The memory hit me with sudden, sharp clarity. Burning diesel, gunfire echoing off canyon walls, screams from the overturned armored truck.
“I didn’t think about it,” I told Thomas, looking down at my scarred hands. “I just saw a brother trapped inside. Anyone in our unit would have done the exact same thing that afternoon.”
“No, Marcus, they wouldn’t,” Thomas insisted softly. “Two men tried before you, and both were driven back by the heat. You climbed into the flames with a fractured ankle and hauled him out.”
“That was where you lost your leg, wasn’t it?” Thomas asked, glancing briefly toward the floor where my denim trousers hid the titanium and carbon-fiber prosthesis resting against my right boot.
“Shrapnel caught my lower leg on the sprint back toward our perimeter,” I admitted. “Secondary explosion from the ammunition rack. But Daniel was alive, and that was the only thing that mattered to us.”
“Daniel lived eight more years because of you,” Thomas said, his eyes shining with unshed tears. “He got to see his daughters graduate from elementary school. He got to make peace with our father.”
