The Chameleon Soldier: NOW AS AN ALIEN BLUE HE CANNOT DIE. by D.B. Silvis Page A

before handing him a long brown envelope. Chester looked up at him. He tapped the envelope against his knee, clearly wondering what was inside.
    “Must be a nice card or a little money,” he said, grinning.
    Killian smiled.
    The children were all laughing and shouting, “Open it, Grandpa! Open it!”
    Chester nodded, opened the envelope, and removed a sheet of paper. As he read it, he began to cry. He dropped the paper onto his lap. Then he handed the paper to Martha.
    She read it aloud, “I hereby deed forty-nine per cent of the Kilkenny Ranch to Chester Freeman, and upon my death I bequeath the balance of the ranch to the heirs of Chester Freeman.”
    She dropped the paper into her lap and began to sob. The children were confused, as they did not understand what was going on. Then Chester and Martha stood up, and hugged Killian.
    “What’s happening?” asked Todd, Peter’s oldest son.
    Chester stepped over to the boy, and rubbed his head. “It means we now own a piece of the ranch, Todd.”
    “Really, what piece, Grandpa?”
    Everyone laughed at Todd’s remark and then stood up. They were all hugging, and thanking Killian, who had tears running down his cheeks.
    Killian put his arm around Chester. “There’s one more thing, my friend.” He reached into his pocket, and pulled out a folded piece of white paper. “It’s about time we had a brand on our horses. I’m suggesting this.”
    He handed Chester the paper. Chester smiled, as he looked at the paper, and then held it out for all to see. It read, “KF”. Everyone applauded.
    The next few years were good. The ranch continued to prosper and grow. Hundreds of horses were bred, broken and sold to the cavalry at Fort Bliss. As Chester and Martha became older, Peter, Jacob and their wives and children were beginning to take over managing the KF Ranch, alongside Killian.
    Then there were some bad times. In 1934, at the age of eighty-two, Chester Freeman died. One year later, almost to the day, Martha passed on.
    Peter and Jacob, now in their late fifties, and their grown children, were in charge of running the ranch. Killian was spending most of his time at Fort Bliss, helping train the horses they had sold to the cavalry.
    Meanwhile, trouble was once again stirring in Europe. Upon the death of Germany’s president, Paul Von Hindenburg, Chancellor Adolph Hitler became the absolute dictator under the title of Fuehrer, or “Leader”. Hitler dismantled Germany’s democratic government, and replaced it with the Third Reich. Extremist propaganda spread the word of the regime’s ideals, and goals, according to the “Fuehrer Principles. Hitler now stood outside the legal state, and determined matters of policy himself. He had the final say in both domestic and foreign policy. Under the Third Reich, the German people had no guarantee of basic rights. The government issued a decree which suspended constitutional civil rights. Hitler’s Third Reich was a single-party dictatorship based on the totalitarian and autocratic ideology of Nazism.
    After World War I and the Great Depression no one wanted war. Hitler saw this as a weakness. His ambition was to secure more land, especially to the east of Germany. His idea was to expand Germany according to the Nazi policy of lebensraum . Hitler used the pretext for Germany’s right to acquire land where German-speaking people lived. In March, 1938, Germany took over Austria. Then, in March, 1939, Great Britain and France let Hitler take over Czechoslovakia. Both countries were taken without bloodshed as Britain and France were trying to appease Hitler, and avoid another war. However, all this did was boost Hitler’s confidence in his plans to continue taking land to the east.
    On September, 1, 1939, Hitler attacked Poland in a sudden blitzkrieg . Most of Poland’s air force was destroyed while it was still on the ground. Bridges and roads were bombed and marching Polish soldiers were machine gunned from the air. But the