Elliot Mendoza -You don't know him, right?

Elliot Mendoza is a kid from New York City.

He knows all the neighborhood guff. Who's zooming who. Who can be leaned on and who might be someone to cross the street when seen. When he was eighteen or so he worked for me at the store. He was a bright, earnest guy. He took in all the little stuff like a sponge, what washer fit a Gerber faucet, what size bit to use for the anchor for a number ten screw.

He's twenty now, more like thirty, but thirty without a trace of a beard. His mom is busy, very busy, raising the other kids in his family so she didn't have much time for Elliot.

I don't know where his father is and he has never talked about whoever he was.

When he decided to join the Army he told me first. (I think that was a good choice of career move and a poor choice of person to tell. I tried very hard to appear supportive.)

After basic, Elliot came back to the city for a couple of days and I took him to lunch around the corner. He was looking good, sharp, the Army knows how to get most anyone in shape, and Elliot,
(he doesn't have any kind of nickname or something to call him for short which is odd in my experience, almost everyone else I've ever known as a friend has had some kind of shorthand name,)
Elliot was looking forward to Advanced Combat Training and was hoping he could qualify for Airborne.

I had to laugh in spite of myself.
Here was this skinny kid from Queens wanting to become some kind of human combat machine,
I wanted him to succeed,
I wanted him to wash out in the first two weeks and be assigned to handing out sheets and blankets at some infirmary in Colorado.
I wanted him to succeed and become the fastest, baddest son of a bitch on wheels that ever heffed an M-4.
I wanted him to get on the M101 bus to the Lower East Side and disappear for fifteen years or so.
I wanted him to be the guy from the block who does it all, jumps from airplanes, shoots a lot of ammo and returns in time to catch the last weeks of the season because the frigging Red Sox are neck and neck with the Bombers.

I was scared to death for him.

Anyway, Elliot is in Iraq now.

I don't exactly where, but what does that matter? It's his first Christmas away from home and I finally got his mother to give me his APO address and here's the thing: I don't know think he knows many people.

So, I think it would be fun if a bunch of us just emailed to say hello and Merry Christmas. Would you do that for me?

Email Elliot Mendoza at elliot. [email protected]. mil

(there's a couple of extra spaces in that address to defeat the spammers of this planet. (Sigh)

Say Merry Christmas or whatever and that you are a friend of Jonathan.

I would like to flood his mailbox so even if you don't know me, you now know a little about Elliot, so go ahead. Press Send.



Joe(All is calm, all is bright)Nation