“I didn’t,” I said. “You never asked. You asked my rank.”
I folded my hands on the table.
“It was first lieutenant,” I said. “And my maiden name was Hollis.”
You could have heard a pin drop in that dining hall.
Sergeant Reese’s face went from red to white so fast I thought he might faint.
His two friends had backed up about three steps. One of them was staring at the wall like he’d never seen it before in his life.
And from the back of the room, near the double doors, I heard a deep voice.
“Staff Sergeant Reese.”
The whole room turned.
A tall man in his fifties was walking down the center aisle between the tables. Gray at the temples. Four stripes, three rockers and a star in the middle on the front of his uniform. The command sergeant major of the battalion. The senior enlisted man in the whole unit.
