Chapter 2

By March, 2009, Julia had enough experience with the Army to have learned that it wasn't a system that was user friendly. Her conviction that Bob was either injured or dead was like acid in her belly, though, and she couldn't let it rest until she knew which it was. She was rock solid sure that he hadn't just decided to stop writing.

She had tried everything she could think of, from contacting the public affairs office at Fort Leonard Wood, to going to the local Veterans of Foreign Wars chapter. In every case, once it was determined she had no official ties to the soldier in question, a stone wall was erected.

In complete frustration she had finally approached Ron Zelch, who had been teaching fourth grade at David Barton Elementary School for two decades. On the wall behind his desk were pictures of groups of men in uniform. She'd never paid any attention to them before, but now he was a potential source of advice.

"What can I do for you?" asked the man who was old enough to be her elderly father.

"Are you in any of those pictures?" she asked.

"Most of them," he said.

"I need your help."

When she explained it to him, he nodded.

"They have all these rules," he said. "But they aren't sure just what the rules actually say, and the safest thing is to say they can't help you."

"But all I want to do is find out if he's alive or dead," she moaned. "Surely that can't hurt anything."

"I agree," he said. "But it's easy to say 'no' so they do."

"How can I make it harder for them to say 'no?'" she asked.

He grinned. "That's easy. Just lie."

The lie they came up with was quite simple. They decided that Staff Sergeant Hickory had left some very valuable property in the custody of one Julia Miller, who was no longer able to maintain it and needed to return it to the soldier.

"Fine," said Julia. "But who will care?"

"Don't know yet," he said. "But we have nothing to lose, right?"

"I guess not," she said.

"First, though, I have to ask you questions," he said. "Lots of questions."

"All right," said Julia.

Lieutenant Colonel David Adkins stood, arms folded, as a sergeant strapped the prosthetic limb onto Bob's stump.

"The first fitting is almost always uncomfortable," said Adkins. "So expect that."

"Yes, sir," said Bob automatically.

"Don't let go of the rails, no matter how stable you feel," the officer went on. "Initially all we want to do is see how you compensate while standing. You haven't stood in quite a while."

Bob didn't tell them he'd been hopping back and forth to the latrine for weeks, tired of sitting in the chair all the time. He still took the chair outside, but inside the ward he almost never used it any more. He'd fallen a few times, but was good, now, at avoiding hitting anything with his stump. He still felt the phantom foot, but it wasn't so bad any more. He no longer had the urge to stand on it, for example.

The sergeant stood up. "Good to go," he said.

"All right," said LTC Adkins. "Grip the rails and try standing."

Bob made it look like he was straining. It would have been easy to pop up and try resting weight, finally, on his left leg. He didn't, though, because he was finally getting some attention and didn't want things to go in reverse. The sooner he could get a leg, the sooner he could get the fuck away from this place. They were talking about keeping him here six more months!

He let weight down on the prosthetic. There was pain, but only of an annoying kind. He couldn't help lifting his right foot off the mat, just to see what that felt like. He leaned and his hip hit the left rail of the parallel bars he was standing between.

"Careful," warned the office.

"It's not bad," said Bob. "I'm surprised, in fact."

"One thing the Army has is good prosthetics," said Adkins.

"I could get around on this," said Bob, taking a couple of hesitant, and very small steps.

"Oh this is nothing," said Adkins. "Your final leg will feel like you've always had it. You'll be able to run on it, maybe even play soccer if you don't overdo it.

"I don't think there's a lot of soccer in my future," said Bob.

"We'll see," said the colonel, leaning down to examine the interface between flesh and prosthetic.

"This is Sergeant First Class Valentine. How can I help you?"

"Is this casualty assistance?" asked Ron. "I need to talk to somebody in casualty assistance."

"I'm the Casualty Assistance NCOIC," said Valentine. "How can I help you?"

"It's not me. It's my niece. She's gone and got herself mixed up with a grunt and everything is fucked up, like usual when the Army's involved."

Valentine rolled his eyes. "What's the problem, sir?" he asked.

"First off, I want you to know who you're talking to," said Ron, his voice rough. "I'm Lance Corporal Ronald Zelch, service number 5663271, Bravo Company, Second of the first Infantry Regiment, United States Marine Corps. I ain't retired, because after two tours in Nam I got the fuck out. But I served my goddammed country, and I got two purple hearts to prove it."

"Thank you for your service, Lance Corporal," said Valentine, sitting up straight. Valentine was a history buff when it came to Viet Nam, and the unit this man had referenced had been through the thick of things. "How can I help you?"

"My niece got mixed up with a soldier, and he give her something to take care of for him until he got back from Iraq. Somethin' valuable. And now she ain't heard from him for months, and she's all worked up about it and she don't want no more to do with this thing he give her. She wants to give it back, but nobody will tell her where he is so she can do that."

Valentine rolled his eyes again. "What is this valuable thing, Lance Corporal?"

"It's a kid."

Valentine blinked. Then he smiled. This wasn't his problem at all.

"You've got the wrong office, Corporal," he said. "You need to get in touch with the family assistance office for the unit he's in."

"Well, there's a problem with that," said Ron.

"What's that?" asked Valentine.

"When they was going together, she didn't want her parents to know about it, because she knew they'd raise a fuss, what with her being underaged and all that. And then, when she found out she was pregnant, he was about to deploy, so they got married on the sly and Uncle Sam don't know about it."

"Oh shit," groaned Valentine. Then "Sorry about that."

"I've heard worse," said Ron, grinning. "Anyway, she got some letters from him, but now they're being returned as no longer assigned. I kind of figured that meant he got wounded. At least I hope he only got wounded, because all hell is going to break loose when she turns up pregnant with no husband to produce because the Army won't tell her where he is."

"You mean the baby hasn't even been born yet?" asked Valentine. Nobody was more appealing to the media than a pregnant, grieving widow. If he could hand these people off to somebody else, and it blew up then, at least he wouldn't be involved.

"What do you have on this soldier?" asked Valentine. "Maybe I can do something for you."

Colonel William Bell leaned back in his chair and looked thoughtfully at SSG Hickory.

"Why are you so anxious to leave Walter Reed?" he asked.

"I think the question would be why is anybody anxious to stay?" replied Bob.

Bell ignored the comment. "According to what you've told me you have no family. You have nowhere to go, and no job lined up. Your enlistment goes for two more years, though I'm sure that will be waived by the medical board."

"Which will take another six to eight months, while I rot in that ward over there," said Bob.

"I understand you have only another month of rehab before they give you your final leg," said Bell. "At that point you'll be able to go on pass."

"For an evening, or maybe a weekend if I'm lucky," said Bob.

"Where would you go for a weekend?" asked the psychiatrist.

"Hell, I don't know," said Bob. "To a bar? I could sure go for a bottle of Scotch about now."

"A whole bottle?"

"Having a whole bottle doesn't mean you have to drink the whole bottle at once," said Bob.

"Alcohol abuse is not the answer to your problems, Sergeant Hickory."

"I wasn't aware I had any problems," said Bob. "Except being locked up here."

"You have anxiety issues," said the doctor, "as well as anger issues. You appear to be either living in a fantasy world or willing to become homeless just to leave this hospital."

"Why can't I go back to my unit?" asked Bob.

"Your unit is still deployed."

"All right then, I can go to the rear detachment."

"Which is fully staffed," said the doctor. "What would you do there?"

"Hell, I don't know. Go to the gym," said Bob, exasperated.

"We have gyms here," said the shrink.

"Stay with friends," said Bob.

"And their names are... ?"

"You know I can't remember everything," moaned Bob. "That doesn't mean I'm helpless."

The psychiatrist looked at his watch. He had three more patients to see and then he could go meet Major Jenkins for handball. Major Jenkins was forty-one, in an unhappy marriage, and in need of some appreciation. Bell had been working on giving her the kind of attention he thought would make her flower, and he wanted to get to that. He wanted to pick that flower when she bloomed.

"What I know, Sergeant, is that you're not ready to leave Walter Reed quite yet," said Bell.

"Hell, Corporal, you haven't lost your edge, I'll tell you that," said SFC Valentine. "Even without the social you gave me enough to find him easily. He was put on an evac to Walter Reed in late November. He's still there in the med hold unit."

"You got a mailing address?" asked Ron.

Valentine spilled it off.

"I don't suppose by any chance you got the name of the CO," said Ron.

"Can't help you there," said Valentine. "It doesn't list commanders' names. I got a phone number for the CQ (Charge of Quarters) desk, though."

"Let me have that," said Ron. He wrote it down. "Thanks, Sarge. For a grunt you've been an all right guy."

"I try to help out my jarhead friends whenever I can," said Valentine expansively. "Good luck to your niece. She's probably gonna need it. He should have told his unit he got married."

"I know, I know. Youth is stupid," said Ron.

"Hooah!" said Valentine.

"Semper Fi," said Ron, and hung up.

He turned to Julia, who was almost dancing with impatience.

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