A training acceptance packet. Community wildfire response in New Mexico. Field housing. Physical requirements. Incident command fundamentals. First deployment pipeline. “I’m going,” I said. My father didn’t answer right away....
“Enlisted where?” my mother asked, in the careful voice people use with unstable dogs. “The Air Force.” My father actually laughed once. A small sound, dry and disbelieving. “People like...
Behind me, gravel crunched. I turned and saw Victoria halfway down the path, sunglasses on, phone in one hand. “You actually came out here?” she called. “I was left the...
I took the file without saluting, without thanking him. Gratitude wasn’t the point. Correction was. Then I walked past my father. I could feel the heat of him, the force...
“No, seriously.” She let her eyes travel over my coveralls, the grease on my wrist, the patch on my chest that said TECH. “This is what you’re doing now?” I...
When formation broke, the deck dissolved into motion. Sailors peeled off into clusters. Somebody laughed too loudly near the helo tie-downs. The ship’s engines hummed under my boots with that...
I stood there holding the toolkit I’d been issued at the door—the same model they took from me the day my badge was revoked—and for one strange second I wasn’t...
I slid one earbud in and let static fill the space where anger wanted to live. As we climbed, conversations bloomed through the cargo bay. Acronyms. Budget complaints. Jokes about...
A lieutenant at the podium introduced the evening, voice smooth and practiced. There were remarks from a senator who had never seen a battlefield and spoke like he was tasting...
I had grown up on a cattle ranch in eastern Montana where weather didn’t care what your plans were. Winter sat down for eight months and sometimes forgot to leave....