Beside him walked a lieutenant colonel. The battalion commander. A wiry man named Gerald Ortiz, with a clipboard under his arm.
They’d come to meet me. We had a one o’clock appointment. I’d gotten there early for the chili.
Command Sergeant Major Darnell Hayes stopped beside my table. He looked at Reese. Then he looked at me.
Then he did something I’ll never forget.
He came to attention. Right there between the tables. Heels together. Shoulders back.
And he saluted me.
“Ma’am,” he said. “Welcome home to the Herons.”
Every soldier in that room, two hundred of them, stood up at once. Chairs scraping on the linoleum. Trays rattling.
The young private at the next table was crying.
Sergeant Reese stood frozen beside my chair. He didn’t know what to do with his hands.
I stood up. It took me a minute. My knees aren’t what they were in 1969.
