Free The Girl in Green by Derek B. Miller

Air Base, it sometimes felt overrun by NATO military personnel, all of whom insisted on speaking English. For this reason, it had been an excellent place to get hooked up with English-language videos during the Cold War.
    The video library at Wonderland in April 1991 consisted of
    Cheers , Season 3;
    Magnum, P.I. , Seasons 4 and 5;
    Golden Girls , Season 2;
    Seinfeld , Season 1;
    Gremlins ;
    Ghostbusters ; and
    Platoon .
    There was some debate about what to watch.
    The universal was Seinfeld . Everyone liked Seinfeld .
    When Märta had invited Benton to Wonderland she had had designs only on a conversation. She had wanted to see him alone after the minefield incident. She needed to talk, or maybe listen, because she needed to understand. Arwood was nowhere to be found, and he didn’t seem like someone who could explain himself when asked. She needed an analysis. She needed to know whether whatever Arwood had might be contagious.
    Märta had first worked with United Nations Volunteers at the age of twenty-six, starting in Lebanon in 1983. She was offered a job in the system, but the infighting between the Department for Peacekeeping Operations and the UN Development Programme was so vociferous, so intractable, and so counterproductive that she decided on UNHCR instead. UNDP’s development work seemed ideological and immune to historical reason. Peacekeeping was a military activity that insisted on universal best practices, even when no practice was universally best. But humanitarian affairs was goal-oriented, legally grounded, morally valid, and logistically adaptable. She was more at home in that sector, but she still hated the way the UN worked, and knew it wouldn’t last forever.
    Though she was an improper fit, she was eventually able to blend with the other professionals. Being smart, though, she was still able to see the experience for what it was: there were a lot of cowboys taking a lot of risks without good reasons. It was a man’s world, and as a Swedish woman she knew it would be an uphill battle to gain the respect of a field staff that attracted a lot of people with military backgrounds looking to make the lateral move to civilian life. It all encouraged recklessness as a means of moving up.
    The problem was that risk — like speed — was relative, and in the humanitarian sector there was no marker to use, because everyone else was climbing without a rope along with you.
    Arwood was her first clear reality check in a long time. He really scared her. He was the first person she’d seen who was heading toward disaster so obviously that she could measure her own distance from it. Without something to stop her progress, though — some wisdom, some insight, some tool — she was terrified she’d start walking into minefields, too. Not from bravery, but because of a slow acculturation to risk.
    The TV was on. A girl with a twinkle in her eye was spreading a blanket over the twentysomethings on the floor. Eyes were closing, and hands were on the move.
    â€˜The kitchen’s in the back,’ Märta said, walking past the adolescents.
    She found a bottle of Jack Daniel’s in the refrigerator with a masking-tape label that said, LIQUID COURAGE . It wasn’t hers, and she didn’t care. There was no ice, though the bottle was cold. She motioned to Benton to follow her to a dark corner of the tent where two black folding chairs faced a table that was too short to use, but they used it anyway and were lucky to have it.
    â€˜Not exactly La Rotonde ,’ she said, ‘but it’s what we have,’ pouring them each a three-finger portion. She raised the white plastic cup to toast.
    â€˜SkÃ¥l,’ she said.
    â€˜SkÃ¥l,’ Benton answered.
    They each drank half a cup.
    The introductory music to Magnum, P.I. played — bum-Bum-BUM BUM! — and someone accompanied the music with a groan that lasted long enough to inspire clapping, followed by