You check your mailbox for letters with a return address of the USS Indianapolis. Sam has been deployed for seven months now, since July, now all that’s left is to wait for his return. You open his letter eagerly and begin to read:

*My darling wife,

Capt’n tells us we’ll be home soon enough. Only two docks left before I can come home to my sweetheart.*

You stop reading after that and squeal, only a couple weeks until he will be safe in your arms, but the excitement is over as soon as it comes. Months pass with no word. No letters from Sam and, God willing, no MIA or KIA letters either.

He comes home to you in May, three months after you had anticipated. It’s unexpected, and you were too depressed to care about someone entering your home without knocking.

You hear the trudge of boots on your hardwood floors and turn around to reprimand them, “no shoes on my clean-“

Sam stares back at you; beaten, bloody, and bruised. He struggles towards you and before you know it you’re scooping him into your arms. You sob, “oh God Sam.”