Free The Severance by Elliott Sawyer

think you’re doing down here?”
    “I work here, Sir.”
    “You work here? How long have you been down here?”
    “I’ve been down here for five months, Sir. You’ve come down here several times—”
    “I’ve never been down here in my life!” the major snapped.
    “Yes, Sir, you’re right,” Jake said.
    “Roberts, you’ve been reassigned to Second Battalion. They are short an officer and you’ve been fucking off down here far too long. Seems they are building a new platoon at the HQ level. You got it.”
    “So I’m out of here?” Jake asked.
    “Get your shit and get down to Second Battalion. Now.”
    Jake grabbed his gym bag and was about to leave when he saw Sergeant McBride sitting in his chair. McBride looked defeated. With Jake gone, McBride was going to be all alone in the dungeon.
    “Sir, are they short a platoon sergeant down there, too?” Jake asked. “If they are short an officer to lead the platoon, maybe they are short a platoon sergeant, too.”
    The major snorted as he flipped through the pages on his clipboard.
    “Yeah, they just sent up a requirement for a Sergeant First Class. Why do you care?”
    “Can I get Sergeant McBride to come with me?” Jake asked, motioning toward McBride.
    The major looked over at the sergeant and, for the first time, acknowledged he was in the room.
    “Who are you?” the major asked.
    “Sergeant First Class McBride, I work down here, too.”
    “No you don’t. You work for Second Battalion now. Let the Sergeant Major down there know that you and Captain Roberts come as a package deal. No givebacks.”
    “Yes, Sir!” Sergeant McBride said, as he grabbed his gym bag.
    That had been 20 months earlier. Now the platoon was going back to Fort Campbell, where there would be no need for an extra platoon and there would be no need for a Captain Roberts or a Sergeant McBride. They would all get out with no hope of retirement benefits. But their dead-end careers were their own fault. McBride had been a superstar early on, climbing the rank ladder with ease. At one point, he was even a part of the prestigious 75th Ranger Regiment. He was on track to be the Sergeant Major of the Army, and then his father died. Grief led to pain, which led to whiskey to dull that pain. Before he knew it, McBride had a drinking problem.
    It was only a matter of time before he got caught. After three DUI convictions, all within six months of each other, it took a 30-day jail sentence to finally get McBride to sober up and put the bottle down, but by then it was too late. The best-case scenario he worked out was to be allowed to leave the Army at the end of his current enlistment, after only 10 years of service, nowhere near retirement.
    Now, the soldiers of the platoon scurried about packing their gear for Bagram and bantering cheerfully. They were following McBride’s orders to the letter, and it gave him the opportunity to sit down and think. Soon there would be no more orders to give or commands to shout. Soon it would just be him. All alone. McBride put his face in the hands.
    “What am I going to do, now?” he whispered softly.
    “Now?” Jake replied, “Right now you’re going to go send a few e-mails. Then we’re going to figure out what to do with The Severance when we get home.”
    Up to now, Jake had considered The Severance as a gift from a higher power. For a platoon full of men facing unemployment at the conclusion of their combat tour, The Severance seemed like a golden parachute.
    They’d been on the way back from delivering a trailer full of mail to the combat outpost in the Terazi district one night several months earlier, when they came upon The Severance. Sergeant Olsen had missed the mission because of a knee problem that only seemed to be a problem when long missions came up.
    One of the platoon’s four RG-31 Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles had become stuck in a mud hole and they had to stop and dislodge it. The road they were traveling on was