The few. The proud. The One, the humble.

He looked stronger.  And older.  He’d been back for about a month.  He said, I’ll never complain again.  After 12 weeks of that, little irritations seemed minor.  Every day had been unpredictable; you never knew what was gonna happen or what would set the drill instructor off.  Once, the DI threw his letters from home and kicked his Bible.  The mental was worse than the physical.  He said it reminded him of The Truman Show; you were convinced the DI was crazy, yet you had a sneaky suspicion you were living in a designed world and in some way it was all planned out.

He remembered the sign, Freedom has a taste for those who protect it, that the protected will never know.  He cried when they saluted the flag on July 4 and that made perfect sense to me because the country was founded with a big fight with soldiers willing to sacrifice everything and now he was part of that heritage. 

He thought what they were really up to was getting you to a place where you would obey without question or hesitation.  I thought, how much more…  I was grateful that he had been abused and learned to take it so that if it ever came to it he would face abuse so that I wouldn’t have to.  And, I thought, how much more…

They made him a squad leader, which meant you eat last and you get punished when your guys mess up.  For some of his guys it was probably hard watching him get punished for their mess-ups.  They would know that if he wasn’t punished, they would have to be.  And, I thought, they don’t realize what they know.  How much more…