On his way to the jogging trails with his Chocolate Lab in the back seat eager to get out and run, the man saw a huge

limb of a gigantic oak split from the trunk lying across the front lawn.  A man, presumably the owner of the home,

stood surveying the deep, white wound in the trunk probably grateful that the massive branch fell east and not

west over his house. The driver saw a wounded warrior, the former hulk of a Hooah marine now a small torso with

titanium limbs being carried on his diminutive wife’s back. The tree surgeons would arrive within the week and cut the

limb into firewood size chunks to be burned in a year or so in the owner’s still standing fireplace. On the trail, the jogger in tow behind

the prancing Lab felt a twinge of discomfort in his arthritic left ankle from a twenty-six-year-old sprain he received while cross-

country skiing on the very same trails.  There was no Hooah, just the sound of a lone woodpecker pecking on the limb of a tree. 

The sound caught the dog’s attention. The man told the dog, “Leave it. Just leave it, Buddy.”