Don’t

“Why did you want to join?”

I looked at the white walls, squinting against the harsh fluorescent lights.

“Well?”

I shuffled in my polyester suit and scratched my stubbled head. It was cold in here. It stank of antiseptic.

“To serve Australia and its natural interests.” I said.

He adjusted his glasses and sighed. It was what they wanted to hear.

The real reason: Dad said, “Don’t.”

“National, national,” he muttered, correcting me.

“Yep,” I said, nodding. “That’s what I said, isn’t it?”

He turned a page in his binder, leaving me in silence. He was tough and uninviting, like everything here.

“No, son. It wasn’t.” Then his mood brightened as his eyes graced the page. “Rifleman?”

“Yes, sir.” The last word seemed to ruffle his feathers. He ticked a box with his pen.

“You’ll figure that one out too, lad,” he said. “Soon enough.”

* * *

“Why did you want to join?”

An accusation, not a question, and directed at me. I looked across at the rain, mud and steel.

“To kill?”

The wind howled, the rain a curtain. I held the rifle at my chest, scared of the bayonet on the end. You could hurt someone with it if you weren’t careful.

“Kill who?”

Whoever, I supposed.

“To kill the enemies of the Queen!” He answered for me. “Now give me your war face!”

I tried. I failed. Mud. That’s what I was.

“Take that pit!”

* * *

“Why did you want to join?” She asked

The question hung there with the gun smoke. We didn’t know who the enemy was until he started shooting at us. Now we were down in the dry, dusty, sun-soaked dirt, staring at poppies.

“Was it for this?” She asked.

I turned to her after the cracks and whips stopped. She always smiled, but not this time. Not when the range was two-way.

I could have laughed. “What kind of question is that?”

The sun beat down on us when the enemy didn’t.

I had an answer before, but I wasn’t so sure anymore.

“Shut up.” I said. “And shoot back.”

* * *

“Why did you want to join?”

I wrapped a blanket around her shoulders.

“What was it for? Tell me!” She held our child. “I don’t understand. Not after what you’ve been through.”

She wanted to understand. I couldn’t explain it to myself.

“I guess.” I poured the beer down the sink. “I guess I wanted to feel important.”

She shook her head. “But you said what you did wasn’t important.”

“It wasn’t.” I said. I looked to the delicate patterns of frost on the window. “Not in the big scheme of things.”

She looked at me, hopeless.

“What I mean was,” I touched her shoulder. “It was important to me.”

* * *

“Why did you want to join?”

The sunlight streamed through the open windows, the air fresh and salty. He left a trail of wet footprints in his wake. He looked too young. I knew, older than I was.

He put his surfboard down and smiled at me. “Because you did, Dad.”

I looked out to the ocean, the sky above a canvass of orange and pink. He needed a better reason than that.

“Do me a favour.” I said.

He looked at me, searching for something. I’d give it to him.

“What?” He hung on my every word.

I tapped his knee, held his eyes and clenched my jaw.

 “Don’t.”^[1]