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by Lucas Shepherd

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“You keep getting older but it stays the same
AGE,” said Senior Airman Valitski, rapping his knuckles

against a battered bomb lift. How does
one describe 2A6X2? To my students,

I just say “Air Force” and leave
it at that. To my wife I say I drove the flightline.

North, south, across the runways. To my kids,
I worked beside airplanes. Fighter jets! Gunships!

Planes with no one inside them! We draw
F-16s, C-130s, drones with sidewalk

chalk, our hands coated with pastel colors.
To myself I say I served, long ago.

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