Chapter 28: Why Gunny Stood at Attention, Part One
The room at Camp Lejeune was smaller than I had feared and fuller than I had hoped. Rows of chairs faced a low platform, flags stood quiet at the front, and Marines filled the back and sides in dress blues. Families sat in the middle, holding programs, holding children, holding themselves still.
I stood near the side door and wished I could be anywhere else.
"You keep looking at the exit," Nico said beside me. He was in dress blues too, Staff Sergeant stripes sharp. "You planned three extraction routes yet?"
"Four," I said. "The fourth one goes through the kitchen."
"Smart. There is cake in the kitchen."
"Nico."
He grinned, then softened. "You do not have to enjoy this, Jules. You just have to stand there and let them say it. That is the whole job today."
"That is a terrible job."
"It is an easy job. You have had worse."
"What if I cry?"
"Then you cry in front of Marines. Half of them have done it in this room already. They just pretend it was allergies."
That made me laugh, a short sound that surprised me. He bumped my shoulder lightly with his, careful not to wrinkle either uniform.
"Proud of you," he said quietly. "In case I forget to say it later when everyone is being formal."
"You said it at breakfast."
"I will say it all day if I want. I missed years of saying it."
Before I could answer, Corporal Dylan Mercer stopped in front of us, hat in his hands.
"Major," he said. "Ma'am. I just wanted to say, before it starts, thank you again. For March. For Aaron."
"You thanked me at the party, Dylan."
"I know. My sister made me practice being calmer this time."
"Is Megan here?"
"Third row, with Aaron and the boys. She saved you a look. She said you would be scanning for them whether you admitted it or not."
He was right. I found them then, third row near the aisle. Aaron Mitchell sat with his bad leg stretched a little to the side, one small boy on Megan's lap, the other leaning against Aaron's good knee, both in buttoned shirts that were already coming untucked. Aaron saw me looking and lifted his hand, not a wave, just a lift, steady.
I lifted mine back.
In March 2013 his voice had come through my headset thin and broken, and I had not known his face. Now I knew his boys liked to kick the chair in front of them, because Megan reached down without looking and stilled a small shoe with one hand.
"Places, please," a young lieutenant said, and the room shifted. Chairs scraped. Conversations thinned. Nico squeezed my elbow once and went to sit with the families.
An officer I did not know well stepped to the lectern and welcomed everyone without making it grand. He thanked the families for lending the Corps their people. He thanked the units present for showing up on a Saturday. Then he said my name, and every head turned in a way I felt in my stomach.
"Major Julia Romano, United States Air Force," he said. "Call sign Sticky Six."
I walked to the mark they had taped on the floor and stood where I was told to stand. It helped, having a mark. In Sangin I had always had a frequency, a checklist, a next call to make. Here I had a small piece of tape.
He read the citation slowly, and it was not what I had braced for. It did not make me a commander. It did not pretend I had been on the ground. It said coordination. It said communications. It said an operations center during the Sangin deployment in 2012 and 2013, night after night, when units were frightened and exhausted and the picture was incomplete, and the net she worked never dropped.
It said I kept them connected so help could reach them.
It said a voice had a name, and a call sign, and the Corps was done leaving either unthanked.
I listened with my jaw tight. Gratitude came up so fast it hurt, and under it the old discomfort, louder: other people had carried rifles, other people had bled. I had sat at a desk with a headset. And then I looked, without meaning to, at Aaron, and Megan had her hand over her mouth, and Aaron was nodding once, like each plain sentence was landing somewhere he had kept it for years.
The reading ended. The room was very quiet. The officer folded the citation with care.
"Before we present it," he said, "you will hear from a Marine who was there, and who asked to speak first. Gunnery Sergeant Barrett."
Every head turned toward the side door.