Need stirred deep inside me and I suddenly remembered how long it had been since we had any time to ourselves. I grinned and grabbed her hand and we headed for the door. A pair of MP’s was waiting for me there, their expressions grim.
“What’s up, guys?” I asked them.
“Sorry to bother you, sir,” the higher-ranking of the two, an E-5 told me. “Could, uh…could we step outside?”
“Sure,” I said, shrugging incomprehension to Vicky.
The street outside the O-club was nearly deserted at this time of night, the glare from security spotlights at the FOB perimeter throwing odd shadows extending every direction from the surrounding buildings.
“Sir, this is kind of a weird situation, but we, um…we have one of your people outside.” He sighed and shifted with obvious discomfort. “Look, sir, we ain’t really got our shit together yet, you know that. They brought us in mostly to help control the locals, but we ain’t got a brig or anything down here yet and I wouldn’t want to be tossing any of our guys into it if we did. I mean, this was a tough fight, I understand that.” He waved back across the street to where an all-terrain utility rover was parked. A single figure sat in the back of it, their face invisible from this angle. “I thought maybe you could deal with this however you wanted? I would’ve called your First Sergeant,” he added, apologetic, “but the corporal said he thought you’d be in the O-club, so….”
“It’s okay,” I assured him. “I’ll talk to him. Thank you, Sergeant.” I cast an apologetic look at Vicky. “Give me a few minutes?”
“Take your time,” she said, putting a hand on my shoulder. “I’ll be back at the bar.”
The MP’s held back and waited while I walked to their car and pulled the door open. Vince Delp was sitting in the back seat, looking miserable and smelling drunk. A nascent bruise was already beginning to swell on his right cheek and a fleck of blood stuck to his upper lip from a blow to the nose.
“Oh, for God’s sake, Vince,” I sighed, sliding in beside him. “You had to do this on my night off?”
“I’m sorry, sir,” he said, head down, unable to meet my eyes.
“Was it a girl again?” I wondered. “Another loud-mouthed REMF or Fobbit?”
“Lieutenant,” he said, his voice breaking just slightly, “I don’t think it was really any of those things. It’s just….” He trailed off and let his head rest against the back of the seat. “I keep seeing their faces, sir.”
“Whose faces, Vince?” I thought I knew, but I had to ask. “Who do you see?”
“John…Corporal Muller, I mean.”
I nodded. Muller had been Delp’s team leader. He’d bought it this mission.
“And Mancuso before him,” he went on. “And Benavidez, and Clarke and Sgt. Carson, and Gunny Hayes….” He stopped and in the splintered shadows and glare from the light outside the car, I thought I could see his shoulders shaking. His sob confirmed it. Delp bent over, face buried in his hands, and I put a hand on his shoulder, waiting.
“I’m okay when I’m out there,” he explained once he could talk again. “When I’m in the suit. Nothing can touch me in the suit. It’s like I’m immortal. But when I’m just around, just hanging in the barracks or the tent, when there’s nothing to do but think, well…I just think. I think about them all. About how everyone I ever made friends with or played cards with or told stories about home with, they’re all dead.” He shrugged. “Not all. But you know what I mean, sir. It’s like I don’t want to get to know them anymore. Because the more I get to know them, the more I gotta think about them afterward. Do you understand what I’m saying, sir?”
“Oh, yeah,” I assured him, sitting back. The inside of the car smelled like a drunk sweating synthahol out of every pore. “I know that better than anyone, Delp. Better than you. I’ve lost almost everyone who was ever important to me.” Everyone but Vicky. “And that started long before this war.”
“How do you do it then, sir?” he asked, pleading. “How do you keep them out of your head?”
I considered that, maybe for the first time, and I answered him honestly, as the answer came to me.
“They’re never gone from your head, Vince. They never will be. But they don’t have to haunt you. Every one of them took something from you and left something behind, and it wouldn’t be right to forget them. But you keep making friends, keep letting people close, and the new memories help keep the old ones from taking over your head. You get what I’m saying?” He nodded.
“I think so, sir.”
“And if you let new people close,” I went on, “then maybe there’ll be someone you care about there to tell you to stop when you try to do something this fucking stupid again.” I put an edge to the last few words and his eyes widened. “Look, Delp, you’re a hell of a Marine. I need you walking point. You save lives. You win battles. But I can’t have this shit, not anymore. I’m the company commander, and I have dozens of Delps to look after. I can’t be holding your hand anymore. So, here’s the deal. We’re going to be on Point Barber for at least a few more weeks. Since you get in trouble when you have time to think, I’m going to have a little talk with Top and Bang-Bang and I’m going to make sure you don’t have time to think for the next few weeks. From the minute you finish breakfast to the minute your exhausted little head hits the pillow, you’re going to be working, and not the kind of
