PART 2: The Words on the Wall
Sergeant Reese did not turn around.
He stood there with his finger still pointed at my coat, his jaw working as though he were trying to decide whether an eighty-one-year-old woman was worth the trouble.
“What?”
I nodded toward the wall.
“I asked you to read what it says.”
One of his friends, a corporal with a narrow face, glanced over his shoulder.
“Come on, Sergeant,” he muttered. “Let’s just get her pass checked.”
Reese ignored him.
“I don’t take orders from civilians.”
“No,” I said quietly. “But you might want to learn where your orders come from.”
That got a few nervous laughs.
He turned halfway toward the wall.
Above the serving line, behind a row of framed photographs, were the words:
WE STAND ON THE SHOULDERS OF THOSE WHO CAME BEFORE US.
Beneath them hung a photograph.
It was an old black-and-white picture of six young soldiers standing outside a military hospital. Their uniforms were different from the ones worn by the men and women in that dining hall.
