Vet Art

2004 National Veterans Creative Arts Festival

Can't Quite Get It Right

I have a friend, Harry*. Harry and I dated for a few months in 2002, but we realized that we were much better suited as friends and have remained good friends since. He is a down right good human being. Honest, sincere, and very simple.
He's very good with money, but not so much with women. Twice divorced, all he's ever wanted was a wife and child that he could love and take care of. His first wife was a young love, and after a couple years they parted ways amicably. Just wasn't in the cards. Harry joined the Army, flew to Saudi Arabia for 8 months and served his country proudly.
When Harry returned to Puerto Rico, he met Jane. Jane was beautiful, intelligent, and had a young boy who needed a dad. Harry fell in love with both of them as they were exactly what he was looking for, and because he knew his squiggly little epididymides (I checked- that's definitely the plural) had quite a hard time getting the boys to the egg. Harry and Jane dated and married within a few months. At this point Harry had decided to stay in the Army to give his family a better life. In doing this, he re-enlisted to go to Germany, which rocks, because he had always wanted to be stationed there, and now he could share this experience with Jane and baby. Sadly, Jane had other ideas. Jane-baby-daddy was not as absent as Harry was led to believe. In fact, Jane and Papa were in the midst of a custody battle. Jane would have lost custody because she had no job and wasn't a stable provider, but now she was married to a soldier! The day after the judge awarded custody was the last time Harry saw her. It was also the last time Harry saw half his bank account.
.....

Fast-forward 7 years to Alabama, September 2004. Harry, happily teaching at the ammunition school, meets Mary, a nurse from Tennessee. Mary is amazing, Mary is perfect, Mary HAS A 4 YEAR OLD DAUGHTER. Mary is divorced. Harry called me around Christmas to tell me how happy he was and that he was thinking of asking Mary to marry him, as he was going back to Germany in June 2005. I advised Harry that I was not the expert, but I would at least wait until after the holiday to avoid holiday relationship meltdown. I never discouraged him. I told him that I didn't think 3 months was long enough to gauge the next 50 years, but again, I am not Harry. Of course, true to form, he was married cubed by the middle of January. Marital bliss became Utopia in April when harry found out Operation Conception was a resounding success! Could this be it? When I congratulated him, I knew he had done it this time.


To recap, Harry and Mary wed in January. Harry, Mary and daughter were due to fly to Germany mid July. Harry was required to attend a school in Florida from May through the second week of June. While Harry was in Florida, an old friend from Germany happened to be in Miami. They had lunch. When I say that Harry is an upstanding person, I am not exaggerating. Helps old ladies across the street and everything. They had lunch. Anyway, a week after the lunch visit, Mary turns around and accuses Harry of cheating. She also proceeds to tell him that she's going to get an abortion and she signed papers promising her ex-husband that she wouldn't move out of a 100 mile radius until their daughter turns 18. Refer to the previous paragraph to realize how utterly fucked that is. She also wants Harry to allot money to her because she is married to him and he needs to support her.

This is the phone call I received.

Harry's decided to file for divorce and will allot her money if she will keep the baby. He said he's going to try to get custody once the baby is born.

I don't want to have an ugly soul, and when I feel anger and hatred, that's what I am. Ugly. And sad. Just like the things that make me feel that way.I find it so hard to accept that the people who spread lies and hatred could possibly believe in their causes. How can you look in the mirror? That's how naive I am. I've never been able to accept that there are bad, rotten people, truly deep down dead inside. How is that possible? It saddens and disgusts me to tears.

I am so annoyed there are no clever titles today

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