Aloha everyone. This story is not a true story - except in its theme. It is a collage of anecdotes I picked up from Veterans who wrote letters (remember writing letters and not sending texts and emails?). Not the "Dear John" letters, but the letters that kept people together even though they were far apart. And since I wrote about what Brut did to me in Training, and how perfume meant so much on a letter. I decided to merge those with another After Shave...Aqua Velva. And that part of the story is true. A guy told me that he answered all his perfumed letters from his girl back in the World, by dousing all his letters with Aqua Velva. And they did keep those letters too. So here it is part Fiction, part Life.

“You know Dad, Mom made told me something yesterday that I have to ask you about.”

The younger man, forty in age but centuries in the memories he carried- looked across the table. What he saw was his Dad. His Dad was in Vietnam when his son was born. Just like the younger man’s two girl twins were born while he was deployed to Iraq, and later, Afghanistan. Like his Dad he wrote old fashioned letters, one a week, the whole time he was at war.

“What’s that Son?”

“Yesterday I saw Mom take a shoebox out of the closet. She went in the little sun room and a few minutes later I heard her crying. I didn’t want to disturb her so I snuck up on the door to the sun room to listen.”

“Sneaking up on people is one of the things they taught us in the Army.”

A smile, small, ghost like, but solid enough to bond, gave his Father’s comment a “thumbs up.” Then he continued on:

“I went in and put my hand on her shoulder. She reached up an patted my hand. I asked her what she was doing with all those old letters.”

She held one up for me to sniff.

“Smell that, honey.”

"Even after fifty years I could recognize that scent.”

The Dad interrupted his son:

“Aqua Velva.”

The son eked out a surprised yelp.

“What? How did you know?”

The Older man smiled. His eyes looked into his past now, and not at his son.

“Your Mom used to put this lovely perfume on her letters. My CO said every time the mail came, the enemy knew I got a letter. (They both chuckled) So I used to use Aqua Velva and pour some on my letters back to her. That oak moss smell lasts a long time.”

“Mom said it was a very manly smell…after it settled down.”

The old man laughed out loud.

“ Oh believe me, when you first put Aqua Velva on, you smelled like an orange had soaked itself in Halls cough drops. And it stung like hell after you shaved. But then, a bit later…well, the oak moss gave you a nice earthy smell. Like a man. A real man…just like the commercials said.”

They both laughed again.

“Of course, we never wore it once we left basecamp. Didn’t want Charlie to know some clean shaved American was wandering around in the bush.”

This time the young man nodded agreement. There are a lot of ways to give away your position and you learn right away in Combat that is never a good thing. He stopped to remember when he used to drive in a straight line over in Iraq…the modern equivalent of wearing Aqua Velva in the Jungle. He learned quickly not to do that. He shifted back to the conversation. Just like his Dad had done earlier.

“That’s what I wanted to ask you about. Mom let me read one of those letters. It wasn’t from Nam. It was dated about ten years after you got Discharged.”

This time the son had to wait a while. His Dad had gone back to some place in his memory where short visits weren’t allowed. Finally, after several long minutes his Dad looked up. His face was wet with tears.

“Oh. Those letters. She has them both you know.”

“What do you mean…both?”

The Dad made a decision.

“Son, grab a beer. Let’s go out and sit by the fire pit. Get me one too.”

Outside, the Fall weather made the small fire welcome. The beer felt normal in their hands. A Father and Son were about to talk.

“Son, when I was in Vietnam I was at an Artillery Base.”

The Son knew his Father was an Artillery Man, and he spent sixteen months in Vietnam. The extra four months was so he could take leave in Hawaii for a month. That month was special for them both. Mom was pregnant with the son, but only just. According to them both it was a slice of heaven on Earth. They went back to Hawaii for every special Anniversary, their tenth, twenty fifth, and their fortieth. Their fiftieth - Covid stopped that one cold. His Father never talked about the War except in very general terms. Just like the son. They didn’t need words. They had been there.

“ My first night in Country we got pounded. I still hate thunderstorms. Flashes of light and sound in complete darkness make me …nervous.”

The son held back is own memory of the dry heat inside a blown up Hummer- his Wife didn’t know why he wouldn’t use the oven at home, or go to Vegas. He hated dry heat.

“The next morning I made some real improvements on our Gun Position. And…my bunker. I vowed to write your Mother a letter a day. And I did.”

They both raised their beers in salute to a promise made, a promise kept.

“I doused those letters in Aqua Velva to remind her of me, and to hide the smell of our guns, or their shells. They were love letters son. All of them. I never knew if tomorrow would come, and if it did, would I be here at sundown. So I wrote about how much I loved her. Mushy letters, the kind of stuff a Nineteen year old would write. Just one year out of High School, and only a few months separated from a Letter Jacket that was replaced with a Uniform. Heck I wasn’t even Nineteen until that December. The guys in the Gun Pit gave me a case of beer, and six bottles of Aqua Velva. I loved those guys. Not all of them made it home.”

This time, both men sobered for a long while. Memories of kids who would never get any older, but would never be forgotten, filled the spaces in their minds with the holes that loss and guilt make. It takes a long time to forgive yourself for surviving when others…did not. It isn’t fair. It just is. A quiet toast to those ghosts that sometimes surface unbidden along with the feelings of thanks and shame.

“Well, after Hawaii ( a quick smile- everyone knew what Hawaii meant in Dad’s world) I wrote even more. You were growing inside your Mom…and I wanted to come home to see you. If I didn’t make it, well, I wanted to leave your Mother with something to show you I loved you. So I started writing a letter to you each week. Man stuff.”

They both laughed.

“Yes, Dad, I read all of those. Mom gave them to me when I signed up after 9/11. I still have them. How come they don’t smell like Aqua Velva?”

The Dad blushed.

“I didn’t want you to think your Dad was some kind of pansy.”

Another shared laugh. It was a different time.

The son grew solemn again.

“But Dad, the letters Mom showed me the other day…those were written long after you got home to the World. In fact, she showed me one that you wrote just last week. Why?”

The Father set his beer down on the grass beside his chair and leaned up closer to the fire. He rubbed his hands lightly over the flames and then looked over at his son.


“I wasn’t a very good husband for a while….when I got home. I drank a lot. I slept a lot. I hid my feelings…a lot. Nobody really knew about PTSD back then, even if they did, well we didn’t talk about it. Heck I never even told anyone I was in Nam until you were out of High School. Marriage is hard. It is even harder if one of you closes up. Your Mother (he looked up at the sky and whispered his thousandth prayer of thankfulness for her) your Mother put up with my brooding, my depression, my moods. Until one night I caught her reading those Aqua Velva letters.

She had locked herself in the bathroom. But the lock did’t latch. I was able to crack the door a bit. She was sitting on the edge of the tub in her Pajamas…reading my letter out loud to herself. Tears were streaming down her face. She would read, lift the letter to her nose, take a deep sniff, and clutch it to her heart. I watched her in silence for over an hour. Finally she put them back in the cigar tin, and went to wash her face. She saw me in the mirror.

“ How long have you been standing there?”

“About an hour. Why do you read those old letters?”

She looked at me, dry eyed now. Took a deep breath and unloaded a decade of hurt. You don’t need to know what she said except that those letters were all she had left of me. The me she knew and loved …before…well…I locked everything inside me down.”

The son was listening intently. He knew exactly what his Dad was saying. Exactly. His own wife’s picture was forming in his mind…and he wondered about the letters he sent from the Sand Box and Death Valley. Letters his Dad told him to write, not call, or text…write. And he was glad he did. He felt the pangs of guilt as his Father’s words searched for common ground.

“So the next day I ordered some Aqua Velva. They still make it. It is just you hairy beasts don’t need an aftershave…you don’t shave. (The smile he gave his son, and his son’s quiet stroking of his own short beard- was another shared bonding moment that went unnoticed but not unneeded) I wrote her a letter that next morning, doused it in Aqua Velva and mailed it to her. You don’t need to know what was in that letter, but you do need to know it is the reason your Mother and I found our footing again. In fact….hmmm…”

“What Dad, no secrets…tell me.”

This time his Father seemed to glow brighter than the coals in the fire pit.

“Well, I was thinking, that letter might be the reason your little sister was born…fifteen years after you got here.”

“DAD!”

The backdoor opened. She had watched her Husband and Son talk for the last hour and a half. She just stood by the kitchen window and soaked in her family. She had no idea what they were talking about…but she was glad they were talking. She grabbed a beer for herself and a bowl of pretzels and headed out to join them.

She sat on her husband’s lap. As comfortable as any cat or dog would be. She was safe there. The bowl of pretzels almost emptied by the giant handful her eldest boy had taken. Her hubby just reached in and took one. She dangled one arm over her hubbies still broad shoulders, ignoring completely the soft bulge of his belly against her side.

“What were you two talking about?”

It seemed an innocent question. But the look that shot between the two men she loved made her question that assumption.

It was her son that spoke first.

Mom, do you have any writing paper and some Aqua Velva?”

She laughed out loud. What a strange request.

“Yes, yes I do. May I ask why?”

The son smiled at her. Toasted his Dad with a salute by tasing his beer high over his head.

“Because Mom, I have a letter to write.”

The soft gentle sound came from his Mother:

“Oh…oh.”

Without a word she got up…some things are so important you have to do them now.

The Dad also stood up. So did the son. All three touched bottles until they all clinked.

“To Aqua Velva!"