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BOOTS ON THE GROUND BY DUSK: MY TRIBUTE TO PAT TILLMAN

Chapter 5

A half-truth is the most cowardly of lies. -- ANONYMOUS

It seems like months since Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey Bailey came to my house, but it has only been seventeen days. As Pat's father, my brother Mike, and I board the plane to Seattle to hear the official briefing on Pat's death, I momentarily feel badly that I won't be attending the graduation of my eighth graders. Many of them appeared disappointed that I wouldn't be there. However, it's for the best. Since Pat's death, I've been in a constant state of anxiety; I would never be able to sit through a ceremony.

Seated by the window, I look through the thick glass and watch the luggage being loaded on the plane. A heavy feeling comes over me, followed by a wave of nausea as I realize the last time I boarded a plane to Seattle was just before Pat and Kevin were deployed to Afghanistan. I continue to stare out the window, trying to stifle the tears that are welling in my eyes. I'm grateful Mike and Patrick are talking and don't notice my state of mind. If one of them were to say something, I would crumble. The plane takes off, and I try to blow my nose discreetly. Mike glances over at me with a knowing look.

What would I do without my brother? Mike has always been so supportive of all three of his nephews and me. He was sixteen when Pat was born; they were very close. Mike helped look after Pat when he was a baby. As Pat got older, Mike watched movies and played soccer, baseball, basketball, and football with him. As the proud uncle, he cheered Pat on through high school, college, and professional football games. He and Pat shared an interest in history, politics, and economics and a love of arguing over all three. They also shared a sense of humor and an earnest quality I rarely have seen.

Pat's death has taken a toll on Mike. The evening Pat was killed, I wanted him to know right away, but it took nearly an hour for my neighbor Peggy to reach him. He was at his job at United Airlines in San Francisco, where he works in maintenance. Peggy couldn't reach him on his cell phone, so she called United and asked for Mike Spalding. "Mike" is actually his middle name, and there was no Mike Spalding there. I told her to use his first name, Stephen. She finally called United's security department to find him. Once his department was reached, an announcement echoed over the intercom:

"Stephen Spalding! Call security!"

Mike told me that as soon as he heard the shrill announcement, his gut tightened. He knew something was wrong; he had never given the phone number of security to anyone. He called security.

"You'll have to hang up the phone, and I'll call you back to connect you with the caller," said the voice on the line.

"Hang up the phone! What's happened?" He hung up, the phone rang, and he grabbed it.

"Hello, Mike. Mike, this is Peggy." Her voice sounded shaky. "Go to Dannie's right away!"

"Peggy, what happened to Dannie?" There was silence on the other end.

"Peggy, what's happened to Dannie!" he yelled.

"Nothing has happened to Dannie," she said delicately. "We lost Pat today."

Immediately, he felt hollowed out. ''I'm on my way," he stammered. He robotically clocked out and walked to his truck. What he had learned was too big for tears. All he was thinking was that he had to get to my house. He could only imagine what I was going through, and he feared for me.

On the freeway, it was forty miles of bumper-to-bumper traffic. As Mike finally broke free, his anxiety and impatience increased. He was desperate to reach me. Finally, he drove the last sixty yards up my driveway. By then it was dark. Two figures stood in the shadows by the front stoop. He walked past them, as if in a trance. I was seated on the couch in my living room. Any doubts he may have had about the reality of what happened dissipated the instant I  looked up at him. My eyes were faraway, lost in grief, and my face was red, swollen, and streaked with tears. I got up as if in slow motion and hugged him.

"Pat's dead, Mike," I said softly and I started to cry.

Holding me tightly, he said, "I know."

Tears are now running down my cheeks. I quickly wipe them away. The memory of that night is unbearable, and I try to erase it from my thoughts. I look over at Mike, and he and Patrick are reading. I see the flight attendant approaching. She's taking drink orders from a young couple across the aisle. They have a little boy, blond, about four or five years old. Seeing him saddens me, and I look away. I start rummaging through my bag for my book as the flight attendant asks me for my drink order. I tell her as I open my book to begin reading.

When she returns with our drinks, my eye once again catches a glimpse of the fair-haired little boy. His hair is the same shade Pat's was at that age. He's a cute little fellow but very fragile looking. Pat was sturdy and muscular, even at four. He always seemed older than his chronological age, always wanting to push himself, to move on to the next level. Pat was especially excited about starting school. He was four years old when he began kindergarten. A week before Pat's first day, I still wasn't ready for him to go. He hadn't attended a preschool other than one brief but disastrous stint at age two and a half, when several of my friends convinced me that he should go to preschool to be around other children his age. They told me I was being selfish to keep him home with me.

I located the Winnie the Pooh School, which was close to my husband's job, and arranged for Pat to go for three hours a day, three days a week. I dropped him off after I drove Patrick to work, then I took Kevin to a park nearby until it was time to pick up Pat. On school mornings, I would leave him in the brightly colored classroom wearing his little green backpack that held his morning snack, and I'd drive away in tears; three hours later I would return to find him sitting on the lap of a teacher or assistant, looking miserable and trying desperately to hold back sobs. Two weeks of that was quite enough. Neither Pat nor I was ready for him to be a student.

When he was about to enter kindergarten, I had nightmares that when the school bus driver brought him home, someone would kidnap him before I got to the end of the driveway. I feared he would like school better than home. I feared I was sending him too soon. After all, he had a November birthday; he was going to be young in his class. Maybe he wasn't ready. Never mind that he'd had his new backpack loaded and ready to go for a month, and he was proudly and boastfully telling anyone who would listen that he was starting school; I was convinced I was making a horrible mistake.

The first day of school I made French toast, the boys' favorite breakfast, and Pat's dad took pictures of him standing in front of the house in his brand-new school clothes. After Pat strapped on his backpack, the whole family piled into the car to take him to his first day at Graystone Elementary School in San Jose. We walked him to a busy and bright classroom full of four- and five-year-olds and left him in the care of a warm and down-to-earth teacher named Sue Gutierrez.

As I walked out the door, I turned to take one last look at him. He had a big grin on his face as he waved a confident good-bye. My husband drove Kevin, Richard, and me home before heading to work and, with an understanding smile, asked if I was going to make it. Tearfully, I chuckled and told him I guessed I would live.

After that first day, Pat took the school bus. It stopped right at the foot of our driveway. Kevin, Richard, and I waited with him and waved as the bus pulled away; it went to the end of the road and turned around, and we waved again as it passed.

Pat was very happy and confident the first three or four weeks of school, but then I noticed a gradual change in his attitude; something was bothering him. I sat him down one afternoon and asked him what was wrong.

"I'm dumb," he said. "All the other kids can read and I can't. No one wants me in their reading group. Why didn't you teach me to read?" I had made sure he knew the alphabet, learned his colors, and could count to twenty-five, but I hadn't taught him to read. I was horrified. I should have taught him to read. I should have left him in the Winnie the Pooh School. All the other kids had gone to preschool while I kept him home to play. Now I was paying the price.

With earnest brown eyes, my four-year-old son bore a hole right through me because I had failed to prepare him for kindergarten. The following morning, I went to school to talk to Mrs. Gutierrez. I told her what Pat had told me, and she smiled. She said a number of the children weren't able to read; Pat wasn't the only one. But he wanted to be in the highest reading group, and some of those kids told him he couldn't read, so he couldn't be with them. My heart sank. I had set my son up to be an outcast. Mrs. Gutierrez could see that I was feeling responsible for Pat's first academic failure, and she told me I shouldn't worry -- most children read at the same level by second grade anyway. I walked away feeling somewhat better. Pat, however, was not as easily assured.

***

"Dan. Hey, Dan!"

I look up to see Patrick eyeing me curiously.

"Dan, put your tray table up."

"Oh, okay," I say, startled to see that we are already landing.

We step off the plane. Walking through the Seattle airport makes me queasy. We pass an area where Patrick, Richard, Marie, and I stood on Thanksgiving morning, seven months ago, waiting for Pat and Kevin to arrive home from Ranger School. We were so excited to see them. They'd been away for three months, and we were allowed no communication. Closing my eyes, I can picture the two of them walking hurriedly up the airport corridor to the lobby in their Army uniforms, big grins on their faces, proud of having earned their Ranger tabs and thrilled to be home.

I can see the delighted and amused look on Pat's face when he saw Marie, usually so conservatively dressed, wearing her new, retro pink-and-brown plaid coat with the pink fur collar. The blush on her cheeks and a wide dimpled smile conveyed her joy at seeing him far more expressively than words. A rascally grin formed on Kevin's face, and his blue eyes lit up as he caught sight of Richard, who was standing tall and proud and smiling in satisfaction at them.

I feel a firm hand on my back. I look up into Patrick's sad and bloodshot eyes. He knows the image I have conjured; he gently pushes me along so we can both flee the memory.

Patrick rents a car for the hour-and-a-half drive south to University Place, a little town outside Tacoma. I feel dread mount in my stomach as we turn the corner to the charming house where Pat lived with Marie and Kevin. Pat had loved that house, situated on a hill overlooking the Tacoma Narrows, with a majestic view of the Olympic Mountains. I immediately glance at the spot where I last saw Pat standing, less than three months ago, as he and Kevin waved good-bye to their father and me as we drove away.

We park the car and grab our sparse luggage from the trunk. Kevin greets us as we walk up the stairs to the front porch. He's with a family friend, Tony Doran, who has been visiting for several days. Kevin tells us Marie is still at work at an employment agency but will be home soon. We follow him into the house.

In the entry are two very large boxes. Intuitively, I know they hold Pat's belongings, recently shipped from Afghanistan. I swallow hard as I walk past them and into the front room. Everywhere I look in this house, I'm staggered by memories. I see Pat in every corner and in every doorway. Kevin watches me with moist eyes as I apprehensively look around. All of a sudden, I notice something that makes me smile and my eyes fill with tears of warmth and affection. On a metal easel next to the television hutch is a white board. Written on it is the phrase "Word of the Week," and below that, "acrimony," meaning "bitterness of temper." I look at Kevin and smile.

"Remember, Mom, Pat always said he wanted to put up a whiteboard and have words of the week like you do in your classroom, but he never got around to it. Marie and I decided it was time, and acrimonious is how we feel," he says with a weak smile.

"I think it's great that you and Marie carried out Pat's idea." With a wink I tell him, "Acrimony is the perfect Word of the Week." We both laugh.

Kevin and Tony lead Mike and Patrick into the kitchen to get beers, and then they all walk out to the front porch. I stay in the house to look at Pat's books on the shelves and appreciate his special keepsakes displayed in the dining room hutch. As I'm looking at the mementos, I find a small newspaper clipping I've seen before. The article is about Rachel Corrie, the 23-year-old peace activist from Olympia, Washington, who was crushed to death by an Israeli bulldozer on March 16, 2003, trying to protect the home of a Palestinian doctor and his family.

I remember picking up the article from the same spot more than a year ago and asking Pat, "Who's this?"

"That's my hero," Pat said. "She was a stud; she had a lot of guts."

I read the article with tears in my eyes then; now, I quietly cry.

Marie's car pulls up in the driveway, and we all greet her as she walks to the porch. We sit and talk for about an hour, and then we leave to get something to eat. Most of the evening is spent in light conversation. We go to bed early to be ready for the official briefing the next day.

Kevin has to go to work before our meeting. The rest of us head for Gig Harbor, across the narrows, to kill a few hours. I love Gig Harbor, but I'm nervous as we approach the waterfront town. The last time I was here I was with Pat, Kevin, and their dad, weeks before Pat was killed. We park the car, then look at the boats docked in the harbor and wander around in several antique shops and boutiques.

I  swallow hard and brush back tears as we pass by No Dearth of Books. I remember so vividly the smell of musty pages and the cramped yet cozy feeling of the one-room bookstore. Pat was wearing jeans and a blue plaid shirt. He walked around the small room closely examining the used books displayed on the center tables and ceiling-high shelves. I watched him and Kevin as they spoke so respectfully and with such interest to an old gentleman who sat at a desk by the window, surrounded by aged books and periodicals waiting to be shelved.

I remember suddenly being gripped by a feeling of absolute dread as I watched the soft and earnest expression on Pat's face. There appeared to be an unsettling aura around him. I was so shaken by it that I left the bookstore and waited outside. Minutes later, Pat, Kevin, and Patrick came out of the store, and we started walking down the street to the car. Pat glanced in the bag he was carrying and took out the receipt to look at it. His eyes widened and he appeared distressed. He turned and started running back to the store. Kevin called out, "Where are you going?"

"We didn't pay for one of the books. I  have to run back and pay the old guy!" Pat yelled back.

"Pat, it's okay," Kevin said loudly. "I paid for my book separately. We paid for all the books."

Pat stopped, then slowly walked back toward us, rechecking his receipt; he compared it with the one Kevin held in his hand. Relief spread across his face, and then he broke into a smile that revealed his embarrassment. I recall being very touched by his concern, but I felt something else -- paralyzing fear for Pat.

***

"Dannie," Tony says, pulling me from my thoughts, "you all right?" I look up and see everyone looking at me.

"Yes, I'm fine. Can we get some coffee?"

After stopping at the nearest coffee shop, we return to the house and receive a call from Kevin that the meeting has been pushed back a few hours. Kevin comes home to wait with us. Tony leaves for the airport, and the rest of us drive to the Army base at Fort Lewis. We're all very quiet. I stare out the window, recalling the times I drove this route with Pat and Kevin. I glance at Kevin, then at Marie, wondering if they are having similar thoughts.

As we pass by a wooded area, I recall a story Pat and Kevin told me about the last time they drove this route before being deployed, when they saw two raccoons at the side of the road. One had been hit; the other hovered mournfully over his dead companion. Kevin told me the sad little buddy made eye contact with them as they passed. Pat and Kevin looked at each other; both were very unsettled by the experience.

When we arrive, Kevin escorts us into the headquarters of the 2nd Ranger Battalion, 75th Regiment. Lieutenant Colonel Bailey greets us and introduces us to Colonel James C. Nixon, the regimental commander. They lead us to a large room, where we're met by about twenty soldiers of various ranks. We're introduced to several of them and then seated at a large table at the corner of the room situated in front of a screen. The soldiers sit on chairs that have been set up several feet behind us. It's clear they will be listening to the presentation, but I wonder why.

Colonel Bailey stands in front of the screen, facing us, and Colonel Nixon sits at the head of the table. In front of each of us is a copy of the PowerPoint presentation we're to be shown. My ex-husband asks Bailey where the narrative report is. Bailey tells him it's not ready to be distributed. Patrick, who asked weeks ago if he could have the report in advance, is clearly angry that it is still not ready.

Bailey begins his presentation by admitting that he made some errors in his earlier briefings to us. He tells us that Sergeant Greg Baker actually did not get out of the vehicle. In fact, he said, the vehicle never stopped. He said the vehicle came out of the canyon, and Baker saw the Afghan soldier in a prone position, not standing, and, thinking he was the enemy, shot him in the chest eight times. The other soldiers, following the lead of their officer, fired up the ridgeline, killing Pat and wounding Lieutenant David Uthlaut and the radio operator Jade Lane.

This makes absolutely no sense. How could a man in a prone position get shot in the chest eight times? We are astounded by this information, but we let Bailey continue. He tells us that visibility was not as good as he had thought originally. Patrick reminds him that he told us he walked the site of Pat's death at the same time of day Pat was killed and had said light conditions were good. Bailey looks my ex-husband in the eye and tells him the soldiers who were present at the time told him visibility was poor.

We all look around uncomfortably at each other. Something isn't right about this. Bailey doesn't even seem to be the same person. His demeanor has changed completely from the last time we saw him. At my house, he appeared genuinely disturbed by Pat's death, and his briefing, although upsetting and full of unsettling details, seemed to be presented with sincerity. Now he seems haughty, superior, and disingenuous.

He puts an image on the screen of the site where Pat died, which very much upsets Marie. She says under her breath she hates that Pat has been reduced to a PowerPoint presentation. Her face and lips are white, and I worry about her sitting through the whole briefing.

Bailey points out illustrations of vehicles placed where he believes they were positioned during the shooting. The vehicles look like Tonka trucks and are not at all to scale.

"Why do you have drawings of vehicles?" I ask. "Why didn't you position real vehicles there so things could be seen to scale?"

"Ma'am, we didn't have the vehicles. It was too dangerous to use real vehicles."

"How did you get there?" I ask. "Didn't you have a vehicle?"

"I was flown in," he says, and quickly changes the subject.

We are confused about the changes in the story. We don't understand how, two weeks ago, Bailey was so sure that Baker was out of the vehicle, shooting a standing Afghan, and now he's telling us that the shooters drove by without stopping and Bailey shot a prone AMF in the chest. Kevin looks dumbfounded and helpless. These are his superior officers, and he is suspicious that they are lying about his brother's death. My brother asks Bailey how much time had elapsed from the time the AMF was shot to when Pat was killed. Nixon tells Mike they were shot simultaneously. He talks about how chaotic and confusing it was and compares the situation to the opening scene in Saving Private Ryan. I look at him in disbelief.

"What about the lull in fire?" Mike says. "Lieutenant Colonel Bailey told us there was a lull. Pat wouldn't come out from behind the rock while they were shooting."

Bailey stares at my brother and says he was mistaken; there was not a lull in fire.

"But you said there was a lull in fire because the soldiers were reloading," I remind him.

"I was mistaken, ma'am," he says, looking at me as if to dare me to dispute his words.

"I still don't understand why they didn't see the purple smoke," Patrick says.

"We thought the smoke was purple, but it was actually white. The soldiers thought the smoke was dust stirred up from bullets hitting the dirt."

Again, we look at each other in disbelief.

"By the way," Bailey says, "I suggested earlier that Pat may have released a flare, but we think it was actually Sergeant Weeks who did that."

"I still don't see how the soldiers could have missed the smoke, no matter what color it was," I say. "I've seen that smoke; it was used at the ceremony during boot camp graduation. It's like theatrical smoke. You can't miss it."

"Yes," Nixon says, "that's what it looks like."

"Well then, how could it have been mistaken for flying dirt?"

Both Bailey and Nixon stare at me. Neither one attempts to respond. I change the subject.

"Why were orders to split the troops coming from Florida?"

"There were no orders given from Florida, ma'am," Bailey tells me in a patronizing tone. I'm beginning to hate being called ma'am. I hear it as an insult.

"When my brother asked you at my house if by CENTCOM you meant the Florida headquarters, you didn't disagree."

"Yes, when I questioned if CENTCOM meant Florida, you remained silent as if to confirm my belief," Mike says.

Bailey, once again, makes use of his steely stare and tells us CENTCOM is in Salerno, in Khost. Mike and I look at each other. We are at a loss as to what to say.

Patrick then tells Bailey and Nixon that Pat did not earn the Silver Star. We are all silent, taken aback by his words. Kevin and Mike look at him, stunned. Marie, jolted by his statement, quietly walks out of the room.

I become furious at his words. I know Pat was heroic. The fact that he was a victim of fratricide and by definition should not get a Silver Star doesn't mean he wasn't brave. I'm angry at the way my ex-husband has worded his statement, as if Pat was to blame.

Colonel Nixon tells Patrick that he has several Silver Stars, and Pat was far more heroic than he had ever been.

"Pat did what any other Ranger would do," Patrick says.

"I think what he means is that you made Pat's Silver Star suspect because you awarded it knowing he may have been killed by friendly fire. That award isn't usually given to victims of fratricide, is it?" I ask.

"Pat was very heroic out there," Nixon says. "He did everything he was supposed to do."

Marie comes back in the room. I don't want her to hear any more of this talk.

"When are families supposed to be informed that their soldier was killed by friendly fire? You were all pretty certain from the beginning that he was killed by his own men," I tell him.

Bailey says, "Ma'am, we suspected he may have been killed by friendly-fire, but we wanted to investigate before we said anything and gave the wrong information."

"Colonel, we were given the wrong information," I say angrily. "If the Army knew he was killed by friendly fire, why were we and the media told he was killed by the enemy and that there were nine enemy dead and all that rubbish? The Army could have easily said it was a special ops mission and there was no information available. Why was this fraudulent story given to us and to the press?"

Bailey and Nixon look at each other, and then Bailey eyes the soldiers seated behind us. He asks that someone find the protocol for telling families about suspected fratricide. One of the soldiers jumps out of his seat and strides out of the room.

"Ma'am, we didn't want to give you false information," Bailey says.

"No one has deliberately tried to hide anything."

I glance at my family. Everyone looks shell-shocked. The soldier sent to get the information on Army protocol returns. His findings make no sense. First he says families are to be informed within two weeks; next he says something about five weeks. Everyone appears to be lying. I don't know what to believe. Bailey then casually tells us the driver of Baker's vehicle saw the Afghan and recognized him as an Afghan militia soldier before Baker shot and killed him.

We are stunned.

"What! Why didn't he do something?" Patrick yells.

"He tried to stop everyone, but they couldn't hear him because they were deaf from all the firing in the canyon," Bailey tells him.

Patrick's anger mounts. "Why didn't he swerve the vehicle or put on the brakes? The guy is a goddamn Ranger!"

Bailey and Nixon stare at Patrick, not knowing what to say.

My heart breaks as I hear this information. Patrick is right. Why didn't the driver stop the vehicle or swerve out of the way? What kind of Ranger allows his own men to be killed? Kevin is incredulous. He looks as though he is living a nightmare. Mike is clearly having difficulty absorbing what he is hearing. Marie sits silently, overwhelmed by the senselessness of everything. Patrick once again demands to have the written report. Again, someone hustles out of the room.

It's obvious we won't get straight answers from these officers. I decide to ask no more questions, but I have a statement to make: "Colonel Bailey, I want to tell you something that I think is ludicrous. Two weeks after Pat was killed, Colonel Chen, who was at Pat's memorial service, sent two books to my house. One was for Patrick and one was for me. The books were on Ranger training. There was a cover letter that indicated the books were sent so we would know how well trained Rangers are. Well, I thought it was ridiculous such a book was sent to us in the first place, but now that I know Pat was killed by his own men and you all knew it right away, I think sending those books was disgusting."

"Yes, ma'am," Bailey and Nixon say simultaneously.

We ask if there will be a court-martial of the soldiers who killed Pat; they tell us they aren't sure. Nixon says we can call him anytime, as he is taking over command of the 75th Regiment. Bailey has been promoted and will be leaving for a different post. I'm thinking: Pat's dead, killed by his own guys, and now Bailey gets a promotion. Something is wrong.

I want to ask Bailey about his alarming remark to Richard indicating Pat may have been murdered, but I don't want to ask him in front of all these soldiers, certainly not in front of his superior. I also don't want to make things more uncomfortable for Kevin, who's in a delicate position. If something isn't right with what happened to Pat, what can this mean for Kevin?

The soldier who left to check on the written report returns with a stack of documents and passes them out. The packets are warm, fresh off the printer. Bailey walks around the table as Nixon stands up, signaling the end of the meeting. It's as if they want us to get out before we can read anything. We gradually rise from our seats, not sure what to do. The soldiers and officers seated behind us stand, and we start mingling. Some of the men offer their condolences. I feel like I'm going to suffocate.

I walk out of the room and down the hall. Nixon catches up to me. He tells me how sorry he is about what happened and reminds me that I can call if I have questions. He puts out his hand. I shake it, feeling angry, confused, and flustered. I walk outside to wait for everyone else.

We drive home in near silence. We are thoroughly bewildered and exhausted. At home, I try to look at the documents I was given, but I'm gripped with fear, afraid I'll come upon information I'm not ready to see. Hearing pots and pans clanging in the kitchen, I place the documents in my bag and offer to help Marie with dinner. After the meal, we discuss the troubling briefing.

"How could they make a mistake about Baker being out of the vehicle?" Mike asks. "Or whether the Afghan was standing? That just seems like horseshit!"

"Bailey was very clear on those facts each time he told the story of what happened," Kevin says. "I heard his briefing four times. There is something suspicious about this change of story."

I turn to Marie. "Didn't Bailey tell us he walked the site of Pat's death twenty-four hours after he died, and light conditions were good?"

"Yes, that's what he told Kevin and me when he was here, and that's what he said at your house," Marie responds. "He was very clear about that."

"Didn't he also say the smoke was purple?"

"Yes," Marie says.

"What do you think about him saying the Afghan was in a prone position? That must be how he got shot eight times in the chest," Patrick says sarcastically.

"That's ridiculous," I say. "There is something very peculiar about all of this. And what about what Bailey said about the driver seeing the Afghan before Baker shot him?"

"Yes," Mike says, outraged. "How could he realize Baker was shooting at a friendly and not respond more aggressively? Obviously, there could have been more friendlies in the area."

"Baker should have known there could be friendlies nearby," Kevin says. "All the sergeants in our serial knew Serial One was no more than fifteen minutes ahead of us."

"Hell," Mike says, "even if they weren't concerned about accidentally shooting at members of Serial One, you would think they would be saying to themselves, 'Where is Serial One? We need their help right now.' It would seem they would be looking for them."

"These guys are playing us for fools," Patrick says. "We need to go over these documents very carefully."

All of a sudden we are all very quiet. It's getting late, and we need to get to bed. Mike, Patrick, and I have a plane to catch early in the morning, and Marie and Kevin have work.

At four-thirty we are all up. Patrick, Mike, and I see Kevin off to the base and say good-bye to Marie, who has a long commute to Seattle. We eat breakfast rolls and drink coffee, then pack. Patrick and Mike walk out before I do and head to the car. Just as I'm locking the door behind me, I look at the boxes of Pat's belongings in the entryway.

Hesitantly, I return and peek inside the top box. In view are Pat's coffeemaker, two brown Army T-shirts, several boxes of Irish Spring soap, and one running shoe. My throat aches and I feel tears welling as I look at the shoe. Quickly, I grab one of the shirts and a box of soap and place them in my bag. 'I'll tell Marie later,' I say to myself. I hesitantly close the door behind me.

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