Chapter 4 - A Room Without Flags
General Beckett met me in a conference room with beige walls, a recorder on the table, and no audience to impress.
Beside him sat Captain Nadia Ortiz, an Army legal assistance officer temporarily assigned to help document the historical-record inquiry. She explained that she was not my lawyer, not an investigator with power to compel testimony, and not authorized to promise a medal. I liked her immediately.
“We can preserve what you provide,” she said. “We can identify the proper review channels. That's what this meeting is.”
“And what isn't it?” I asked.
“A verdict.”
Beckett slid Hollis's complaint across the table. It called my appearance disruptive and accused me of intentionally misrepresenting a decorated officer's record. On the last page, he requested that the installation bar me from future events.
“I did interrupt,” I admitted. “I won't pretend otherwise.”
“The question,” Beckett said, “is what you are saying happened at Ridge Forty-Six.”
I opened my folder and began with the first blast, not the last. I named the medic I'd assisted, the driver who'd held a door open, and the local interpreter who'd brought two children out from under a desk.
Ortiz stopped me only when I skipped a detail I thought was obvious.
“Where were you when you heard your husband on the radio?”
“Against the clinic wall, beside the casualty sheet.”
“Could you see him?”
“No.”
“Then say that.”
Her precision stung, but it felt like clean water over an old cut. She wasn't trying to make my account beautiful. She wanted it accurate.
I handed over copies of my treatment notes and a partial evacuation manifest. Seventeen names appeared, including four civilians whose surnames were entered phonetically. One entry carried Mason's service number beside a time notation: 04:17.
Beckett tapped the ink. “Who wrote this number?”
“Specialist Peter Dunn. He checked patients as they were loaded.”
“Where is Dunn now?”
“I don't know.”
The general leaned back. “A record of a soldier's number doesn't, by itself, prove he carried a patient. And even if your husband's actions were heroic, that doesn't tell me whether Colonel Hollis did what his citation describes.”
“I know.”
His surprise was brief. “You do?”
“That's why I've kept looking.”
When the meeting ended, Ortiz walked me into the hall.
“Your old statement isn't the end of your credibility,” she said. “But you have to account for it every time.”
“I will.”
She held out a contact sheet. “Dunn's last listed forwarding address is in Roanoke. I can't ask you to contact him on behalf of the Army. You can make your own choice.”
On the bottom was a handwritten note from Beckett: A public claim requires a public correction if substantiated. Do not confuse speed with care.
May you like
By the time I reached my car, I knew where I was driving next.
