on what she, and five other females commissioned in the combat arms, did in the next year.
Overwhelmed by this sense of history, Kozak opened the door and got out. Standing upright, she slung her regulation black purse over her shoulder, smoothed her skirt, pulled the blouse of her uniform down, and set out for Building 108 to sign in.
Casually sprawled on a chair in the first row of the room where he had been directed, Captain Harold Cerro waited for the admin clerks to settle down and begin their arduous task of inprocessing a new batch of officers.
As the clerks shuffled reams of papers and huge computer printouts, Cerro sipped coffee from a Styrofoam cup and read USA Today. Based on the headlines, Cerro decided, the day before had been a complete bore.
The top news story was about a series of four murders in New York City.
Cynical as ever, Cerro wondered why these particular murders, in a city where an average of six people a day were murdered, were different from any others. Besides, in Cerro's mind, four dead people were almost negligible. After all, there had been days when Cerro would account for the loss of four men killed in a firefight simply by reporting, 'Casualties light, continuing mission.' How odd civilians were, he thought.
It was not that Cerro was an intrinsically cruel person. On the contrary, most of the people he allowed to know him thought Hal Cerro was a nice guy. But that nice guy happened to be both a soldier and a realist. People, Cerro knew, die. It was a part of life. As a veteran, he had not only seen death up close and personal, he had participated in the process. In doing so, Cerro, like any soldier in combat, had faced the possibility of his own death. Death, therefore, held no mysteries for him. It was to him, instead, simply another fact of life. People eat, they breathe, and they die. In Cerro's trained mind, it was that simple. Clear, simple, and cold. Besides, it was the only way he could. rationalize what he did in order to maintain his sanity.
From the doorway, the clicking of heels on the tile floor announced that a woman had entered the room. Glancing up from his paper, Cerro's eyes tracked the female second lieutenant who had just entered the room as they would track a target. His mind, conditioned through years of training, began to assess the target.
He immediately established, based on the rank, the manner in which she carried herself, and her appearance, that the lieutenant was newly commissioned, putting her at twenty-two — at the most, twentythree — years old. As she walked over to the desk where the clerks sat, Cerro judged her height to be five-eight, tops five-ten, even when the two-inch heels were taken into account. The lieutenant's auburn hair was drawn up in a simple bun which was pinned tightly to the back of her head. Her face was set in a deadpan stare fixed on the clerk she was approaching, confirming Cerro's belief that the lieutenant was reporting to her first unit. Despite the lack of expression, and dearth of makeup, the lieutenant's face had potential. The lack of clearly visible cheekbones was more than offset by a well-molded nose, a soft chin, full lips, and big brown eyes.
At the desk, the lieutenant cleared her throat and informed the clerk that she was there to sign in. The clerk stopped what she was doing, looked up at the lieutenant, and cocked her head to the side. 'We started at oh-eight hundred, ma'am. If you would please take a seat, we will be with you shortly.' Without waiting for an acknowledgment, the clerk went back to shuffling the papers on her desk. While this exchange transpired, Cerro utilized the time, and the fact that no one else was watching, to conduct a detailed terrain analysis. He decided that the lieutenant was five foot eight, weighed 150 pounds, probably wore a B cup, maybe a C, had a waist measuring no more than 28 inches, and had a nice tush.
Cerro was still considering this last item when the lieutenant turned on her heel and walked over to the row of chairs where Cerro was seated.
With measured ease, Cerro looked back at his paper, taking a long sip on his coffee while he continued to track the lieutenant out of the corner of his eye. Once she was seated, Cerro turned his attention back to his paper. All thoughts of the female lieutenant were quickly relegated to a file in the back of his mind labeled 'Lieutenant, Female.' That he had regarded the lieutenant in the same way he would a woman on the prowl at a singles bar never crossed his mind as he turned to the weather page.
As an old first sergeant had once told him, 'Regardless how you package them, they're still women.'
Promptly at 0800 hours, one of the clerks at the front of the room called out Cerro's name and rank. Looking up from his paper, Cerro turned to the clerk. For a moment, he simply stared at her. 'We're open now, sir.'
Feigning surprise and excitement, Cerro carefully folded his paper, packing it away in his briefcase for later, then slowly rose and casually strolled over to the clerk. When he arrived at her desk, she announced she needed two copies of his orders and all amendments. Once she had them, the clerk referred to a computer printout. Finding Cerro's name, she ran a finger across the appropriate line while she copied the information on a blank form.
Finished, she took the form, turned it so that Cerro could see it, and began to explain what he was to do next. 'This confirms your assignment to Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 2nd Brigade, 16th Armored Division. You'll start your inprocessing with finance in room…'
Cerro wasn't paying attention to the clerk. He had tripped into a mental lock when the clerk had announced that he was assigned to a brigade's headquarters and headquarters company. Simply put, that meant that he would be on the brigade staff. For the first time in his military career, Cerro would not be in a real troop unit. Instead of working with real soldiers and tromping about in the boonies, he would be living in a world ruled by a lieutenant colonel executive officer in search of his eagles, populated by high-speed, low-drag majors out to make their mark on the Army, and run by sergeants who were either too old to be in line units or had been thrown out of them. Such an assignment, to Cerro, was akin to being sentenced to a salt mine in Siberia. The old question, 'Father, why have you forsaken me?' kept running through his mind as the clerk continued to give him instructions he ignored.
With his mind cluttered with visions of doom and damnation, Cerro didn't notice the appearance of the female second lieutenant when she was called forward by the clerk seated next to the one mumbling instructions to him. The lieutenant was up out of her seat and at the front of the room in a flash when her name was called. As Cerro's clerk had done, the clerk attending to the lieutenant asked for two copies of her orders and all amendments, then leafed through the great computer printout until he found the lieutenant's name and automatically began to fill in an inprocessing form for her.
The clerk's hand stopped, however, when he reached the column on the printout that listed the lieutenant's unit of assignment. Running his finger back across the line, he first checked to make sure he hadn't inadvertently dropped down a line while writing. Once he was sure the line on the printout was correct, he looked at the orders the lieutenant had handed him, checking that the name and social security number on the orders agreed with those on the printout. Only after he was satisfied that he had the correct entry did he look up at the lieutenant. 'I'm sorry, ma'am. There must be a mistake here. According to the printout, you're being assigned to A Company, 2nd Battalion, 13th Infantry.'
The lieutenant spoke for the first time. 'Oh, there's no mistake. I'm an infantry officer and that's the unit I've been assigned to.'
The clerk looked at Kozak for a second before he responded. 'Oh, so you're one of them.'
As in the old E. F. Button commercial, everyone in the room momentarily stopped whatever he or she was doing, turned, and looked at the five-foot-eight female second lieutenant. Even Cerro, shaken from his thoughts of gloom and despair, turned and looked at the lieutenant next to him. For the first time, he carefully studied her profile. Every hair was in place, neatly combed back and secured in the tight little bun at the back of her head. Small gold ball earrings sat nestled in her soft white earlobe.
Her face, set in a firm, dispassionate stare, was flawless, if somewhat colorless. Cerro paused for a second, as if he was afraid of what he would see, before he allowed his eyes to drop down to confirm what the lieutenant had already announced. When he did, a sudden shudder ran through his body as his eyes locked onto the shiny brass symbol of the infantry secured to the lieutenant's collar. It was her! The day had finally come. They had arrived.
The sudden and unwanted attention had caught Nancy Kozak by surprise.
She had hoped that all the advance publicity and media coverage would have softened the shock and allowed her to quietly slip through the initial processing without a scene. That hope, however, was shattered before she even got out of the starting blocks. The introduction of females into combat arms units was simply too emotional an issue to quietly slip by. 'Well,' she thought, 'so much the better.' Regaining her poise, Kozak bent forward slightly toward the clerk. 'Yes, the orders and the printout are correct. I am Nancy L. Kozak, Second Lieutenant, Infantry, and, according to my sponsor and orders, I am to report to A Company, 2nd of the 13th Infantry.' And, as an
