He remembers how good the Guard looked back when life growing up as an Indiana farm boy didn’t. In high school, Miller was impressed by the recruiter who came to the assembly hall and gave a presentation about signing bonuses and education benefits. The bell rang, and half the graduating class stayed put, lured by the idea of something bigger than all the cornfields in Indiana combined. “But you’re valedictorian,” his art teacher had said. “You got scholarships...” she wrinkled her forehead and suggested he belonged elsewhere. The recruiter’s requests felt reasonable: work hard, follow rules, and get paid. It was an equation that never manifested in farm country, where hard work and harder work meant a government subsidy, his father’s breath held as tightly as a clamp over the dinner table. Finally, someone understood the injustice of that basic lie and offered Miller a way out. Seventy-eight days to graduation, a summer job in North Carolina as a camp counselor before boot camp that fall, and as the husk-scented air whisked around Miller on that graduation stage, the sun burnishing his skin to a young, hornball perfection, he grinned—button nose to the sky—and tossed his cap into the air with a fat wish and a fuck-it smile. It was very likely the last cap and gown he’d wear, the commission from National Guard Officer Candidate School his junior year of college too strong to turn down.
Eight years since that graduation stage and Miller believes that fuck-it smile will get him through these last days on the FOB leading Spartan Platoon. Through the paperwork, the homecoming. It’s a good enough smile. It has gotten him this far. Just one more mission.
3
Stars & Stripes Forever
…The arrangement for moving supplies throughout Afghanistan, known as the Host Nation Trucking contract, began in May 2009. There are eight companies handling the work. The full $2.16 billion contract covers the movement and transportation of 70 percent of the material needed for US troops in Afghanistan. Security guards hired by the trucking companies funnel that money to the local warlords or the Taliban to ensure the supply truck convoys get to their destinations unscathed…
Miller sinks into his chair, reading on his Army-issued Dell PC tucked into the back room of a stripped down trailer. Drywall panels barely set straight. No paint or decor to hide the fast-paced construction demanded in wartime. Even his desk, a large piece of plywood lofted by milk crates, is hastily gathered. The discomforting irony isn’t lost on him; everything in this room came from someplace else. Everything has a price.
Folson’s letter rests atop a small pile on the center of the desk. Stacks of Army Times and kid-signed “Dear Soldier” letters cluster around a burgeoning wastebasket on the floor. A box of lotion Puffs sits on top of the filing cabinet, pills locked below. Tenley had sent the tissues when Miller caught a cold, though by the time they arrived, the virus had moved on. What he could really use is a tube of ChapStick, his papery lips constantly cracking and peeling, little lines of dried blood like cosmetics. The front door to the trailer opens, and the drywall shakes when the door slams shut. Three swift clomps of a soldier’s boots across the hollow floorboards and a knock on the office door.
“LT?”
“Come in, PFC.”
Folson enters and salutes.
“Sit down,” Miller says.
Folson’s reflex appears slow, but he manages to sit, and in those few seconds, Miller makes a quick study of his soldier: shoulders sagging like a wet poncho over Folson’s frame, eyes half-lidded. Miller can’t help but think: Ativan? Klonopin? There’s a different air about Folson tonight, like static before a lazy summer story. They’ve all had to rely on an upper or downer before. There’s an unspoken protocol: do what needs doing, and keep it to yourself. Better yet, locked in a drawer. Whatever Folson has swallowed since he sulked off the field, it was too much of the wrong thing.
“All right, Folson. I’m tired. But I’m not too tired to walk you through this, so I need you to listen up.”
Folson keeps his gaze down, staring at his feet. He fingers his wedding band, turning it round and round. The shuffling of his boots across the concrete interrupts the quiet. “The heat got the better of me out there.”
“You think I care about a fight on the playground?” Miller says.
Folson has always responded to slight condescension. He raises his gaze, eyes settling on the letter. His lips part slightly, a wheezing intake of breath. Slow as sunrise, a look of disbelief dawns across his face.
“Sir?” he says. He reaches for the letter. “Sir, is that…?”
“Now, listen…” Miller swipes the letter from the top of his desk and looks at the label.
Folson withdraws his hand, and his eyes, suddenly tightening, finally meet Miller’s. “Sir, that letter says Esquire.”
“Yes, it does. This isn’t going to be easy.”
Miller hands Folson the envelope. “But I’ve seen you go through much worse in combat.”
“Lewis Fontineau, Esquire, & Sons, Divorce Attorneys at Law, Gatlinburg, Tennessee? Urgent response required?” Folson looks torn. “No,” he whispers. “Just—hell no.”
“Hold on a minute here because where I come from, this could mean there are still options.”
“She actually meant it!” he shouts and stands. “Can you believe this? Can you even fathom what kind of polar-fucking-vortex bullshit this is, coming from a woman living in a house I’m paying for by busting my ass against the hajis, while she’s streaming Netflix and painting her nails?”
“No, PFC, I can’t. Let me take it to the Echo Company lawyer. They’ve got him camped out at the TOC all day, twiddling his thumbs. He can at least translate the thing for you.”
“There’s nothing to translate,” Folson says. “I know Becca. She doesn’t do anything halfway. Jesus. And the girls. What about my girls?”
He kicks the metal wastebasket, and it slams into a corner with a loud, snare-drumming clap. Its contents spill out like guts.
“Look,” Miller says, “you’ll be stateside in no time. You two have made it this far, Folson. She’s got to know that.”
“You can’t see it, can you?” Folson shakes his head. “Just the same as you can’t see a cheap tackle on the field or the Band-Aid missions we’ve been sent on all month.”
Miller stands. “If you want to talk logistics with me, you can wait until you’re promoted, though you and I both know that’s a long way from the direction you’re headed now,” Miller shakes his head. “We can shout about this, or we can be civil. It’s your call. In either case, I won’t have you trashing my office.”
Folson retrieves the metal wastebasket as if to set it back in place, but instead, he throws it across the room.
“You’ve got to be kidding me…” Miller says. He moves from behind the desk, ready to scruff Folson by the collar.
That fast, Folson punches the dent in the wall where the wastebasket hit. The plaster gives way. A small cascade of chalky drywall lets loose, and Folson dashes out the door.
Seeing how quickly things can turn, Miller can only think of Cissy’s tantrums. Everyone has their own version. Folson punches. Cissy hits. With only two elementary schools in the county and Cissy already kicked out of one, could he and Tenley survive the stress of a move? When they shredded their