Tony S.

Thank you!

Someone shook my shoulder. “Kent.” I opened my eyes to darkness. For a second, I couldn’t remember where I was. Then the canvas ceiling above me came into focus, low and shadowed, the faint red glow of someone’s flashlight moving between rows of cots. “Time?” I asked. “Zero three forty-five.” Owen’s voice was as calm as if he were announcing breakfast. He was already dressed, body armor strapped on, rifle slung across one shoulder, helmet tucked beneath his arm

For the next week, the phone call stayed with me in pieces. Not all of it. Not clearly. Fifteen minutes was too small a container for the amount of life we had tried to pour into it, and afterward the conversation scattered through my memory in fragments: Mom pretending she had not cried, Dad pretending he had not read my letter, Ken laughing through static like distance was something he could mock into submission. I carried those pieces with me through patrol briefings, weapons cleani

The generator coughed once, rattled violently, and died. For a moment, nobody said anything. Then Miguel sighed toward the cloudless Afghan sky as though personally betrayed. "I gave you everything," he announced to the silent machine. "Everything." Eric didn't even bother looking up from the toolbox beside his boots. "You gave it a kick." "It was an encouraging kick." "It was barely a concussion." Miguel folded his arms. "Shows what you know." I wiped the

Morning arrived with the same familiar sounds that had been waking us for months. Somewhere outside, an engine coughed reluctantly to life before settling into its steady diesel rhythm. Boots crunched over frozen gravel between the rows of canvas tents while voices drifted through the cold air, half swallowed by the wind that never seemed to stop crossing the valley. Inside our tent, the portable heater rattled noisily in the corner, fighting a battle against the December cold that it never

Apparently, I need to lean how to comment with a tease but without a spoiler.

The one that turns you on, obviously, Lawrence.

Seems like everyone can't wait for the deployment to finish. But oh no... not yet, folks. It's gonna be a little more while. Hang in there and Kent will be rejoined with Ken soon... or not.

By December, the routines had become so deeply ingrained that we hardly noticed them anymore. Five months earlier, every patrol had begun with nervous hands checking and rechecking equipment because we were afraid of forgetting something. Now the inspections happened almost without thought. Fingers tugged on shoulder straps, magazines were counted by touch instead of sight, radios were tested while conversations drifted from one subject to another. We had learned that no one caught every mi

I like seeing this side of Anton. Kinda unexpected but welcoming.

November arrived so quietly that none of us could have pointed to the day it happened. The mountains changed first. Their sharp brown ridges faded beneath a pale morning haze, and each week the wind carried a little more bite than the week before. By the time we noticed ourselves reaching for jackets before dawn, the season had already slipped past us. Deployment did that. Time no longer moved according to calendars. It moved from patrol to patrol. From Sunday mail calls to Wednes

Oh, somebody is going to make the first move soon, indeed. 😁 But who?

My ankle kept me off patrol for three days. That sounded better than it felt. On paper, light duty meant rest. In practice, it meant inventory sheets, radio batteries, supply crates, and enough small chores to make me suspect Mason had personally decided immobility was bad for morale. Miguel called it my retirement. “You had a good run,” he said solemnly while I sat outside the tent cleaning dust from the grooves of a radio handset. “Short career. Inspiring, though.” “I twisted my

The morale phones only worked when everything else decided to cooperate. Power. Satellite. Weather. Nobody ever seemed to know exactly why they were available one week and silent the next, so whenever word spread that the phones were up, Marines drifted toward the plywood shack near the PX almost instinctively. Some walked in smiling. Not many walked out that way. I joined the line after breakfast. There were only four phones inside, separated by thin plyw

You're right! That makes much more sense. Thanks for pointing out.