Papa was a hero.

Everyone told me so. I remember when he was standing at the door and hugging Mama good-bye. I didn't know why she was crying; Papa was going to fight the bad guys because he's good, and that's what good guys do. Everyone knows that, even cartoons do. I wanted to tell her not to cry because Papa was a hero like Superman, and Superman was strong and couldn't get hurt by anything.

Papa had kneeled down and hugged me too, and I didn't cry because I was a big boy. Mama said so. Big boys don't cry, so I didn't. But why was Papa crying? He's a man; that's what bigger boys turn into, men. The biggest boys turn into Superman, but that's a very hard level to reach. That's why I said Papa was like Superman because he was on his way there. I asked him too, why he was crying. He smiled and said it was because he loved me and Mama so much. I didn't know a person could be so full of love that they would start crying because how could feelings get to be that big? Maybe when people grow bigger, their feelings grow bigger too, but that didn't make sense to me because Mama and Papa were bigger than me, and I wasn't crying at all.

He said he was proud of me and to keep doing well in school. I already knew that; he didn't have to tell me. But he did tell me something very important, and I made sure to stick to it.

I don't know how long it's been since Papa left. I think it's been a year because I have all his letters. I'm looking at them right now, you know. The first one is from February 1942, and he talks about how he's in Britain training for something big, but he doesn't know what that something is. No one does. I thought that was cool because it was just like in comic books where only the powerful guys know what's going on, like the big-shot generals or something, maybe even the president. When the big guys know something no one else knows, you know it's something super important.

I showed the letter to Mama when it came, and she practically ripped open the envelope trying to get to the letter. That annoyed me a little because envelopes are just as important as letters; they keep the words from falling out. I wanted to save it, but I knew how eager Mama was, so I didn't say anything. She hugged the letter to her chest and smiled, like she could feel Papa hugging her back through the paper. It was like this every time we got a letter, but when I told her I wanted to save the envelopes, she opened them much more carefully. I thought about making a scrapbook and showing it to Papa when he came home, but I wasn't good at stuff like that.

Anyways, when that first letter came, Mama sat down and wrote back a super long letter, and I did the same. Hers was pretty and organized, like a letter should be. I wanted my letter to be just as nice as Mama's, but my cursive wasn't as good as hers. I made a comic strip instead, because I was pretty sure you couldn't have comic books in the army, and Papa would probably be dying for something to read. He was a big reader, you know. Maybe his job in the army was to read stuff, like maps or codes or something. I never got to ask him that.

In school we talked a lot about the war. We listened to the radio a lot more, and we started learning about different countries and how some were good and some were bad. Mrs. Clark showed us how this country called Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, all the way out in Hawaii. We looked at before and after pictures of Pearl Harbor, and it scared me how strong Japan was. Mrs. Clark said that we would defeat Japan because our country was much more advanced than they were, but I wasn't sure about that. They were strong enough to hurt one of our bases, and we didn't catch what they were up to until our harbor was bombed.

I don't know. I really don't. I guess it's one of those things you don't know how to describe. I mean, you wouldn't know how to describe feeling scared for no reason without sounding like you're crazy. But I got scared. Scared because of what the Japanese did, but it made me respect them a little too. They grew so strong in just a short amount of time, and I thought that we could learn from how well they adapted to their surroundings. That was something most people couldn't do, but a whole country did it, and I didn't know if I could hate something but still have respect for it, especially when Papa was supposed to be fighting them.

I raised my hand and told Mrs. Clark what I thought about Japan, and she gave me a scary look and told me to see her after school.

What I learned in class was that you gotta know when to keep your mouth shut.