“You ask me, anyone come out of battle not actin’ a little funny has a screw or three loose.” Yonabaru grinned.

“Hey, no scarin’ the fresh meat,” I protested. I wasn’t actually scared, but I was growing increasingly confused.

“Just look at Ferrell! Only way to make it is to lose whatever it is that makes you human. A sensitive, caring indiv’dual like myself ain’t cut out for fightin’, and that’s the truth.”

“I don’t see anything wrong with the sergeant.”

“Ain’t a question of right or wrong. It’s about having a heart made of tungsten and muscles so big they cut off the blood to your brain.”

“I wouldn’t go that far.”

“Next you’ll be tellin’ us that Mad Wargarita is just another grunt like the rest of us.”

“Yeah, well, the thing with her is-” and so the conversation went on, back and forth like we always did. Our badmouthing of Rita was just hitting its stride when the sergeant showed up.

Sergeant Ferrell Bartolome had been around longer than anyone else in our platoon. He’d lived through so many battles, he was more than soldier, he was the glue that kept our company together. They said if you stuck him in a centrifuge, he’d come out 70 percent big brother, 20 percent ball-busting drill sergeant, and 10 percent steel-reinforced carbon. He scowled at me, then looked at Yonabaru, who was hastily bundling up our liquor confessions. His scowl deepened. “You the soldier who broke into the PX?”

“Yeah, that’s me,” my friend confessed without a trace of guilt.

The men on the surrounding beds ducked under their sheets with all the speed of cockroaches scattering in the light, porn magazines and playing cards forgotten. They’d seen the look on the sergeant’s face.