Dear Unknown Soldier

I wonder what you did, that day you left this station?

Did you kiss loved ones goodbye? A wife? A girlfriend? A lover? A mother? A child? Were your eyes clear as you left them on the platform?

Did you believe, like so many others, that you would return triumphant? Or was that feeling, deep in the pit of your stomach, one of unease, of trepidation, of confusion?

Did you know what you were fighting for? For your country? For your family? For hope? For freedom? Fighting so there would be no more wars to fight?

And now, reading this letter, did you recall the days stolen from you and your fellow men? In this brief pause on a journey that will never end.

Did you think about where you would be going next? Did you write back? A connection made again. A relationship rekindled or broken.

Each time I pass you on my own journey, I look up and I wonder if I would be here today if it were not for you? A hundred years. A century. A generation. A world still at war with itself. A global people divided yet still full of hope. Where you still stand as a symbol so we can remember.

Did you smile?

First published as part of the Letter To An Unknown Soldier project.