time perhaps

The soldier boy is my father.
He was still a teenager.
A boy on the brink.

World War II is history now.
Decades have swept along.
A life time.
I remember when I realized for the first time that I was born only a dozen years after World War II ended. Twelve years isn't long at all. You can almost reach back and touch something that recent.
My parents didn't talk about those years when I was young.
It took the balm of passing time perhaps.

Decades later, he spoke of his comrades.
He remembered his years away.
It was something he never forgot.