Sergeant Hollis turned slowly. The blue letters read: ELLSWORTH DINING FACILITY, named for Captain Marian Ellsworth, who carried eleven wounded soldiers to safety during the river crossing of 1965. His hand dropped from my coat. The color left his face, and his friends stopped smirking. Somewhere behind him, a fork clattered onto a tray, and nobody dared pick it up. He looked at the wall, then at me, then at the wall again.

Before he could speak, the double doors opened. A tall colonel strode in with two officers, his eyes sweeping the room until they found my table. He stopped at attention and saluted, crisply, in front of two hundred fifty silent soldiers. “Captain Ellsworth, ma’am,” he said. “Forgive us for being late. We were preparing the ceremony.” Hollis’s mouth opened, but no sound came out.