BEN SWAM BACK across the river, but Lucy wasn’t there, so he returned to the opposite bank. Dusk had begun to fall. “Let’s go find that man,” he said. Jacob nodded, sullen. “It was very brave of you to jump in the river like that,” Ben added. “And also really stupid.” He squeezed Jacob’s shoulder and finally the boy smiled a little.
They climbed the hill and stood at the top of the rise, shivering in their wet clothes. A vast desert sprawled out below. About a hundred yards out, an encampment of low-slung buildings glowed among sparse trees. The camp was tucked into the shadow of an enormous mesa and illuminated by tall floodlights. It looked like a military installation.
“Look there!” Jacob tugged on Ben’s arm. In the distance pulsed a bright bubble of light. A large fire.
“What is it?” Jacob asked, transfixed.
“Trash? In Iraq, people were always burning trash.”
“But why all the way out there?”
The kid had a point. Why dispose of something in the middle of the desert unless you wanted to keep it hidden?
By the time they’d picked their way down the rocky slope, it was completely dark, and Ben wished for his night-vision goggles. They passed through a stile, then stopped short. Before them stretched a vast graveyard: row upon row of wooden crosses. Ben knelt down in front of one. Hanging from the neck of the cross was a pair of dog tags with Pvt. Pablo Rodriguez stamped into the metal.
“Ben?” Jacob’s voice was small and scared.
Ben let the dog tags fall back against the wood. “Come on,” he said, and he took Jacob’s hand. “Let’s go find your mom.”
Jacob was shaking with cold, so Ben lifted the child onto his back. The kid weighed about the same as Ben’s armor, the difference being that now Ben was protecting the load attached to him instead of the other way around.
The crosses led Ben straight up to the compound’s entrance. Standing beneath the floodlights was the old man from earlier. “Took you long enough,” the man said. Ben eyed the guy’s liver-spotted face and sunken cheeks. He eyed the hunting rifle strapped to his back. “Name’s Arne,” said the man. “Welcome to Kleos.”
Yeah, Ben thought. Warm welcome.
“Can I see your tags?” Arne asked. “I need to verify your identity. For security purposes.”
Ben always wore his tags, but he wasn’t eager to show them.
“We can keep standing here staring at each other,” said Arne, clearly impatient, “or we can get going.” Ben pulled the tags from his shirt and held them out. Arne nodded and headed into the camp. His black motorcycle vest had a single large patch sewn on the back: an ancient Greek battle helmet with blackness where there should have been a face.
As they walked, Arne pointed out the trailers and hogans and concrete buildings that contained sleeping quarters and the mess. He pointed to the barns and said, “You’ll probably start out with shovel detail, but if you stick around and the CO sees you progressing, he’ll move you to something more dignified.”
Ben ignored all of this. “Where’s the woman who was with us earlier?”
“She was driven in. Through that mining tunnel Reno told you about—the tunnel he should not have mentioned in the first place. That man’s got no respect for us.”
“And we need to find this boy’s mother,” Ben said eagerly. “She’s with the Hands of God Church?”
Arne didn’t answer, but he motioned Ben into the laundry building. Ben helped Jacob into overly large sweatpants, a man’s T-shirt, and a hoodie that came down to the boy’s knees. Then he changed quickly into a pair of khakis and work boots. After this, Arne took them to a cinder-block building. “You may not speak with the civilians inside,” Arne said. “If you do, there will be consequences.”
Jacob squeezed Ben’s hand and Ben returned the pressure. He forced a smile and urged the boy inside. There, on cheap dormitory furniture, sat a cluster of Indian women. Immediately, one of them jumped up and ran to Jacob. “My baby!” she cried, rocking the boy madly. Ben felt a wave of relief that intensified upon seeing Lucy safe and sound. Ben opened his mouth, but Lucy’s finger flew to her lips, her eyes imploring him to keep quiet. But Ben had lost his words anyway, because there, beside Lucy, he saw a pale figure; gaunt, with an angular face and sharp, critical eyes. The woman wore a short-sleeved cotton dress and a gold cross. She looked very little like her daughter.
“Jeanine!” Ben said. “Are Reno and King here yet? Is Becca with them?”
Arne walked toward Ben holding a small object in his hand. “I told you to keep quiet,” he said.
Jeanine gave Ben a you-asked-for-it smirk as Arne lifted his arm. A crackling sound escaped from his hand and Ben felt live wires tightening around his abdomen. He fell to his knees in agony. When he opened his eyes, Arne stood over him, pointing the Taser at his face. Jacob was crying. Lucy’s eyes were averted, her expression slack and helpless. Nobody tried to help him.
“Get up, soldier!” Arne ordered. “The CO is waiting to see you.”
“Does anybody want to tell me what’s going on?” Ben demanded, pulling himself up. “Any of you? Jeanine?” Jeanine’s face was stiff.
Arne nudged Ben with the flat head of the Taser. “Let’s go,” he said and prodded Ben out the door.
They continued through the camp for a good twenty minutes before entering a slug-shaped building. They climbed down a metal staircase and into a fluorescent-lit bunker. The hallway was narrow and punctuated by rooms harboring hydroponic plants. Somewhere a generator hummed. After a while, they reached a second metal staircase and climbed up and out into a white-walled garden. The perimeter was lined with sprouting basil, cottony sage, and thick bouquets of mint. The air smelled of sweet smoke. Above them loomed a massive, darkly hulking form, like a giant suspended wave. The surge, Ben thought and pushed the thought away. This must be the mesa, and its orientation suggested that they had just gophered their way beneath it.
“Wash,” Arne said and pointed at a burbling fountain.
Keeping his eye on the old man, Ben walked over and rinsed his face and hands. “Is it safe to drink?” he asked. Arne nodded. Ben gulped down a couple of mouthfuls, buying time. Was he going to be imprisoned here? Could he manage to take Arne down? Was there any way to scale the walls?
“Come,” Arne said and led Ben toward a wooden door across the garden. Ben hesitated, but Arne pushed the Taser against Ben’s back. Ben wasn’t sure what he’d expected to find behind the door, but it wasn’t this: a perfectly square room with a wall of windows and a golden statue the size of a small child. The statue was a woman astride a tiger. She clutched weapons in her multiple arms. Could this be Durga, the mythical heroine from Becca’s childhood?
But Ben’s attention was diverted from this question by the room’s other centerpiece: a man. He was a giant of a human being. His bare upper body had the heft and pallor of a concrete block. His eyes bulged with eggy whites and blue irises that had a crystalline, marble-like quality. Quite possibly, one eye was glass, but the man observed Ben with an expression that seemed almost clairvoyant.
“Welcome,” said the man in deep, rumbling voice. “I am CO Proudfoot, your commanding officer at Kleos. Have a seat, soldier.” The CO nodded at a small wooden chair, but Ben didn’t move.
“I’ll be just outside if you need me,” Arne said and gave Ben a look of warning before exiting the room.
“Arne’s a hoplite,” the CO said, nodding as the door closed. “He is one of a dozen guardians of Kleos, named for the citizen-soldiers of ancient Greece. They are the oldest, most loyal inhabitants of this place.”
“Your man Arne Tased me,” Ben said.
“Because you spoke with a civilian, which is forbidden. I agreed to let those women in out of respect for Jeanine for first bringing King to me. But they have agreed to follow my rules.”
“I’m looking for King.” Ben pressed on. “And his daughter, Becca. Just tell me where they are and I’ll leave.”
“Well, I don’t know about the girl, but King is on his way.”
Ben’s heart paused. “When will he get here?” he asked.
The CO looked toward the windows. In profile, the man’s face was classically handsome. It conjured up images of gladiators and swords. “It seems,” he said, still absorbed in the darkness beyond the glass, “that you now have a reason to stay with us awhile.”
Ben shook his head. “I’ll go back across the river and wait for her.”
“Son.” The CO sighed and looked squarely at Ben. “Will you please do me the courtesy of sitting down? You’re making me nervous.”
Cautiously, Ben pulled up the wooden chair and sat with his body arched over his knees. A ready position. He wanted to be ready—to run or to attack. Whatever was necessary.
“Nobody comes here by accident,” the CO said.
“I told you why I came.”
The CO smiled, exposing large gray teeth. “Becca.” He nodded. “Yes, but that is merely the surface reason. The deeper reason is that you are sick. Your mind is a prison. You are desperate for rest and can find none. The people closest to you are strangers. Your Becca, perhaps?” The CO scanned Ben’s face. Ben tried to remain impassive despite feeling increasingly uncomfortable. “Deep down, soldier, you know that you cannot function out there anymore.” The CO looked at the center of Ben’s forehead, as though tunneling directly into his brain. “You are here, son, because you have nowhere else to go.”
“You don’t know me,” Ben said.
“It’s true. And you don’t know me either, which is why we should get acquainted. I was King’s staff sergeant in Vietnam, as you may know. I started this place in order to help my brothers . . . and”—the CO nodded—“my sons.”
I’m not your son, Ben thought. He said, “I don’t want your help.”
“Of course not.” There was the gray smile again. “Soldiers help themselves. But left to your own devices, you’re a threat to yourself and those close to you. The pain comes out, eventually. And if that energy isn’t released properly, people get hurt. Loved ones, for example.”
Ben felt his face redden. “You’re just saying all of this because you know where I spent the last fifteen months.” Ben sat up straight now and folded his arms across his chest. This was Becca’s favorite defensive stance, and it made him miss her even more.
“Well, I’m guessing you’ve tried the army’s remedies and they’ve done nothing for you,” the CO said, losing some of his composure. “How many meds did they prescribe you? How many shrinks passed you around, playing hot potato with your head?”
Ben felt a burning in his chest. So what if the CO knew these things? His situation wasn’t exactly unique.
“Out here, son, we’re not interested in therapists and pills. You may not be aware, but the Greek generals did not fail their soldiers the way ours failed us. They did not see grief as shameful. They respected the unspeakable pain of warriors for their dead. What is the funeral pyre if not a public confession that where there is death, there is agony?”
Now the CO was just babbling nonsense. He was off the deep end. And since Ben was feeling fairly secure in his physical safety, he wanted to be alone. He needed to think through his strategy for Becca’s arrival—and for how to get her home.
Home. He’d hated that place since he’d been back: the too-soft bed, the new pajamas she’d bought him, her attempts to make him comfortable, as if comfort were a sensation he could still access. But it was time to get on with his life. To be normal again.
The CO pulled a bag of weed from his pocket and packed a pipe. He offered the pipe to his guest. Ben had always enjoyed a couple of hits during late-night picking circles. There was nothing quite like playing old-timey fiddle tunes—those glorious musical merry-go-rounds—on a high. But since Ben didn’t trust the CO, he certainly didn’t trust the CO’s drugs. Now, as the CO pulled and exhaled, the room began to fill with smoke. It filled quickly, with great billows. The smoke did not smell like marijuana, and Ben thought about the hydroponic plants growing underground. What in the hell had he stumbled into?
Through the haze, the CO’s beard seemed to be composed of smoke itself, the tendrils curling from his face into the air. Ben’s lungs felt warm and there was a soft ringing in his ears. He began to relax back into the chair, but something nagged at him. Becca, he remembered. Becca was coming. He sat up, opening his eyes wide against the fog, but his eyelids felt heavy.
The CO said, “I’d like to tell you a story about how I came to be here and why I think you should stay with us.”
Becca, Ben thought, and tried to speak her name. But his tongue was numb. He could not even open his mouth. The CO leaned forward, and for a moment, Ben saw the man’s neck and chest as a snake’s body, a shimmering cobra that stretched through the air and hissed.
“Relax,” said the CO as his forked tongue flicked Ben’s cheek. “It’s going to be a little while before your girl arrives, and anyhow, what do you have to lose?”
December 13, 1980
Dear Willy,
We sat on the plateau overlooking the decimated village of Li Sing for hours. Reno was still passed out. You and Lai talked and the sound of her language was like a screeching jungle bird. I pulled a can of peaches from my pack and ate them, facing Li Sing. It was the one pleasure I’d allowed myself on the trip. Instead of our usual C rations, we’d been sent out with long-range rations, or long rats, the kind of lightweight, just-add-water slop that Special Forces guys carried. But that was where the similarities between us and the real Special Forces ended. They were men trained for months before being sent out on this kind of mission. And us? King was twenty-one. Reno was only nineteen. And though I’d been in longer and had more experience, I was secretly petrified. All of you depended on me.
A dull pink color washed over the rubble and made Durga glow, as though the statue pulsed with an internal light. I had the strange thought that if I touched the gray stone, it would feel warm, even alive. I felt unaccountably sad, like I missed things I couldn’t name and people I’d never met. I carried my peaches over to you and asked what you were talking about. You said Lai was explaining Durga’s prophecy.
“The statue’s prophetic?” I asked.
“It’s not a statue, Proudfoot. It’s a goddess.”
“You mean a statue of a goddess,” I said. “So what does this goddess prophesize? Can she tell me the next time I’m gonna get laid?” This crack sounded juvenile even to my own ears, and you pretended not to have heard.
“Lai says that Durga foretold Li Sing’s destruction.”
“And according to her, who or what was responsible?”
“The forces of the universe.”
“She can’t be any more specific?” I licked the last of the peach juice off my spoon and put the can back into my pack. Some guys would just throw it into the jungle, but I wasn’t convinced there weren’t VC hanging around, and I didn’t want to leave behind traces.
“According to the prophecy,” you continued, “when the village was destroyed, only a single person would survive. And that person would become the Carrier—I think that’s how it translates—the one who emerges unscathed to carry forward Durga’s legacy. To embody her.”
“You’re saying that Lai here thinks she’s a goddess?”
“More like a steward.”
The light was fading and the pink glow had disappeared from Durga’s hard skin. “That’s a hunk of stone,” I said. “It’s not a prophet or a goddess. And neither is she.”
“He’s right,” King said, looking up from the letter he was writing. “If the bombs missed the statue, it’s only because the air force’s got shitty aim.”
Lai spoke quickly to you, her eyes wild. She seized your arm, and her touch sent a visible tremor through your bony frame. “She’s the Carrier! It’s the truth. You have to believe, Proudfoot!” You were pleading with us.
“Willy! Hey!” I said. “Snap out of it. She’s out of her mind. Anyone can see that.”
But Lai was talking faster now, digging her nails into your arm. This woman wasn’t just crazy, I thought. She was Fucking Nam Crazy.
“If she’s the Carrier,” King said, “then what’s she carrying?”
“Durga’s heart.”
“And how did she get it?” I demanded. “Did she scale the statue? Pull out some hunk of stone from inside Durga’s chest?”
“She says it’s a real heart.”
“A muscle full of blood? I’d like to see it.”
You said something to Lai, but she shook her head. “You can’t,” he said.
“Why not?”
“Because she put Durga’s heart in her stomach.”
Before this statement could register with any of us, Lai pulled up her tunic. To the left of her bellybutton was a patch of shiny pink flesh. Running through the center of the damaged skin was a scar. It was scraggly and white, about five inches long. It looked as though someone had dragged a blunt knife across her belly.
“Jesus,” King whispered.
I squatted down for a closer look. Suddenly, Lai grabbed my wrist. She pressed my palm flat over the scar, held it there with an iron grip. I was frozen and speechless. I couldn’t do a thing. Because I felt something. Something alive, pulsing inside of her. I pulled my hand back.
“What is it?” you whispered, your face close to mine. “What did you feel?”
I stood up and backed away. “Soon as Reno wakes up, we’re out of here.”
“You felt something,” you called behind me. “You felt the heart.”
I turned to see you putting your hand flat against Lai’s stomach, gently touching around the scar like a doctor listening with his stethoscope.
“You felt something,” you said, frantic. “You did!”
“Those cheek bits you got splattered with really messed you up, Willy,” King said.
You stared at King like you didn’t understand what he was talking about. You seemed not to notice that Lai had gently removed your hand from her abdomen.
“You don’t belong out here,” King snapped, angry out of nowhere. “The army never should have sent you.”
“Proudfoot felt something!”
Fuck this, I thought and walked into the trees.
That night, I lay in the dark, staring at the sky through a net of overhanging leaves. Out in the jungle, the cicadas screamed. The sky was very black; the stars no more than pinpricks. Reno slept beside me, snoring, which I took to be a good sign. A few hours before, he’d finally woken up and groggily had some water. Then he’d passed out again. Lai mixed a new batch of paste, forced some of it down his throat, and spread the rest over his body. Then she disappeared inside her shelter. “We’ll take turns guarding her for the night,” I said. “First thing tomorrow, we’re moving out.”
Unable to sleep, lying on my roll, I prayed for something to take me far away from this place, from myself. I’d done this simple thing—touched a woman’s belly—and it had filled my body with so much fear, I thought I might explode. And how could I explain that? How could I let in confusion and fear when my life and the lives of my men depended on just the opposite? I thought about borrowing a section of your Iliad. Maybe a story could help me relax.
But I must have fallen asleep eventually, because when I opened my eyes again, it was morning.
I rolled over to see Reno shaking King, asking why the fuck he was covered in mud. King groaned and sat up.
“You feel okay?” I said.
“I feel like shit.”
King offered the canteen to Reno, and Reno drank without trouble.
“What’s out there?” Reno asked, nodding toward the ridge. Fog hung thick in the gully, obscuring the village. I could just make out Durga’s head through the mist, floating as though disembodied.
King explained about Lai and her mad-ass prophecy. He told Reno about the woman’s scar. He conveniently left out the part about Lai seizing my hand.
“I missed all that?” Reno shook his head. “Sounds like the most fun we’ve had in weeks.”
“Let’s get Willy and get out of here,” I said.
“Willy!” Reno shouted. “Wake the fuck up!”
“Willy’s sleeping?” King and I were on our feet in a flash and running over to where you lay by Lai’s hut. Sure enough, you were curled up in a fetal position, cradling your gun like it was a baby. “Hey, kid!” Reno called out. “You dead?” Reno jabbed at you with the toe of his boot and you bolted upright. “Who’s dead?”
Reno let out a deep-bellied laugh. “You are, kid. See out there?” Reno pointed to the fog. “That’s heaven.”
I pulled a couple of branches off Lai’s shelter. It was empty. “Willy, you were supposed to wake me for the next watch!” But even as I said it, I knew it wasn’t your fault. I should have stayed awake. It wasn’t the kind of mistake I’d ever made, and I burned with shame.
“She probably went to get her gook friends,” Reno spat. “Wanted ’em to slit our throats while we slept.”
“She didn’t go to get anybody,” you whimpered. “She’s alone out here. Her village is gone.”
“We’re moving out,” I said. “To hell with this mission.”
“She’s all alone out here,” you repeated. “We can’t just leave her.”
“Come on, Willy,” King said. “It’s okay.”
King, the squad mother. I knew it wasn’t a role he wanted to play, but he couldn’t help it. He was just too decent a person.
“Hey!” Reno shouted and we all turned. Lai stood at the edge of the tree line, maybe fifteen yards away. She held something in her hands. Reno cocked his gun.
“Don’t shoot her!” you yelled.
King and I jumped to attention and scanned the wall of jungle. There was a dead stillness. Not even the wind rustled the leaves.
“What’s she got there?” Reno said. “Ask her, Willy.”
You moved forward, speaking to Lai. She rattled back a response, her strange language grating against our ears. I moved up behind you, motioning for Reno and King to follow.
“She’s scared,” Willy hissed. “You’re scaring her.”
“That’s a grenade,” Reno said from my left.
“No!” you pleaded. “She says it’s a bowl with more medicine.”
“My ass it is.”
“She’ll show you, Reno.” You spoke quickly to Lai and she began to raise her arm.
“No, Willy—” King started to protest.
And then Lai was gone. Vanished into thin air. But it wasn’t magic. She’d merely fallen to the ground. You looked at Reno, your face wrenched in shock. But it wasn’t Reno who’d fired the shot. It was me.
King and Reno just stood there, staring at Lai’s body. Then you realized what had happened. “No!” you screamed and ran to her. “You killed her!” you cried. You moved your hands over her body, searching for something—some switch—that might let her get up again. “She wasn’t going to hurt us!” You were sobbing.
“She had a grenade,” Reno said. “Why don’t you bring it over for show-and-tell?”
“She wasn’t going to hurt us.” You kicked the object that had fallen from Lai’s hands. It rolled over to me and stopped just shy of my boots: a metal bowl filled with a foul-smelling paste. Medicine.
Reno spat and turned away. King sighed. “Come on, Willy,” he said. “Let’s go.”
But you seemed not to hear. You were looking up at me, your eyes glazed, almost like Lai’s eyes had been. Then you pulled a knife from your belt and pushed up Lai’s shirt. In my head, I was screaming at you to stop, but the words wouldn’t come out. King and Reno shouted your name. But it was too late. You’d pushed the knife into Lai’s belly and, in one quick motion, sliced her open.
We gaped in disbelief as you tossed the bloodied knife aside and pushed your hand into the seam. You got your fingers in good, moving them around like you were mixing batter with your hand. Blood ran out of the gash and down the sides of Lai’s body. You released a whooping cry. “I told you it was real!” You pulled your hand, red and glistening, from the gash and held it in the air. You seemed to be holding something, but we were too far away to see it clearly. “It’s real.” You cackled, pulling your fist to your chest and cradling it there. “You didn’t believe her, but it’s real.”
I turned away. After all these bloody months, seeing a woman mutilated was something I still couldn’t stomach. But I also knew that approaching you now would be like triggering a mine. I’d seen men go berserk before; I worried that what you’d done to Lai was only the beginning.
“I’m taking the heart now,” you announced. “Do you hear me, Proudfoot? I’m going to carry it. You felt it. But you were afraid. You were afraid of the heart, so you killed her.” You stood up and walked a few steps forward. Blood ran down your arm in long streaks. “I’m the Carrier from now on. I’m not afraid of anything.” You held up your fist. Your hands had stopped shaking.
Reno chuckled. “Looks like he’s been washed in the blood of the Lai.”
“Jesus Christ, Reno,” I snapped. And without another look at the village of Li Sing or Lai’s body, I hoisted my pack and marched into the jungle. King and Reno followed, and behind us all, walking steady at last, you.
Back at the CIDG camp, I gave my report to the major. I said the village was bombed out and deserted. I said we’d encountered no one.
“Anything happen to Private McKenzie out there?” the major asked. “He looks a little bit off in the eyes.”
“He’s not fit for this,” I said.
“He says he wants to stay,” the major said. “After the mess HQ made, I don’t really know why. But his skills could come in useful. And your squad’s short a few men.”
For the next couple of weeks, Willy, you kept to yourself. You ate alone. Mornings, you were up early, helping the villagers haul water from the well. You learned your way around the tools fast and took over construction of the local school. You’d changed. Everyone could see it. Your pale skin burned, then peeled, then tanned. You were still skinny, but you looked stronger now, your arms less spindly. Even your acne started to clear up. And you’d hung a drawstring pouch from your neck like a piece of jewelry. You never took it off; not in the afternoons, when the soggy heat forced us out of our shirts, not in the shower, not even to sleep. At night you tucked the pouch into your armpit for extra protection. A couple of times Reno tried to steal it, to see what you were carrying around with you—because it wasn’t actually a heart. We all knew that much.
Everyone whispered about the pouch. They called you Pretty Willy. When they passed you in the camp, they asked if you had lipstick and a compact in your little purse and whether you could recommend any nice Vietnamese boys from the village. Reno was the worst offender—faggot this, poof that—and I got sick of it. I didn’t like to hear them talk that way. So I told Reno, “You better let him be and tell everybody I said so.”
Later, I heard Reno grumbling to King about how I must have felt guilty for killing that woman and that maybe I was going soft.
“Proudfoot knows he did the right thing,” King said.
“So then why’s he protecting Willy’s faggy ass? The kid’s not one of us, King. And he’s crazy. I’m telling you, one day I’m going to rip that little purse off his neck.”
“Willy’s pulling his weight,” King said. “Just leave him alone.”
I, on the other hand, was not pulling my weight. I didn’t let on, of course. But ever since Li Sing, I’d had this recurring nightmare in which our planes were dropping bombs on the ancient village, the rounds falling over the huts, showering Durga like hail. When the smoke cleared, I saw Lai standing amid the destruction. Blood gushed like a fountain from her belly, ran down her legs, and seeped into the ground. And that’s when the truly scary part of the dream started. Because when the blood hit the ground, it burst into flame and shot off in a straight line, like fire following a gasoline trail. I watched this trail of fire rush through the jungle, over mountains and hills, heading for our camp. I saw it snake toward our barracks. And just before the fire was about to burst upon me, I’d wake up. The dream was like a plague—like a punishment. The remains of Li Sing were out there. Lai’s body was out there. We hadn’t buried her. We’d left plenty of people on the ground like that, but we should have buried her. That stupid bowl looked like a grenade. I didn’t have a choice. But she’d helped Reno. She deserved a grave, at least.
A couple of weeks later, we started training for a new mission. We ran drills, studied maps, learned each other’s signals. It was now expected that you’d eat with us. And because you ate with us, it was expected that you’d drink with us. Nobody mentioned the pouch anymore. And then one day, you left the first hundred pages of The Iliad on my cot.
“I don’t want this,” I said.
“It’ll help you with the nightmares,” you said. I wondered how you knew, but by that point, I was so desperate, I’d try anything. Soon enough, you and I started getting into these long discussions about the meddling Greek gods and whether the Trojan War had been worth fighting. Reno looked askance when he saw us debating the motives of Thetis and the defilement of Hector’s body. I paid him no mind. Every day, I couldn’t wait to get through the training so I could get back to the book—and to our discussions. I hated the fact that I liked talking to you so much. But I couldn’t help myself. I needed your approval. I needed to know that you believed in me. Because of what I’d done. Because of what I’d felt beating beneath Lai’s skin.
Currahee!
CO Proudfoot