Nick Andrews hasn't killed yet.

He carries one of the finest infantry rifles ever made, an M1 Garand.

He's on the high ground in a target-rich environment.

But he can't pull the trigger. 

One shot, he knows, just one would unleash all hell on him.

The Chinese Communist Army that swarms the roads in the valleys below know he's there. However they have a mission and it doesn't include chasing around the Korean mountains after stragglers, especially those who don't annoy them. Sooner or later they expect him to die of the cold or starvation, or simply wander down and surrender. That's what so many other American stragglers have done since the Chinese invaded across the Yalu River and defeated the Eighth Army and their UN allies.

Dick Latham is a United States Marine whose story is missing a chapter. Members of every branch of the United States military wear their story upon their chest. Each chapter is written in a language of ribbons colloquially known as brag rags. In addition to tales of valor, meritorious service and achievement, almost every war, battle, campaign, and victory has its own distinctly color encoded ribbon. Almost, but not quite, and therein lies the gap in Dick's tale.

Dick has a collection of brag rags that one might expect of a veteran Marine of his age with more than 11 years of active duty. World War II Victory Medal: American Theater. China Service Medal. Good Conduct Medal with two bars. National Defense Service Medal. Korean Service Ribbon. United Nations Service Ribbon, Navy Operation. Marine Corps Security Guard Ribbon. Each tells a story. However, one chapter transcends all the others. Dick is an Atomic Veteran, one of nearly 300,000 who were witnesses, some would say guinea pigs, at atmospheric tests of nuclear devices. His close encounter with an atomic bomb occurred somewhere in the deserts of Nevada, but no acknowledgment was ever forthcoming, no award recognizing it ever existed.

He didn't want to go to school. 

Nope. No way. No how.

He wasn't afraid of school. That wasn't his problem, but maybe he should have been.

Somehow he knew intuitively that he wouldn't be welcome there.

He was voracious. He wanted to gulp knowledge like a raptor. 

He had questions.

Teachers aren't prepared for questions. They're trained to dispense knowledge in measured bites. Questions disrupt the process.

He could sense that he and his questions wouldn't be welcome there. 

School was an orderly place. He could see that even before he entered the door led by his mother's hand. That's why she found him waiting for her on the front stoop of their row house on Homestead Street in Baltimore when she returned home.

The school was within walking distance and he knew all the shortcuts. His mother didn't.

“Mr President.”

Joel Tanner reached for the intercom and pressed the talk button. “Yes.”

“Henry Forbisher on the line for you, sir.”

“Henry...”

“...Forbisher, sir. CEO of um... United Interests.”

“And?”

“He wants to speak with you.”

“About?”

“He seems to think you know, sir.”

“I don't.”

The newly inaugurated President turned back to the pile of papers on his desk, a hint of annoyance playing on his brow.

He reached again for the intercom. “Add him to the list.”

“Yes, sir.”

My nephew and I stood across from each other, the last of eight pall bearers. Our hands were the last of the living to touch the woman's coffin as it came to rest on the lip of its grave. It was her second.

The woman went to her first grave more than ninety years earlier when the Cossack's came with the setting of the sun as fear swarmed towards the village with the lengthening shadows of the surrounding forest. They were deserters from the Tsar's army, armed with the Tsar's weapons, hungered by the Tsar's lack of provisions, angered by their inbred hatred of Jews. They had come to rape, pillage, and plunder.

It was a pogrom.

Once upon a time I had a parakeet. Well, to put a fine point on it, it was the family's bird, but I cleaned its cage and fed it, so I claim the proprietary interest. Then again, the bird seemed to have other ideas. Take, for example, the business of talking.

Other people I knew had birds of the same breed. Theirs talked. Mine didn't and every attempt I made to correct this deficiency was rejected.

By the bird.

“Pretty bird” was the entry level vocabulary practiced in those days. Authorities assured me that the bird would learn through hearing the phrase repetitively. How repetitively? I never knew. The authorities were mute and so the bird remained despite countless hours spent repeating the phrase to an inattentive bird.

The package was ugly, really ugly. A half gallon milk carton printed in black and Kelly Green on white. Nature's Own Organic House & Garden Fertilizer. “Organic” dominated the label. The purveyor, a sparse man of about seventy with crew cut white hair and the body of a college athlete, informed me that he had been attempting to market it in home and garden stores for about six months. It wasn't selling. I wasn't surprised. 

I was a young marketing consultant in those days, fresh out of the Army with no marketing experience, but my boss had enough for both of us.

I shook the package to test the contents and was surprised to hear something dry rattling inside. After all, it was a milk carton.

I opened it and shook out one pellet into the palm of my hand. It was dry and hard, about an inch long and a quarter inch in diameter. Peering through the spout I could see its clones nestled in loose array. All were uniformly dark brown and had no smell.

“What is it?”

Susan pulled her cup from her lips and took a deep breath as though she was about to confess something. Her friends shifted their attention with their eyes only. They had been waiting for it ever since Susan arrived late at their weekly coffee klatch.

“Todd's having an affair,” she murmured without looking past the cappuccino remaining in her cup.

Mary was sitting closest to Susan and the others leaned in her direction to appoint her as spokeswoman, but Susan reached past her for Clara's hand thus anointing her.

“Are you sure?” Clara asked.

Susan nodded and the tears began to flow.

There followed the usual accusations and aspersions.

“How?”

Susan wiped her eyes with a crumpled Starbucks napkin and smiled sheepishly.

Today was the day that Frederick Barnes hated most, pay day.

Yesterday was a better day. He had gone to the office and put in a hard day's work, scanning want ads, networking with past associates, and customizing his résumé for a few tantalizing leads he had uncovered. He hoped against hope that one might pan out, unlike the hundreds he had pursued over the past four and a half years. Not a great day, but better than today.

The really bad part about yesterday was that it was another day living the lie. He hated lying to his wife and children. He should have told them that the office was only a place provided by the state where unemployed workers like himself could sit free-of-charge and seek employment. It provided a postal address where letters of rejection could reach him and phones would be answered on his behalf as though he weren't unemployed. Prospective employers simply weren't hiring the long-term unemployed.

Henry Palmer takes several deep breaths before ringing the doorbell and plants his feet like a prize fighter at the sound of the bell beginning a round. He relaxes only when his mother opens the door. 

“Jeb is in his room,” his mother whispers while attempting to block the line of sight between Henry and his father.

Henry feints left to throw his mother off balance and then steps right so he can throw a nasty look in his father's direction. He ascends the stairs before his father has time to counter.

Good.

He mentally tallies a win for this round.

“Hiya, bro,” Henry calls rather than knocking before opening the door to Jeb's room.

The younger sibling runs to his brother and grabs him around the waist. Tears choke back his attempt at a greeting.

Henry ruffles the boy's hair with one hand while gripping him with the other. Finally, he pushes the boy away and peers closely at the reddened eyes. “What's the matter?” Did Dad...”