Free Final Answers by Greg Dinallo Page A

We tease him about it all the time.”
    I stand at the window staring down at the people hurrying between the office towers. Had I made it all up? Given in to some sort of in-country fever or guilt because I’d put it all away? It doesn’t really matter. Nothing could soften this blow. I’m at a complete dead end, and I feel empty.
    I spend the next few days going through the motions at the office and at home. Early Saturday morning, Nancy lectures me about moping around and reminds me I promised to plant a jacaranda outside the dining room for her.
    I grumble in protest, then halfheartedly haul a pick and shovel from the garage and get to work. The lack of rain has made theground like concrete. The first several swings of the pick bounce off it harmlessly. Now, it becomes a challenge. I’d dug a foxhole once with nothing but a jungle knife. Of course, I was more highly motivated then. The next swing buries the pick deep in the soil. I work it loose, breaking up the surface. A few more swings like that and I’m really into it. Soon, oblivious to all else, I’m drenched with sweat, hands and face grimy, Reeboks caked with reddish soil. Before I know it, there’s a huge mound of fresh earth next to the house, and I’m standing in a hole that comes up to my kneecaps. It’s far deeper and wider than it needs to be for the jacaranda. The only things missing are my M-16 and the enemy. I’m flashing back to a fire fight when I hear a vehicle at the end of the long driveway that leads to our house. I toss the shovel aside and scramble out of the hole.
    A blue streak zips between the rock formations.
    I run to a vantage point from where I can see the road. The mailman’s delivery jeep is chugging up the hill. I continue to the end of the driveway and retrieve the usual bundle of magazines, bills, and junk from the box. I’m returning to the house, thumbing through them, when my eyes dart to a return address, to the distinctive black military-style lettering that is sticking out between the edges of the other envelopes. I pull it free. It reads U.S. Army Mortuary Affairs. Almost a month has passed since I sent my letter. I’ve forgotten about it completely. The envelope contains a single sheet of paper that I imagine will state, in typically convoluted military syntax, that no records were filed under my name or serial number; but what I see makes my jaw drop and my adrenaline surge. I run toward the house, my heart pounding in my chest.
    “Nance?!” I shout. “Nancy, look at this!”
    She comes running through one of the floor-to-ceiling glass doors onto the deck, expecting some disaster has befallen me or the jacaranda.
    “There was a body,” I exclaim, pushing the copy of the field casualty report into her hands. “Look, they recovered a body. My name, my serial number.”

10
    T he identification block on the copy of the report I’m holding reads A. Calvert Morgan. This document is responsible, beyond any doubt, for my name being on the Vietnam Memorial. I put it on my desk in the den and spend the weekend thinking about it, going back to it again and again, deducing whatever I can from the wealth of information it contains.
    Not only does it confirm that a body with my dog tags and military ID was recovered; it also confirms the time/place parameters—12 May 1968, Bolikhamsai Province, Laos. Furthermore, it has three names and signatures that confirm, and perhaps promise, more:
    Sergeant Richard A. Foster—graves registration officer, 24th Evac, which not only confirms that the body was recovered but also that the reporting process, which provided the information on the master casualty list, was initiated.
    Warrant Officer Mario Farina—helicopter pilot, 1st Air Cav, which confirms graves registration carried out their procedures and released the body for shipment to the morgue.
    Staff Sergeant John Bartlett—in-processing NCO at the main mortuary, Ton Son Nhut Airbase, Saigon, which confirms the body was