Summary

He wakes to the ringing phone. Kevin Boylan is calling. He’s afraid it’s actually Vockler calling. But that couldn’t be; Vockler’s dead. Boylan was a captain in the Marines. Boylan’s back from Afghanistan. He tells Boylan that he got a job. The pay is $160,000 plus bonuses. Most of his fellow law students at NYU are heading to similar positions. Boylan’s voice reminds him of Iraq. He doesn’t miss it. His duties consisted of spreadsheets and stacks of paper. He feels guilty that he didn’t have the real Iraq experience. Sergeant Julian Deme was a hero, good and brave and dead. He didn’t answer Boylan’s call because of Deme; he answered it because of James Vockler.

He had been his platoon’s adjutant on his second deployment to Fallujah...