Comma

The U.S. had jus’ fired a missile into Iraq that evening as a preëmptive strike and now the nation was at war on two fronts, Afghanistan was the other. As Jeff and I sat in the lunchroom of our workplace we discussed the implication and ramifications of a drawn out conflict in the Middle East.

Somehow we came down to bumper sticker slogans and he said “God Bless America.”

I repeated it — thinking I couldn’t do better.

Then he stopped me and said, “God Bless America.”

“I don’t get where you’re headed with this,” I told him.

He pulled out a pen and scribble three words on a napkin and pushed towards me. I read it and realized what he was saying and I knew then he had taken a slogan many might consider old and worn out and revitalized.

Jeff had written, “God, Bless America.”