PART 10
Two hours later, my extraction orders arrived.
My cover was gone.
The bounty boards would light up by nightfall.
Miller walked me to the helicopter pad.
“You didn’t have to do it,” he said.
I looked toward the mess hall, where the line was already forming for lunch.
“Yes,” I said. “I did.”
As the helicopter lifted off, FOB Griffin shrank beneath me.
Dust.
Wire.
Flags.
Men waving from the yard.
And on the roof of the mess hall, someone had hung a white kitchen apron from a radio antenna like a battle flag.
I leaned back against the metal seat and closed my eyes.
For years, I had been the ghost they buried behind a serving counter.
May you like
That day, the canyon learned my name.
And four hundred men lived long enough to remember it.
ENDING QUESTION
If the person everyone mocked turned out to be the only reason they survived, would one apology ever be enough?
