Chapter 16 - The Name on the Casualty List
Jax wore his dress uniform and a look of complete terror. Public speaking had always tightened his throat; speaking before a crowd while angry was worse. But he hadn't come to entertain an audience.
"I was with the recovery team," he told Colonel Shaw. "Avery was already dead when Sergeant Vance reached that wreck. I signed the body-recovery report."
Shaw moved the conversation away from the press microphones. "Give Captain Rowan the original details. We won't try this in front of the parade."
"Y-Yes, ma'am."
For a moment Jax stood still, his mouth working around a word that wouldn't come. I reached for his hand. "Take your time."
He looked at me. "I know people think my voice means I'm afraid. I am afraid. But I remember Sean, and I'm not letting anyone use him to punish you."
In a quiet office behind the reviewing stand, Rowan compared Jax's account to the casualty record and Henderson's sworn report from Kunar. All three placed Avery's death before my rescue attempt. The original field photographs, already held in military archives, agreed. Miller had repeated a rumor built from the worst minutes of our lives.
Outside, the governor's motorcade passed the flag line. The parade moved exactly as it should have, without me in the marching ranks. I heard the band through an open window and hated how much I wanted to be out there.
Henderson noticed. "You can miss it and still make the right decision," he said.
"I wanted Dad to see me march with the ribbon."
"He'd see the woman wearing it. That's the part he'd care about."
Rowan's phone rang. She listened, then turned her back to the window.
May you like
"We have the source of Miller's Kunar story," she said. "His father gave him the old casualty summary two days ago."
Peter Miller had sworn he barely knew what was happening.
