Last night, after that endless hour of PT, I’d decided to go to the party. It wasn’t what I remembered doing from the dream, but I didn’t really feel like rereading that book. The part about helping Yonabaru up to his bunk after he stumbled back to the barracks stayed the same.

Word around the platoon was that Yonabaru’s girlfriend was a Jacket jockey too. With the exception of Special Forces, men and women fought in separate platoons, so we wouldn’t have run into her on the battlefield anyway.

“If-and I’m just talkin’-but if one of you got killed…” I ventured.

“I’d feel like shit.”

“But you still see each other anyway.”

“Heaven ain’t some Swiss bank. You can’t squirrel away money in some secret account up there and expect to make a withdrawal. You gotta do what you can before goin’ into battle. That’s the first rule of soldierin’.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“But I’m tellin’ ya, you gotta hook yourself up with some pussy. Carpe diem, brother.”

“Carpe something.”

“What about Mad Wargarita? Y’all were talkin’ during PT, right? You’d tap that, I know you would.”

“Don’t even go there.”

“Tiny girl like her-I bet she’s a wolverine in the sack. The smaller they are, the better they fuck, you know.”

“Show some respect.”

“Sex ain’t got nothin’ to do with respect. From the lowest peon to His Majesty the general, everybody wants to do a little poundin’ between the legs. All I’m sayin’ is that’s how we evolved-”

“Just shut the fuck up,” I said.

“That any way to talk to me in front of the sergeant? I’m hurt. I’ve got a very sensitive disposition. I’m just talkin’ trash to keep my mind off things. Same as everybody else.”

“He’s right,” someone else chipped in over the comm link.

“Hey, don’t I get a vote?”

It was like this was the excuse everyone in the platoon had been waiting for. Everyone started talking at once.