“Hell, yes!” Josh said, his jaw working. “They’re not my brother!”

“They’re somebody’s brother,” the sergeant said, picking up his cover. “They were brothers and sons. Some lady just like Mom carried them in her womb and nursed them and loved them. And most of them we couldn’t even bring home. There wasn’t anything to bring. I’ve got a better chance than any replacement.” He tucked his cover under his arm and curtly nodded at his reflection. “So, this is my sacrifice. As my first sergeant once said, if I was worried about where I was going to die, I never should have joined the Marines in the first place.”

Commander William Weaver, Ph.D., topped out on the climb and stood up on the pedals, clutching the saddle between his thighs as he coasted downwards to catch his breath. The roots on the trail were still slick from the morning dew that had yet to be burned off by the mid-morning Alabama sun. The canopy of oak trees and the dense green foliage around the trail would prevent that for several more hours. The rear wheel spinning and slipping on the roots had made the climbs more difficult than Bill was hoping and he was getting totally worked.

Leaning his center of gravity behind the saddle as the screaming downhill rushed up at him, he managed to keep the bike in control just long enough to hop over a small oak that had been dropped across the trail to prevent it from washing out. Bill looked at his heart rate monitor on the center of the handlebars — 185. He was working way too hard for this part of the trail. The ride was fun and had let him take his mind off of, well, off of a lot of things, but his heart just wasn’t really in it. The climb on the other side had severely kicked his ass. He should be able to get his heart rate back down to at least the 160s, but it was dropping slower than he’d expected and his heart pounded like a bass drum in his throat. He felt so out of shape. And the ride back up the mountain to the parking lot was going to be hell.