners were seated. “Go one, tell them your story.”

It wasn’t long before Eraldo knew where to start and began to tell the story to about thirty listeners. “So, there I was about twenty years ago,” said Eraldo, “we were called by our country to defend it from an invading force.” Eraldo’s eyes lit up as it told the story as it brought back difficult memories. “I can remember where I was when we were called to defend our country. I was working on my farm when a local recruiter asked me to join. He told me, ‘son, do you want to defend your country.’ I was more than excited when he asked, and I immediately joined.”

The audience was amazed by Eraldo’s storytelling as he was able to tell every detail with ample detail. “I had to go through training first,” continued Eraldo, “it was hard, and we had to wake up everyday at 5 AM to exercise and train with weapons, but I was fine with it as I knew I was defending our country from barbarian hordes.” As Eraldo continued with his story, he began to talk slower, which signaled to the audience that something important could happen next. “And then the day came, where we learned what duties we had, and I prayed everyday that I would be in a combat role. I prayed hoping that I could serve my country by going to the capital city and raising our flag on the government building.”

The audience then began to grow restless as Eraldo hadn’t yet reached the part where he had joined the war. “Come on, we want to know about what you did in the war,” said one audience who was quietly hushed by another listener.

Eraldo softly laughed. “I am getting there don’t worry,” he said, “it will be worth the wait.” After about another ten minutes of storytelling, he finally reached where he entered the war as a soldier. “There we were in the capital. The city was actually beautiful, and the buildings and gardens were among the most beautiful I have ever seen. But it was dangerous as every corner could hide an enemy soldier, and it took every ounce of our courage to march to the capital building.”

There was a moment where Eraldo briefly paused as it took a few minutes to remember what happened next. When Eraldo finally came to, he began to quickly finish the story. “We were near the government building when we heard snipers,” he said, “we had to hide near a local bookstore to avoid them.” “It was difficult as we were all worried that we would lose our heads, but with the leadership of our brave captain, he led us through the winding streets of the capital to where we could enter the government building through a window.”

Eraldo paused again as he began to remember difficult moments from the war. The priest then went over to him. “You need to continue to tell them the story, “said Lazzaro, “it is important that they hear it.” “They need to remember what they are fighting for.”

Eraldo regained his strength after hearing that and began to finish the story. “It was a scary moment,” he said, “I remember seeing at least five of my friends die as we pushed through the government building.” “There was one most where I completely froze, but I managed to regain my senses, which allowed me to defend myself when an enemy soldier approached me. I shot him before he could shoot me. I then opened the doors to allow the other soldiers into the government building, and that is how we captured the capital.”

After a minute of silence, the audience then clapped in approval as they were happy with the story as Eraldo managed to guide them through the war in plentiful detail. His wife, however, wasn’t so impressed. “Defending our home,” said Gabrielle, “that isn’t anywhere near the truth.” “What they fought for was so the government could steal resources and land from our neighbors. Most of the people in our village knew it, but we were too polite to tell the soldiers.” Gabrielle knew the real reason would be that they would be shot for telling the truth, and most of them didn’t. “I should tell him the truth about what happened.” Gabrielle thought about it for about ten minutes as she thought about telling her husband and his listeners the truth even if most of them wouldn’t believe her.

Finally, she decided against it. “If my husband wants to believe that he did the right thing, so be it,” said Gabrielle, “it would be cruel to make him so through that.” Gabrielle was also aware that the priest and the audience would turn against her for that. “Maybe sometimes, it is better for people to go through denial as going through the truth isn’t easy. Not that people would accept it anyways.” Before leaving, Gabrielle had one final thought. “He knows, we have talked about it but refuses to believe it. I guess that is only the normal response.”