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Mike Mathews was an unassuming older man with a slight limp on his right side. He often rode his bike through town or some day's you could even see him walking through town. No one ever really had any idea who he was or where he was going all the time just that he was dirty, smelly and seemed to dislike everyone else around him.

He just moved into town one day with an old beat up Chevy truck, a small camping trailer and a dog named Mickey. It had been years since anyone had heard a peep of Mickey so, they all just assumed he had passed on, leaving Mike all alone in the small camper on the edge of town.

Each morning they would just see him passing through town and occasionally he would be spotted at the neighborhood kids favorite fishing spot. When the kids showed up he would just pack up quietly and leave them to the spot with as polite of a smile as he could muster barely looking them in the eyes. There was just one little boy he couldn't avoid eye contact with he must have been all of thirty pounds, three foot tall and bright blue eyes that smiled at everyone he saw.

Each time Mike saw him their eyes would meet and even Mike would have to smile at the small boy as his older brother called out to him, "Hurry up Brian we don't have all day!"

When Mike would ride through town and the little boy saw him going by he would wave with no response from Mike. He would just grunt to himself quietly wishing the boy would stop drawing attention to him but it never seemed to work. This happened for months and then one day Mike didn't see the little boy anywhere in town.

Then on one of his trips to the fishing pond for his daily meals, he spotted the older brother standing in the cemetery over a small coffin. Mike was all choked up thinking of that small boy with the bright smile laying there in that scary dark wooden box. Mike was all too familiar with being frightened in small dark places during his tour of duty in Vietnam.

Mike was a "tunnel rat" who spent a great deal of his time flushing out the enemy in small dark, dank places many others wouldn't dare to go. In fact, he had earned several medals for saving his fellow soldiers by preemptively stopping ambush attacks before they started. He humbly accepted his medals then went back into his bunker with just a few of his fellow rats.

A few days later Brian's Mom was visiting his gravesite for some attempt to console the loss of her little boy. Sitting next to his headstone was a small teddy bear around his neck was a Silver Star.

Learn more about this author, J. Lee Kenser.
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