Summer Sun.

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Dedicated to Danica for helping me with Men’s names they are surprisingly difficult to choose! :0)

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I am sweating my balls off, not used to this crazy weather! Where I come from you’d be lucky to see even an hour of sunshine and it never gets this hot! I miss England the weather in Hawaii is overrated, so humid that it takes double the effort just to breathe and it doesn’t help that I have to wear this goddamned uniform everywhere I go.

I was stationed here for the next three months and I might be sounding ungrateful to you right about now but there was a war going on back home and I wanted to help. I was here to help negotiate with the US to get more soldiers to join us in the war but it was proving fruitless, apparently it wasn’t any of their business. Sure they had spared some men but the majority of them remained here at Pearl Harbour.

The American uniforms are much lighter than ours, sailors in their white outfits and soldiers in their light green cotton shirts while I am walking around in this uncomfortably heavy and itchy get up. Some of those boys looked seriously good in their uniforms and while the rest of my colleagues were eying up the nurses and what not, I kept sneaking glances at the sailors.

Of course I would never tell anyone that, what do you take me for a fool? It wasn’t difficult to hide my emotions you became sort of good at that when you joined the army, but staring, well that was a new thing for me and it was getting increasingly difficult to stop myself salivating.

On the bright side being here opened up a world of new experiences for me and I was trying despite the heat to enjoy as much of it as I could. I would be loving this place if I could strip off, put on some shorts and wander round the harbour but I had meetings to attend. Fully dressed with my cap on my head I made my way through the sea of officers towards headquarters so that I could try and negotiate at least another two brigades to join our men in France.

The war was coming to the US like it or not and in my opinion they were taking their sweet ass time preparing for it. Folks around here seemed to think it was all a big party, chasing women, drinking on a night and stripping off and scrubbing decks during the day. Meanwhile back home people were dying, families were left without husbands and fathers and it was just so hard to wrap my head around the different perspectives on war.

I guess I had always been hard headed that’s why they chose me to come out here in the first place, they knew I wouldn’t take no for an answer. I was usually so sensible and strict in my behaviour and the only thing I have ever stepped out of line for was my sexuality and well no one knew about that so to them I had a clean slate.

The meeting dragged on, I asked for four new brigades to be sent to the front line knowing fine well they wouldn’t agree to that. If I started high then they would think they were in control when really we only wanted another two in the first place, but that’s the problem with these damn yanks they liked to be in control. I’m ok with letting them think that as long as I get the men I needed to send to help and try to relieve some of the pressure on the soldiers that were already exhausted.

When I had the written and signed agreement from them I left the building, I looked at my wrist watch and it was seven pm. The meeting had been going since midday and I was drained, I needed to get out of this uniform and get myself a stiff drink. The heat didn’t let up at night either, at home it would probably be minus two degrees by now and I smiled at how I would be sitting in front of a coal fire, a glass of whiskey in my hand listening to the radio. I haven’t done that now for two long years, I missed it.

I went back to the room that they had provided for me, again I wasn’t used to the comfort anymore but I wouldn’t complain I might as well enjoy it while I can. I don’t know why I act like this I should be loving this break, taking the chance to appreciate what I have and live in the moment. But the guilt eats away at me almost every minute of the day as flashes of what is going on at home fill my mind.

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