Barney

They got it all wrong, he thought, in the books and the movies and the recruiting pitches, especially. It was nothing about bravery. Bravery was a myth. It was about surviving – what you did, how you managed it, why you succeeded, if you did. The rest was all bullshit. Valor. Honor. Dignity. They were all just bigshot words that disguised the red-hot, paralyzing, blinding fear. What he needed to do, now, was find a way to survive – him and the others, as many as he could take with him. It was too early, now, though. Night had just begun to fall, the day’s heat just starting to dissipate. In an hour or two the evening’s breezes would come up, maybe cool, but probably not. Then, he would see how good he was at surviving. Until then it wasn’t survival, it was only marking time. A dog barked in the distance and he remembered his, back home -- Barney, a mutt. Barney was a good dog.