The fallen Hero

  As I stood before the long lost grave of my Great Uncle Edward questions wondered through my head. He died going over the top during World War I in France, we were told he was a body not recovered. Why did our Grandfather tell us that but kept his picture pinned to his tool chest until the day he died? Why was he buried here, in Milwaukee instead of Wisconsin Rapids where his parents lived almost one hundred miles away?
     I looked up to the heavens and closed my eyes to thank god for the find and answer my questions. Then something eerie happened, I was floating, looking down at my body as paramedics were feverishly trying to revive me in front of his marker, I couldn’t open my eyes. Something told me to listen as I heard  his voice.
     “Why did you come here?” he asked but I could not respond for some strange reason. “It does not matter” he continued “No one must know where I am buried as that was my fathers wish. I was shamed over something that was not my fault!” .
     His fathers wish! I thought to myself. He spoke again “We came here to America for a better life but still, we were German Immigrants. Living amongst Germans, speaking German and continuing German customs.  Then I was drafted into the American Army to fight Germans!”
     I watched as the paramedics open my shirt, placing some kind of ointment on my chest, then applying two paddles on top of the ointment. “Three, two, one” he said then I saw my whole body buckle in the air and violently land. The paramedic shook his head. Again they tried and failed but this did not bother me. I wanted to know more from my Great Uncle. “Looks like me when I died in that hail of machine gun fire in France”
     I thought to myself “why did your father want to keep your burial site a secret? It was not your fault” As if he knew what I was thinking he answered “We were still German and proud of it. I did not ask to fight but they drafted me. There were those in the community who questioned why my father did not try to send me back to Germany or hide me from the authorities. Instead they blamed him and our family because I was killing Germans. That is why your Grand Father moved to  Milwaukee, why I was buried here instead of home and  being German, the shame my family felt!”
     I felt a strong wind sweep my spirit back into my body. My eyes slowly opened as I looked around. The paramedics were gone, Birds were singing in the tree above his grave.  I looked down at his grave in amazement wondering if it was a bad dream or what. Then I heard a booming voice saying to me “GO NOW! LEAVE ME ALONE”