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  He nodded, again. “Whether I agree or not, you have two options, now. You can elect a trial by court-martial on charges or you can elect administrative punishment. The first means you will be defended by a member of the Judge Advocate General’s Corps in a trial before a jury. You choose whether the jury’s noncommissioned or commissioned officers. Most enlisted men choose commissioned officers. The conventional wisdom is noncoms are hard asses.”

  “Surely not, Drill Sergeant.”

  He nearly smiled. “The second option is administrative punishment by your commanding officer. No appeal if you don’t like what he dishes out A crapshoot. But the conventional wisdom is that admin is the way to go because you just have to persuade one guy who knows you, not a bunch of strangers.”

  “That commanding officer would be Captain Jaco-wicz?” Jacowicz hadn’t sounded sympathetic outside the infirmary door.

  “It’s true Captain Jacowicz goes by the book—”

  My future was on the line. No time for tact. “Goes by it? The guys say he rams a fresh copy up his butt every morning to make himself stand stiffer!”

  Ord looked down, covered his mouth with his hand, coughed, then said, “Be mat as it may, Captain Jacowicz is a fair man. He comes from a distinguished line of soldiers. I served under General Jacowicz in the Second Afghan War.”

  Captain Jacowicz was the same guy who had lectured mat we would be shot for abusing enemy prisoners, when the human race had about as much chance of taking prisoners as I had of flying to the moon. Throw myself on Jacowicz’s tender mercies or get court-martialed. Fat chance or no chance. “What’s the worst I could get?”

  “Worst? Stockade time, likely less than a year, and a dishonorable discharge.”

  “I can do time. Just so I can stay in.”

  He frowned. “The likely result is the other way around, Wander.”

  My heart sank. Ord was right. I’d heard Jacowicz say outside the infirmary that he would kick me out.

  “I want to stay in. I have to stay in.”

  He covered his letter with his hand. “Son, that result may not be in the cards.”

  “Walter was all I had in the world, Drill Sergeant. Now the army is all I have.” Until the words rattled out I hadn’t realized what Walter and the army had come to mean to me. But I had just told the truth. If Jacowicz wouldn’t save me, I’d take a chance. “I want a court-martial.”

  Ord drummed his ringers. He looked down at the letter under his palm. He shook his head and looked me in the eye. “Son, you pick a court, you’re out. I’ve seen enough of them to know.”

  My throat swelled shut, and I tried to blink back tears. One squeezed out anyway and ran hot down my cheek. Ord put a hand on my shoulder. “You’ll get through this, son. We all will.”

  I looked down at Ord’s letter. Walter wouldn’t get through it. I might as well put the army behind me. Get out of Ord’s hair, out of this mess.

  “If I just want out on a DD, would Captain Jacowicz let me skip the admin hearing and duck stockade time?”

  “Likely. But…”

  That was it, then. Quit. Take my discharge, then take my chances with Judge March and prison or civilian life. “Okay. Just tell the captain I want out on a DD.”

  “Or… graduation is in two hours. You could make your own case to the captain in a hearing in one. Nothing to lose.”

  I shook my head and felt the cord around my neck. “Does the Drill Sergeant want his toothbrush back?” I wouldn’t need it back in civilian life. I reached up to strip it off.

  Ord cleared his throat. “I generally ask for it back after graduation. Nobody I’ve given it to’s ever… quit before. Maybe that was the real you that first day, after all. A no-guts joker.”

  The son of a bitch. Just when I thought he might care about me he had kicked me down a flight of stairs. I jammed the brush back inside my uniform blouse. The smart thing was to quit. My breath rattled short and quick. Ord made me so mad I didn’t care about the smart thing. He didn’t smile, but I thought maybe he nodded.

  “Okay, dammit! You want guts? Jacowicz won’t get rid of me without a fight I want a hearing and I want it now!”

  Chapter Twelve

  I sat on the naked steel springs of what had been my bunk while I brushed down my Class-A uniform, then dressed and headed across the company street to my destiny.

  Beyond the windows of Captain Jacowicz’s outer office, summer at Indiantown Gap loomed as dark and cold as my future. An orderly sat behind a gray metal desk, his eyes staring blank at a flatscreen while he talked records into silicon chips.

  There were empty chairs across from his desk, but I leaned against the wall so I didn’t crease my uniform. I tugged up my trouser leg and polished a patent-leather low-cut on my sock. I plucked at lapel lint. It’s not that I’d turned as gung ho as the captain. It’s just that at the moment he held my life in his hands, so no amount of sucking up seemed like overkill. Frost framed the windows, but under my jacket I’d sweated through my uniform blouse already.

  I’d read up on administrative punishment. It was pretty much what Ord had said. The accused threw himself on the mercy of his commanding officer instead of making his case with me so-called protections of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

  The theory was that you had a better chance to persuade one guy who knew you rather than a bunch of board-up-the-ass officers or noncoms. The trouble with administrative punishment was that if your CO threw the book at you, there was no Supreme Court to save you.

  Jacowicz could slap me with a dishonorable discharge, stockade time, both, or I could just get extra duty out the ass or even just a chewing out. The last two seemed improbable.

  “Soldier!”

  If I hadn’t already been standing, I would have popped up higher than burned toast. The orderly did.

  Ord stepped in from outdoors and acted like he didn’t see me. He said to the orderly, “I seem to have misplaced my training schedule. Print me one, Corporal.”

  While the corporal printed out a copy Ord looked over like he just saw me. He nodded. “Trainee Wander.”

  “Drill Sergeant.”

  Ord knew the training schedule like it was tattooed on his scrotum. It was flattering that he’d phonied up an excuse just to see me.

  The corporal handed over the printout and returned to his work. Ord looked at me and elevated his jaw just a nudge.

  I picked mine up, too. He nodded, then made a fist and pumped it back and forth an inch, like a piston.

  I nodded back as he turned and walked out the door.

  Something swelled up in my chest, and I almost smiled. That was about as close as Ord ever got to kissing somebody on both cheeks.

  The intercom on the orderly’s desk buzzed.

  “Send in Trainee Wander!” Jacowicz’s voice hinted of nothing.

  I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t make my legs move. If I just stood here the worst couldn’t happen.

  The corporal jerked a thumb at the captain’s office door. “Yo! Wander. You heard the man.”

  I shuffled forward, rapped on the doorjamb and the captain called back, “Come!”

  The corporal whispered, “Good luck, man.”

  Jacowicz was in Class-A’s, too. Graduation ceremony would follow booting my ass. He returned my salute and shuffled papers.

  He looked up, put me at ease so I could sway and talk, but left me standing.

  “Do I have to recount the facts, Wander?”

  “No, sir. I can do it for you.” I figured the best defense was a good offense. “I ingested a prohibited substance during duty hours. While under the influence a training accident occurred. A—”

  The sight of Walter lying there wouldn’t go away. I squeezed my eyes shut and swallowed.

  “I know you and Lorenzen were close. That doesn’t make your misconduct less serious.”

  “No, sir.”

  “Do you dispute the facts in any way?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Do
you have anything to offer in mitigation?”

  I took a deep breath. “Sir, I believe the incident taught me a lot. I believe it will make me a stronger soldier. I am strongly motivated to overcome the adverse impact of this event. I am willing to accept any administrative punishment that will allow me to continue to serve.”

  Jacowicz rubbed his jaw. “That’s almost verbatim what your drill sergeant’s recommendation says. I don’t believe for one minute that he coached you. I think it is testament to his influence that you reached those conclusions independently. It speaks well for you, trainee.”

  My heart pounded. There was a chance.

  He flipped a file page. “I’m looking at a copy of a letter I wrote. To Trainee Lorenzen’s mother. It’s the first such letter I have had to write.”

  I felt my eyes burn and blinked.

  “Trainee Wander, my father was Infantry.”

  “Yes, sir. Sergeant Ord has spoken highly of General Jacowicz.”

  “He always said that letters like this one measured him as an officer as much as they measured the bravery of the soldiers he wrote about.”

  I nodded. I couldn’t tell where this was going.

  “I view this incident as a measure of my failure.”

  “Sir, the fault was mine.”

  “If I should allow you to remain in the service, you will be commanded by other officers.”

  “It would be my great privilege, sir.”

  “And if you faltered again, they would have to write more letters.”

  Oh no.

  “That is a chance I am not prepared to take,” he said.

  “Sir—”

  He grimaced. “Look, Wander. I gave this a lot of thought before you got here. I’m not trying to ruin your life. If you had been a civilian, then taking those pills wouldn’t have meant a damn thing. I am not going to impose administrative punishment of any sort. No forfeiture of pay and allowances, no letter of reprimand to your file. Your discharge will be general, not dishonorable. That’s a lot better for you when you go to an employer in the civilian—”

  “Sir, to stay in is the one thing I want!”

  He stopped and stared, then turned his chair toward the window and looked away from me.

  Seconds crawled by on his display-screen clock.

  He turned back and looked up at me.

  His eyes weren’t cold, but they were hard. “I’m sorry, Wander. The one thing you want is the one thing I can’t give you.”

  I heard myself breathing in hoarse gasps. I had known this was coming, but somehow I thought, somehow—

  The orderly stuck his head in the door at the same moment he rapped on it. “Sir, there’s someone here to see you.”

  “They can wait. You know I said—”

  “Not they, sir. He. He insists.”

  The captain stood, balled his fists, and leaned on them across his desk. “Corporal, this is my company. Whoever it is will wait until this administrative proceeding is closed!”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “I didn’t come all this way to watch some clerk talk to a computer!”

  I turned and saw a gorilla-size silhouette darken Jacowicz’s doorway.

  Judge March bulled past the orderly and planted his feet in the middle of Jacowicz’s office. The old boy wore a black suit with the sleeve pinned and a bow tie. I looked closer. The button-size fabric rosette in his lapel was pale blue with white stars. It was the first one I’d ever seen. The old boy was a Medal of Honor winner.

  Jacowicz cocked his head. “Who the hell are you?” Then he stretched his neck forward toward Judge March’s lapel and the Medal of Honor rosette. The only reward America’s highest decoration actually brings you is that everybody up to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff owes you a salute.

  Jacowicz straightened and snapped off a sharp one.

  The judge returned it. “My name is March. Formerly Colonel March, Captain.”

  His Honor a full bird? Damn!

  “Sir, what are you doing here?” Jacowicz asked.

  “I’m here for Trainee Wander’s graduation from Basic. With no goddam planes flying it took me thirty-six hours on a train.”

  Jacowicz and I looked at him like he’d grown fur.

  “Jason sent me an invitation.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Jacowicz.

  “Trainee Wander was once what you might call a customer of mine. I traded my rank for a judgeship years ago. But when I called for more information about the ceremony I heard about Jason’s problems and about this upcoming hearing.”

  Ord. He had to have talked to Ord.

  Jacowicz thrust out his jaw. “It’s not upcoming. It’s over.”

  “You know better, Captain. Whether the proceeding stays closed is entirely within your discretion.”

  Jacowicz stared at Judge March. “Why would I want to reopen the matter?”

  “I’d like to speak on behalf of Trainee Wander.”

  “As a former field-grade officer, and a judge, you know he’s not entitled to counsel.”

  “He’s entitled to fair treatment! As an officer who served with your father, I know that!”

  Jacowicz stiffened. “You’re Dickie March?”

  Judge March nodded. He reached his one hand across Jacowicz’s desk and touched a framed picture angled toward us. A gray-haired man in fatigues who looked like Jacowicz smiled, a foot on the bumper of an old-fashioned Hummvee. “He was one hell of a soldier.”

  Jacowicz blinked. “Thank you, Colonel. Judge.”

  Jacowicz straightened the picture and cleared his throat. “What did you want to say?”

  “Trainee Wander came to the Infantry as a result of events I set in motion. I thought it would be good for him. And he for it. I still do.”

  “He committed a grave offense.”

  “I understand Trainee Wander took a very normal dose of nonprescription, perfectly legal medication on a single occasion.”

  “And the regs are crystal-clear on the consequences of such behavior. Especially in light of aggravating circumstances. A trainee died. In combat it could have been far worse.” Jacowicz shook his head.

  “In combat we understood that even good soldiers make mistakes. And good soldiers are hard to find.”

  Jacowicz pressed his lips together.

  “You know what your father and I did during the Siege of Kabul? When there was nothing to do all day but duck when enemy artillery came in?”

  Jacowicz squinted while he nodded politely. So did I. The old fart was rambling.

  “We sat around on cots and swapped stories. And we smoked a little grass.”

  My jaw dropped. Not because I couldn’t understand him. “Grass” was old slang for marijuana. It was illegal back then.

  Jacowicz seemed to know it, too, because he shook his head, slowly. “I find that incredible.”

  “I find it incredible that you think your father would have told you everything he did in his off-duty hours. And that you think it made him a worse soldier. Do you think the army would have been well served to get rid of us if we’d gotten caught?”

  Jacowicz pushed back from his desk, spun his chair, and looked out the window with his back to us.

  Judge March looked at me and tapped a finger under his chin.

  I nodded and raised mine.

  in the distance Here engines whined then died as a transport landed.

  Jacowicz spoke without turning to us. “Come back in fifteen minutes.”

  Judge March and I stood in the company street. “Your Honor, thank you. Thank you so much! For coming. For eveiything.”

  Judge March turned to me and flicked his eyes to inspect my shoeshine. “You wear the uniform well. How have you been, Jason?”

  “Not so great like you heard.” It all seemed incredible. That Qrd had taken my part. That the judge had come here. That he’d been a decorated, field-grade officer.

  Judge March pointed at the mess hall, with its vacant horizontal ladders and th
at scrawny sapling shivering bare in the breeze. “You think an old soldier could scrounge a cup of coffee in there?”

  Three minutes later Judge March and I hunched over coffee cups at an empty mess-hall table while the kitchen grunts clattered around in back burning evening chow.

  He sipped. “You ever do any drugs besides that Prozac stuff?”

  “Never. Swear to God, Your Honor.”

  He nodded. “If I ever hear different, I’ll pin your ears back.”

  I wrinkled my brow. When the judge was young, body piercings were wick. But his tone now seemed punitive.

  “Sir, why did you do this for me?”

  He shrugged. “If you got discharged, you would have been back on my docket. I hate a messy docket.”

  “Oh.”

  He stared into his coffee, then looked up and grinned. “No. I just thought you were a kid with potential who needed a push in the right direction. I still do.”

  Just about now mat was the nicest thing anybody ever said to me. I shook my head. “Sir, that is such a coincidence that you served with the captain’s father. And that you and he, you know, smoked up.”

  The judge poured from the glass sugar shaker into his coffee with his remaining hand. He set down the shaker, picked up a spoon, and stirred. “Son, there’s a saying among the criminal defendants who come before me. They think I don’t know it.”

  “Sir?”

  “If the truth won’t set you free, lie your ass off.”

  He sipped coffee, shrugged, and watched my jaw drop. The mendacious old son of a bitch.

  We sat and drank coffee for minutes.

  The mess-hall door opened and Jacowicz’s orderly poked his head in. “Wander! Captain’s ready for you.”

  I squeezed my cup tighter.

  “Move your ass, man!” The orderly pulled his head back and let the door slam. I must’ve jumped a foot.

  When we got back, Jacowicz shooed the judge out.

  The captain rocked in his chair and steepled his fingers beneath his chin. “About that marijuana business. My father told me all about Colonel March. Dickie March was a good soldier but a rule-bender. They drank together but neither of them ever touched a joint.”