1 May 2025, @mariannewest's Freewrite Writing Prompt Day 2723: do or die

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Sgt. Vincent Trent had gotten to know his neighbor Capt. R.E. Ludlow well … the higher ranking of the two men was raised in the expected Virginian blue-blood way, and so as a racist and white supremacist, but the captain had fought his way out of his past – the most valiant fight he had ever fought, and the blessings of acknowledging all humanity as coming from the image of God were piling on every day.

As it was in the case of Sgt. Joe Wainwright from the captain's active duty past, the captain and Sgt. Trent had become friends, and later, business partners – Capt. Ludlow just loved good soldiers and race simply made no difference … but the sergeant also knew that he was just a little older than Capt. Ludlow's lost son, Robert Edward Ludlow Jr. That actually had been what had riled the captain up at first – nowhere in his formative training about life were his children supposed to be in the ground on drug overdoses and their kids orphaned and in foster care needing to be raised by their grandparents while Sgt. and Mrs. Trent were with their children – clean living and thriving, no absent father or single mother situations. He could not in that stage of his own grief handle such a hard repudiation of everything he had been raised to believe.

“The captain got that racial Uno Reverse stereotype card and can't deal with it,” 21-year-old Melvin Trent had said to his sergeant father as they cleaned their guns back in the spring, “and we understand but also it can be his last problem if he wants.”

“Yep,” Sgt. Trent said. “That's Robert Edward 'Hell to Pay' Ludlow, and if this is not a temporary issue for him, he can and will get his own medicine applied – but I pray he come to himself, because his record says he is just having a moment of temporary insanity, and he will get over it.”

Sgt. Trent's prayers were answered... now, six months later, the sergeant and his eldest two children kept their guns ready, but it did not have anything to do with Capt. Ludlow. Their families had pretty much blended, like Sgt. Trent's Jubilee-of-the-mountain relatives had good friends among Capt. Ludlow's Lee-of-the-mountain relatives … history had gone on and repeated itself, and it was a beautiful thing to see.

Not that Sgt. Trent still did not observe the captain closely at all times … like his oldest Jubilee relatives said, “A Jubilee know to watch a Lee, and a Lee know to watch a Jubilee, 'cuz one fought for slavery and gon' die if he slip back 'cuz we watchin', an' de other fought for freedom so he know he gotta watch but will watch over for all good, too.”

Capt. Ludlow was in his dress uniform early in the morning of September 4, 2020, suitcase in hand, but stopped, and sighed, a deeply pensive look on his face in the porch light.

“Good morning, Captain,” Sgt. Trent said.

“Good morning, Sergeant,” the captain said.

“It's one of those do or die types of days, I see,” the sergeant said.

“Yes, sir, it is,” Capt. Ludlow said. “It was actually easier to cut down the enemies of the United States – we got trained to do that and not blink. Whole different ballgame, taking on raising another child.”

“It's the most do or die thing there is for a man, quiet as it is kept,” Sgt. Trent said. “Being a father is God's first work … it is never a light thing to represent that in any child's life.”

“I'm filing the adoption paperwork for little Miss Glendella today,” the captain said.

“I figured that,” Sgt. Trent said. “It should go through pretty quick because there's not much else going on in the courts.”

“I know – I've asked the Lord to get it done before Astor and Big Glendella are both out of their respective hospitals and even notice that Glendella is 'missing.' Cousin Vanderbilt is still saying they haven't even mentioned it. I just got up today and said that instead of going over there and reminding them in the standard 'Hell to Pay' way, let me hand-deliver this and make sure that they have nothing to say when they do figure it out.”

“Good strategy, Captain – all that West Point training.”

Capt. Ludlow chuckled grimly.

“When you come home and find out the real war is here all along,” he said. “It's like that situation in that one Iraqi village … it took us twice as long times to fight our way to neutralizing it because those little kids were running to safety down that one street and I would not let my unit go down that street … I couldn't do it. It almost cost me my career, but I couldn't follow the orders given because my headset was broken.”

“I bet I know how that happened!” Sgt. Trent said.

“I bet you do,” Capt. Ludlow said.

“We have been meant to have this conversation for a long time,” Sgt. Trent said, “because I heard the order given to your unit. We were coming up from the south, and we saw those kids coming out of that street, and I prayed for the commander of the unit we were going to meet, that he would have a heart.”

Capt. Ludlow smiled.

“Thank you, Sergeant. Your captain must have been Jubilee Morris – the way he went around that street still saved the day, because my unit was able to link up with his and we got the job done. I was told many times later than those kids were going to grow up and hate us and kill younger U.S. soldiers no matter what we did – but that was none of my concern. They weren't a threat to me. My peers who didn't see them as human were a bigger threat than our Iraqi opponents – at least we can look at them as defending their homeland, but these peers, defending their right to be killers of children – far worse. It took me many years to realize this had always been the case and always will be, but, here we are.”

“Here we are,” Sgt. Trent said.

“The really good thing about being a hardened soldier,” Capt. Ludlow said as he picked up his suitcase. “I can care about Astor and Big Glendella just as much as they care about my new daughter, Glendella – it is really easy to eliminate the enemy and sleep well for me, and they are blessed that I know how legally to do that and not be bothered.”

“They can pay the hell on their own and you don't even have to be bothered,” Sgt. Trent said. “Again, good strategy, Captain – when you can outflank the enemy and they are waiting on you not even knowing you are past them – that's a good day!”

“A good day!” Capt. Ludlow said. “I'm ordering celebratory breakfast for everyone from Dubois on the Road – does your family have any favorites?”

“Oh, thank you and we love it all,” Sgt. Trent said, “but if you could throw a couple of extra beignets in there for Mrs. Trent, and a few extra calas rice doughnuts for Vanna, I'd appreciate it.”

“I'm also buying fruit for my cousin Harry because you know Col. Lee eats no sweet that God did not make Himself,” Capt. Ludlow said, “so I can bring up some plums and things for y'all too.”

“Whatever Fruitland has ripe, we'll love it, and thank you.”

Capt. Ludlow marched away double-time and happy, and Mrs. Trent came out.

“It's so wonderful when people get free to be blessed and be a blessing,” she said as she wrapped her arms around her husband, “and also wonderful when my husband remembers how much I love a beignet – thanks, Vincent.”