That's what Ray and Charles said their hand signs stood for as I took their picture on Sunday afternoon. It was the day after Ray's enraged encounters with the folks manning the Arlington Midwest installation in Detroit's Grand Circus Park (see yesterday's entry). I guess I could have titled this, "What a difference a day makes." Ray was grinning from ear to ear and giving me hugs & kisses whenever I scooted over to sit with him and his buddies on Sunday. When my husband Ed turned up unexpectedly after having biked eight miles to come downtown to see me, I took him over to meet Ray, Charles, Sarge, Jeff and Linda. They couldn't have been more gracious. Linda kept assuring Ed that he need never worry about my safety down there. "Nothing will ever happen to Patricia," she said, "We'll make sure of that!" Now, whether Ray's change of heart was due to his having expressed and hopefully healed some of his grief and remorse over what he'd seen and done in Iraq is not for me to say. Maybe the booze just hadn't taken hold yet. All I know is that it felt on Sunday like I was seeing the true Ray, the man who loves his mom--whose name is also Patricia--his firstborn son who is in the U.S. Navy stationed in the Gulf, his daughter-in-law who's expecting a baby and with whom he'd talked the other night, the pal whom his buddies obviously care deeply about. I'd like to think Saturday's tears had washed away some of his guilt. I'd like to believe that Arlington Midwest paid back some of the human cost of war, at least for Ray.

Again, to see my "Arlington Midwest: the human cost of war" photo gallery, CLICK HERE.