Back The Collector Series: Old Juan By Charles Bird (R.I.P.)

Last Updated: March 20, 2023
Prologue: Sergeant First Class Juan Edward Moralis sat on the edge of his bed, tears running down his face and a crumpled letter in his hands. Sgt. Moralis, United States Army, soon to be medically retired, had read and reread that letter until he knew the words by heart. "Juan, I am taking Danny and we are leaving, don't try to find us. I am not going to live with a half of a man. I can't say it has been fun, but goodbye, Janice." Juan Moralis had been in Army Special Forces fighting the Viet Cong in the jungles of Viet Nam when a grenade was dropped in his lap while he was in a boat headed down river. He remembered screaming and the next thing he remembered was on a hospital ship headed to Hawaii. He spent a year at Walter Reed Army Hospital and then they sent him for another year of rehabilitation at the VA Hospital in Tucson, Arizona. Tomorrow, May 1, 1969, he would be retired and sent home to Hurley, New Mexico, on a prosthetic leg and a cane, to an empty house, no family and no job.

Chapters Status: Complete

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