29 May 2004 – Outside Fort Benning, Columbus, Georgia

Keiko sat on Jeff’s lap at their hotel in Columbus. Keiko and the kids flew down for the Memorial Day holiday with both sets of parents. The children slept in the adjoining room. Jeff would be part of the ceremonies on Monday honoring the fallen who gave their lives for their country. Their families were here to watch and be with him before he left to put his on the line.

“Keiko I can’t imagine this will be your favorite subject, but we need to talk about what I’ve put in place if I don’t come home.” He felt his wife stiffen. “I don’t want to put this off any longer.”

“No, you are right, Jeffrey,” Keiko sighed. “It is a subject which warrants discussion. I am guessing you have already set funds set aside for the children? The accounts we have been meaning to establish for them?”

“Yes, there are funds for each of their educations and separate, general trust funds. I’m also naming you my proxy in any business related to Neptune’s Forge. I trust Sacha to be honest with you and give you the pros and cons to whatever she presents you.”

“Does she contact you frequently?”

“We talk occasionally, but not with any frequency. She says she likes to keep me in the loop though, since we own thirteen percent of her company.”

“I do not understand how their products work.”

“I don’t either, Keiko, beyond the basic theory of fusion, that is. You have common sense, which is more important than technical knowledge for us at this point. Thankfully, Sacha and her team have it as well. They balance that common sense with the daring needed to innovate.”

“Is there more?”

“Yes. My will leaves everything to you in the event of my death. That’s probably no surprise to you. There’s also a separate living will which makes your temporary proxy permanent, and spells out certain medical wishes, in the event I become mentally incapacitated as a result of injuries sustained.”

“And when you come home?” There was no ‘if’ for Keiko.

“There are certain parts of the wills which will automatically update if – sorry, when – I return alive and unharmed.”

Keiko asked no further questions, but sat silently in her husband’s strong arms.

“I am scared, Jeffrey,” she said in a whisper.

“I won’t tell you not to be, Keiko. Part of me is as well. There are thousands of troops deployed right now and though the percentage of them who return wounded – or not at all – is low, it’s not zero. That low percentage is scant comfort to the families who are living with the aftermath. I know I don’t need to explain that to you or your parents.

“I want to see the kids grow up, finish school, and live their lives. I want to see the amazing people they will become. To see them fall in love, see them marry, and have children of their own. If they choose another path I will be happy for that, too. Most of all, I want to be by your side to watch that happen and grow old with you. I want to see your face when you hold our first grandchild for the first time.

“I’m leaving to fight a battle I believe our country should be fighting. The Taliban gave aid and comfort to an enemy, one which attacked us in the most brutal way. They both need to be put down and put down hard for that reason alone. The Taliban still hold the southern and southwestern portions of Afghanistan and, if what I hear in the news is correct, they still support active terrorist training camps in those regions. We need to make sure the Northern Alliance captures those areas and destroys those camps, or we need to do it ourselves. Our government seized all the Taliban’s assets they could identify in this country and shut off their funding sources. Our military operations are draining their bank accounts, too.

“To get through this deployment I need to be confident in my skills and those of the soldiers in my unit. We are trained as well as anyone out there. We train often and we train with intensity. Sometimes I think the saying ‘work hard, play hard’ was invented for people in the military, Rangers in particular. ’Yea, though we walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death we shall fear no evil, because we’re the meanest sons-a-bitches in the whole damn valley.’”

Keiko couldn’t hold her fears inside any longer. She began to sob.

“Let it out, Keiko. You’ve been so incredibly strong these last three years. I know you’ve been putting on a brave face for our families, and for the kids in particular, but let what you’ve been hiding go.” Her tears soon soaked his shirt.

“I love you, Jeffrey,” she sniffed.

“And I you, my Keiko-chan. I’ve loved you since the day we met. I believe we still have many years together yet to come, in spite of my preparations.”

Former Rangers stood with active duty members on the shores of Victory Pond for the Memorial Day ceremony at the Ranger Memorial. Time may have softened some of the veterans’ bodies, but it hadn’t taken the fire from their eyes nor the steel from their spines. Jeff wouldn’t want to be on the wrong end of their displeasure, even now.

While Jeff and his mates heard the names of the fallen, the older men remembered the men behind those names. Men who scaled the cliffs at Pointe du Hoc teared up at the memories of friends, fellow warriors, sixty years after D-Day. Jeff saw Keiko, in the stands watching the proceedings, bow her head while remembering her brother. He hadn’t been a Ranger but this day was set aside to honor all of the nation’s fallen. By this time his three kids knew he would deploy next week. He was glad they understood why they were here and not lying on a beach somewhere.

Regimental headquarters and 3d Battalion hosted a cookout for everyone after the ceremony. This was the battalion’s informal sendoff. Jeff’s kids found ready playmates in the other children at the party. Shrieks and the sound of young laughter filled the area. Active Rangers who hadn’t deployed before listened to the stories told by both former and current Rangers who had. The stories were of their departed friends, of the shit they pulled in the barracks and off-post together – not combat – for the most part. The men cried because they laughed so hard at some of the stories.

The wives and girlfriends sat in a quiet, gloomy group thinking about the impending separations. They would soon say goodbye to their men. Some would never see them again. Those who lived through a deployment before put on brave faces and tried to comfort those who hadn’t. Keiko, Mayumi, and Marisa were silent. The only extended deployment experience two of them could share would be the kind none of the other families wanted to think about.

When Jeff’s family gathered back at the hotel the men noticed their wives were very quiet. Nothing was said while the children were awake. Neither of the mothers said anything until they were in their rooms with the dads. In contrast, Keiko remained silent for the entire night, even when curled up next to Jeff in their bed. Jeff could feel her tension, her not wanting to unload her fears on him again this close to his departure.

Army and 3d Battalion flags whipped in the breeze. Colored campaign streamers fluttered above those flags. They flashed and snapped in their own rhythm. The battalion stood at ease in formation on the parade field listening to the muckety-mucks speaking from the podium. The soldiers’ thoughts were of their deployment less than twenty-four hours away, not the speeches.

Their separation – once months away – now loomed over the families sitting in the stands like the crest of a giant wave. They once hoped it wouldn’t break over them, but it was now inevitable. The speeches sounded good on TV but stole dwindling time from the soldiers and their loved ones.

Finally the command ’FALL OUT!’ came. The unit dissolved into individual family groups. Wives and children clung to their soldiers after the ceremony. Most drifted away to be alone. The Knox family was no exception. This was 3d Battalion’s official sendoff and its Rangers would load onto the C-17s taking them to war early the next day.

Jeff’s family stayed in Columbus to be with him as much as possible before he deployed. Keiko would use up her time off because of two days’ delay in the battalion’s departure, but her principal told her not to worry about it. Carl Hammond wasn’t a veteran but, as the principal of a school where almost twenty-five percent of students had at least one parent in the military, he understood the stresses of a family facing deployment. Keiko, who hadn’t been out at all this school year, earned considerable leeway.

Keiko and the kids drove Jeff to the 3d Battalion area the next morning. No one there raised an eyebrow at the sight of Jeff carrying his daughter over from the parking lot. Other Rangers repeated the scene numerous times before the 0700 assembly time. He put Sabrina down so he could say goodbye to the boys.

“I love you guys,” Jeff said to Alex and Ryan. “You take care and I’ll be back before you know it.”

“Figures you’d leave while the Sox are doing so well,” his oldest, now seven, remarked while fighting tears.

“We’ll go to Fenway together after I get home, Alex. I’ll get some awesome seats and we’ll all go, okay?”

Alex nodded while trying not to cry. Boys don’t cry, he kept thinking.

“You’ll have to sit through a Bruins game at the Garden with your brother and sister in return, though.” Jeff noticed the looks on both boys’ faces. “It’s okay to cry, guys. Don’t let anyone ever tell you otherwise.”

Ryan – near tears himself – shook his head.

“Mom and Sabrina will start if we do.” Jeff ruffled their hair before turning back to his daughter.

“I love you, Princess. I’ll write as often as I can.”

Sabrina nodded, burst into tears, and nearly popped Jeff’s head off with a hug around his neck. That set everyone else off. When their tears stopped, Sabrina stepped back to let Jeff say goodbye to her mother. The boys put their arms around their sister to comfort her.

Keiko kissed Jeff harder than she ever had in her life.

“Come back to me, Jeffrey,” she pleaded in a whisper.

”3d Battalion! FALL IN!” echoed through the area before he could reply.

“I will, Keiko. I love you.” Jeff kissed her again before he hustled away to join Bravo Company.

Keiko knelt behind their three kids and hugged them while they watched their father march away.

“I’ll be glad to get off this damn plane,” Rick Mendoza said for the third time that hour.

“Careful, Rick,” cautioned Jeff. “You’re gonna hurt the nice Air Force crew’s feelings.”

“With as long as we’ve been on this flight, they’re probably ready to open the ramp and tell us to get out and walk from thirty thousand feet up.”

“We had that layover at Ramstein.”

“That was so they could pump the toilets out.”

“We got real food out of that layover instead of another MRE.”

Rick snorted. “MRE – three lies for the price of one. And that ‘meal’ wasn’t more than a drive-by. We barely sat down! I think we got more time to eat at Airborne School!”

“You’re not going to be Debbie Downer for our whole deployment, are you? That’ll make for a long twelve months.”

“If I can’t bitch to you, Bones, who am I going to bitch to?”

“I thought bitching went up the chain of command?”

“Yeah, but you’re not in my chain of command, so it’s even better. I can bitch to you all I want!”

“It’s gonna be a really long year I see,” Jeff replied while massaging his temple. The Air Force crew began passing the word they would land in ten minutes.

The C-17 bumped down on the unseen runway. There weren’t any windows in the -17’s cargo area Jeff could see out of. Bravo Company formed up on the tarmac behind their plane and began marching toward the terminal building. A breeze from the northwest brought an unpleasant odor.

“Okay, that’s vile,” commented Emilio Reyes, a private on his first deployment.

“Yeah, I don’t know what Geddy meant when he sang about ‘the fragrance of Afghanistan,’ but I’m sure that wasn’t it,” Jeff replied while biting back the urge to vomit.

“Who?” Trace asked.

“Geddy Lee, the lead singer of Rush. That’s one of the lines from their song ‘A Passage to Bangkok.’”

“Then what the hell is that?” Reyes asked.

“They’re probably burning the dried fecal matter from the latrines.”

“The what?”

“The shit, Emilio, the dried shit from the latrines,” Jeff said. “Where do you think the phrase ‘shit detail’ comes from? They must have older model deployable latrine recyclers here. With those models you have to manually remove the ‘solids,’ douse them with diesel fuel, and light them on fire. They send the recycled water to the fusion generators as fuel. The current models incinerate the solids internally. Ultra-high temperatures and a two-stage incineration process eliminates most of the smell, too.”

“How do you know so much about the latrine units, Doc?” asked DJ Schultheis.

“Ensuring proper sanitation in camp is part of my job description, as is knowing how to achieve that.”

Bravo Company and the rest of 3d Battalion marched through the gates of a sprawling fenced-off area with several large tents. Bravo remained inside the area and in formation for five minutes while the other companies filed into some of those tents. They were told to hold all questions as they waited. A tent large enough for their whole company was their destination after the wait. An officer stepped to the front of the tent.

“Men,” he began once Bravo Company sat, “my name is Captain Sears from CENTCOM J-3. Welcome to Afghanistan and Bagram Air Base. When you leave this briefing you will be given one full magazine for your M-4s. Those of you carrying an M-9 or M-11 will get one mag for that weapon as well. No ammunition will be issued for your machine guns, nor grenades for your -203s, while inside the wire. You’ll get that before you leave for any missions. You may seat the magazines in your weapon, but your weapons are to remain on ‘safe’ and you will not chamber a round.

“We are seeing an increase in what we’re beginning to call green-on-blue violence. That is ‘trusted’ Afghans in uniforms opening fire on US or allied forces. The policy of unloaded weapons inside the wire left those blue forces helpless, hence the change. The north, south, and west sides of the base – the sides of the base closest to the city of Bagram – currently have completed barrier walls of offset, back-to-back HESCO bastions topped by a third. The perimeter wall is not yet finished to our east, though that gap is closing every day and is controlled with rolls of concertina.”

There’s a cozy thought, Jeff thought. The possibility of enemy inside the wire – just what we need.

“The Taliban still hold most areas in and around Kandahar and Helmand Provinces. The Afghans have not experienced much success in rooting out the insurgents in that area. To date US policy has been to provide support to the Afghans without directing their policy in their country. That is about to change. We will be taking the fight to the Taliban rather than hanging back and waiting for our hosts to take care of things.

“While other units will concentrate on patrolling, getting to know the people in their AORs and the main enemy strongholds there, your battalion will be CENTCOM’s troubleshooters. Your combat power will be brought to bear in areas where we’ve run into difficulty. Two companies will be assigned to the four southernmost provinces, while the other two companies will be responsible for necessary missions in the rest of the country.”

“I wonder how much door-kicking we’ll do on those ‘necessary missions?’” Rick asked under his breath.

“Our fair share, I’m sure,” Jeff replied in the same manner.

“‘Bad boys, bad boys, whatchu gonna do? Whatchu gonna do when we come for you? Bad boys, bad boys... ‘“

“This ain’t TV and this ain’t COPS, Rick. I won’t be readin’ anybody their rights.”

The briefing lasted another few minutes before the captain cut them loose. The company filed past tables outside and received their ammunition allotment. They were directed to 3d Battalion’s area once back in formation.

“Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home,” Jeff said while tossing his duffle bag on a cot inside 2d Platoon’s temporary tent.

“What did you guys call this kinda place back in the day, Doc? A ‘hooch?’”

“Nauert, I’m gonna dropkick you right over the perimeter wall. I was not in Vietnam! I did spend close to seven months in GP-Large tents in Kuwait and Iraq during the Gulf War, however. This place is like the Hilton compared to those places! It’s even got a floor that’s not dirt!”

“Half a year in a tent?” Reyes asked, clearly displeased with the prospect.

“Not exclusively, no. I did spend about a week sleeping in a Bradley. I’ll take the tent over that any day.”

“Suck it up, Emily!” Nauert yelled from the other end of the tent, using the nickname Reyes earned because he whined too much one day. Emilio flipped him off. “It’s only gonna be six weeks or so before we’re in those plywood B-huts they’re building. We just gotta wait our turn. Hell, at least there’s air conditioning!”

Jeff walked into the base hospital along with the other battalion medics and their PAs the next day. One of 1st Batt’s PAs led them on a tour of the facility, pointing out where they could restock their medical supplies. 1st Batt would rotate home in a week, after 3d settled in. The hospital was a series of interconnected rigid-wall tents complete with climate control. They even had an ICU wing with air purifiers.

“This hospital is the equal of any trauma center in the continental United States. It might even surpass them. We see more trauma here in a week than the largest centers stateside will see in a whole year. Like our country’s past conflicts what we’re learning here will be used to improve trauma care back home.

“The staff here is highly motivated and they are among the sharpest clinicians I’ve ever met. The level of trust our battalion’s medics enjoy regarding their skills in the field is unmatched anywhere. Be straight with these people. They will be as exhausted as you will be and tempers will flare over the course of your deployment, but do not take it personally when it happens. They will also be genuine when they apologize for their attitudes later. Remember, we’re all here for the same reason.

“Casualties from the south come north to us or one of the other allied combat support hospitals to get them away from the heaviest fighting. Those requiring care in the far north go to our CSH near Dushanbe in Soviet Tadzhikistan. Those of you who will be stationed away from Bagram will be based out of secure compounds within HH-60 flight range of here or other compounds. Many of those compounds will also host forward surgical teams to stabilize your casualties before they’re evacuated to a CSH.

“Helicopter evac here is very good, but there’s a lot of ground for them to cover. If you need to call for dustoff be aware that you may get an Army HH-60, an Air Force MH-60, or one of our allies’ choppers depending on where you are. All the flight medics in-country have been around the block if they’ve been here any length of time, and some of them have been around the block multiple times. There will not be a time where you get two wet-behind-the-ears medics or PJs on the same aircraft, regardless of which nation they’re from.

“Those of you with previous experience, whether it be civilian or military: watch your new folks. Watch everyone for burnout. Watch for that thousand-yard stare. Be persistent when you recognize it in your Rangers and try to help them. Be accepting if someone recognizes that in you. You are the ones who will understand what each other is going through. No one else will come as close to understanding.”

Jeff noticed a small medical library space within the hospital. He learned they were welcome to – and were expected to – take advantage of any of the hospital’s available resources if they had questions during their tour in-country. This included asking hospital staff if they had questions as well.

The four Bravo Company medics explored the growing relaxation area of Bagram people there called ‘the Boardwalk’ after their hospital tour. Rough plywood canopies, wooden walkways, and large tents in the bazaar housed various small slices of home. There were three different fast food places, a barber shop, military post office, and even an open-air performance space used for concerts. As Jeff strolled down the Boardwalk with the other three medics from his company, an unexpected yet familiar face caught his attention.

“MISH!” he barked in surprise.

The haggard specialist stopped and turned back toward him. The friendly, open face he remembered from AIT wasn’t there. Whatever she’d seen here wiped her normal smile from her face at some point. She blinked at him without any apparent recognition.

“Mish, it’s Jeff Knox from AIT.”

“Sergeant Knox.”

There was no emotion in her voice. He’d seen the same haunted look before in too many people, himself included.

“Mish ... Can I buy you a drink?” he asked, motioning to a kiosk. The incongruity of a coffee shop in a war zone made his head spin. Mishka Gupta looked to her friends.

“Go ahead, Mish,” one of them said. “We’ll wait for you over here.” Jeff’s fellow Ranger medics nodded toward Mish’s friends, indicating they’d wait with them.

Jeff bought a tea for Mish and a black coffee for himself before leading her to an open table. He’d seen more signs of life in department store mannequins. It worried him to see her like this. Mish stared blankly as she sat on the bench of the picnic table while Jeff straddled the bench facing her.

“Mish, do you want to talk about it?” he asked gently. She didn’t give any indication she heard him, or that she was listening in the first place. “Mish, you heard most of my stories when we were at Fort Sam together. You know how horrific a lot of them were. You also know I cautioned you guys not to bottle up your feelings, especially when they start to gnaw at you. I can’t be the first to tell you this since we left AIT. The way your friends keep looking over here I’m sure they’ve told you the same thing, as well as others.” Jeff reached down and took her hand in both of his. “Come on, where’s the girl who nearly tore my arm off at graduation?” he asked with a crooked smile.

Mish looked down at her hand in his, then looked up. The impassive eyes began to brim with tears, her lip quivering. A single tear fell before she launched herself at him and clung to him for dear life. Loud, wracking sobs shook her body and almost deafened him. Jeff could see a couple of her friends lowering their heads while they also cried in relief. Others looked over in curiosity but wisely kept to themselves. Mish cried herself out after five minutes.

“I’m sorry.”

“For what, Mish? You obviously needed that.”

“For getting snot all over your BDUs.”

Jeff shrugged. He handed her some napkins from the nearby dispenser so she could blow her nose. He took a couple and wiped the aforementioned substance off his shoulder.

“It’s not like I’m going to be on parade any time soon.” He took a slow breath. “What happened, Mish?”

She took a similar slow breath and let it out.

“My division’s been deployed for almost a year. We’re rotating home in three days. As a female I wasn’t allowed to go out with the infantry guys, but I’ve gone out with our transportation units plenty of times. I was assigned to one company and really hit it off with one of the section leaders. I’d volunteer to go with her platoon as the medic when they went somewhere.

“They call transportation a non-combat MOS, but you couldn’t tell that around here. They don’t catch as much shit as the troops who go looking for the bad guys, but plenty of the bad guys come looking for the trucks. I can’t begin to guess how much ammo I’ve sent down range.”

“Hit the supply lines,” Jeff interjected. “One of the oldest stories in warfare.”

“Right. There were lots of times where we had to dismount and fight off insurgents and other assorted assholes. I guess they think women can’t fight so transportation’s an easy target. They usually find out the hard way they’ve walked into a buzz saw – we don’t roll over. It’s not a mistake we let them repeat, either. Last week, I went out with Rachel’s platoon on what was a fairly typical run for them: bringing a load of supplies to a forward operating base to the southeast, near Khost, from the camp we were all assigned to down there.

“They timed their first IED strike just right,” Mish said in a shaky voice. “The blast was huge. It took out the first two trucks all by itself, and disabled a third. Where they hit us gave us no options, no routes of escape. They cratered the road behind the last truck, too. Thankfully, that truck was following the truck in front of it too closely and the explosion didn’t touch it. Two more soldiers from the platoon would have died right away if it had.

“We bailed out, took cover in the village we were passing, and called for EOD and the quick reaction force from our camp. We were a little surprised when no follow-on attack came. We were only a few miles from the FOB and about fifteen from the camp so we knew we wouldn’t be waiting too long. Rachel reminded us to stay on our toes in case the insurgents were using us as bait for more American soldiers.

“We got complacent,” Mish whispered as she began to cry again. “When the first relief force showed up we forgot about three-sixty security, or at least I did. Whoever the sniper was he wasn’t very skilled but in the end it didn’t matter. I saw the muzzle of a rifle sticking out of a window above and down the block from us when Rachel went to talk to the sergeant in charge. I screamed a warning while I raised my rifle but it was too late.

“Rachel turned at my shout. The bullet entered at the base of her neck behind the right collar bone, bounced off her spine, and tumbled down through her chest. It blew out her left arm pit after it ripped through her aorta and left lung. My friend was dead before she hit the ground. I don’t remember dragging her body out of the line of fire. I just remember the look of shock frozen on her face.

“I do remember kicking in the door of the building the sniper used and charging in like I was John Wayne. The rest of the relief force had already started surrounding the building where the sniper was, but I charged in like an angry bull and without backup. I ran up to the room he used as his hide, tossed in a frag, and emptied my magazine into the bastard’s chest after it went off.

“I then began beating his face in with the butt of my rifle. I didn’t care that the full magazine from my rifle had already killed him. It took three QRF soldiers to drag me off him and pull me outside. After that I shut down. There was a parade of people who chewed my ass for my ‘little stunt’ but I didn’t care, nor do I remember most of what was said. I didn’t even cry at Rachel’s memorial service.”

Jeff wrapped her in a brotherly hug and let her cry some more. When she wound down Jeff told her Lily Sepulveda’s story – the one story of his he hadn’t told anyone but Terrance Davis – and how he dealt with the pain of it.

“Don’t close yourself off again, Mish. Everyone reacts to trauma differently, but most everyone I know needs to talk stuff like this out. If we worked together at some ambulance service somewhere, I’d be telling you to find a counsellor and talk with them about it. For us, this environment we find ourselves in now will be so unique that I’d also recommend talking to other vets if you can find some – or one – you trust. No one will understand you one hundred percent but I think other vets stand a better chance, particularly Afghanistan vets.”

Before Mish could respond either way a sudden <BANG!> echoed down the bazaar. People began scattering. Jeff found the source: an Afghan soldier with a pistol. The man turned the pistol on someone else. <BANG!> Jeff spun himself on the bench. He reached back to pull his rifle around on its sling...

<snick>

<CRACK!> <CRACK!>

Red mist blossomed down range and the shooter dropped to the ground. Threat neutralized.

Jeff glanced to his left to find Mish with her rifle shouldered, smoke wafting from its barrel. The smell of cordite hung heavy in the air. She pulled the rifle from the pocket of her shoulder and – calm as you please – dropped the magazine onto the table. She cleared the rifle’s chamber and put it on safe before also placing it on the table.

He let his rifle fall back to his side and pulled Mish in for another hug.

“That’s for you, Rachel,” she whispered.

The MPs kept Jeff and Mish separate while CID investigated the attack. When it was Jeff’s turn to give his account he walked his interviewer through events since leaving the base hospital. She didn’t ask him any specific questions until he began to describe his reaction to the attack.

“Why did you elect to try firing from where you were sitting? Why not close with the tango?”

“The terrorist – the tango – was on the move. Any delay in engaging him would have meant two things: more of our personnel would die, and Mish and I would have lost our best backstop.”

“Explain please, Sergeant.”

“It’ll be easier if I show you, ma’am. May I?” Jeff walked the woman to the table he and Mish shared before the attack. Once there, the CID agent saw right away what Jeff meant about the backstop.

A line of HESCO barriers designed to be mortar protection angled away from the table; from where Mish fired the tango would have been directly in front of those barriers, providing protection down range if her shots missed. The arrangement of the other tables would have prevented Jeff and Mish from closing with the tango and keeping the backstop behind him at the same time. Engaging from any other angle would have increased the risk to the other soldiers in the area.

“I see what you meant, Sergeant, thank you. I don’t have any more questions for you at the moment. You may rejoin your friend if you like, but please remain in the immediate area until my boss releases everyone.”

“CID give you a hard time?” Mish asked when Jeff rejoined her. The rest of their friends were being kept away from them for the moment.

“No, she was cool. Once I showed her our view from the table everything seemed to fall into place for her.”

“Same for the guy who interviewed me.”

“Nice shooting by the way, Annie Oakley. Told you that you deserved the Soldier of the Cycle award at AIT.”

For a small girl, Mish could throw a powerful punch. The CID investigators walked over while Jeff massaged his shoulder. The lead agent spoke to Mish.

“I’m ruling this a good shoot, not that there was ever any doubt on that. Here’s your pistol and rifle back.” The agent who questioned her handed them over. Mish made sure they were clear before holstering and slinging them. Jeff received his from ‘his’ agent as well. “You saved lives today, Specialist. I’ll be sure to tell your CO. I understand you’ll rotate home in a few days?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’d recommend finding someone to talk to about this at least once or twice, if not more. What I’ve seen through the years tells me bottling up the experience of killing, whether or not you think it’ll affect you, will affect you. Talking to someone else – even once – helps immensely.”

“Thank you, sir. A friend already convinced me to do so before this. I’ll start looking for someone to see when I get home.”

“Good. You two are free to go. My thanks for your cooperation.”

“Your unit is all set to go in the morning?” Jeff asked at dinner in the DFAC two nights later.

Mish nodded. “All the unit’s equipment is already loaded on cargo planes on the airfield ramp. We simply have to walk onto the C-17s set up as airliners at first light.”

“Probably some of the same ones my battalion took to get here.”

While Mish could relax when she walked onto the plane tomorrow, Jeff’s battalion received word that individual platoons would ship to their respective bases at the beginning of next week. For 2d Platoon that meant they won the lottery. They’d be staying at Bagram Air Base, though they’d move into a different tent for their time in-country. With the operational tempo in the more dangerous south the Rangers there would need relief at some point, so his platoon might occasionally rotate there.

“Your enlistment ends when? A year from now?” he asked.

“A little bit more than a year from now. Beginning of next August – thirteen short months. Yours?”

“Next October. Do you think you’ll be deployed again before you ETS?”

“I hope not,” she grumbled.

Mish was able to sleep better since the bazaar attack than since her friend’s death, but she wouldn’t say she was sleeping well yet. Her being able to put the tango down helped her mental state immensely.

“You have my home address and phone number still, right?”

“Yeah?”

“Call Keiko if you feel you have nowhere else to turn, especially after you get out. She’s a good listener and an incredibly giving person. We’ve got plenty of space at our house. If push comes to shove, her parents live next door and have even more room.”

“You barely know me, Jeff, other than those two months at AIT. Why make this offer?”

“‘For she today who sheds their blood with me, shall be my sister.’ We’re friends, Mish. You said so yourself after the Boardwalk incident. You’ve known combat, and the horrible cost of it, yet you didn’t hesitate two days ago. You terminated that bastard with extreme prejudice before I had my rifle in my hands. At the least I owe you for that. Everyone needs help at some point, no matter how strong they are. Whether they ask for that help is another thing.”

The following morning Jeff watched a long line of cargo planes climb into the thin mountain air, taking his friend and the rest of her division home.