Free All for You by Jessica Scott Page B

hand. Her skin went cold. She’d never seen physical evidence of the war this close before.
    “Girls, girls. Can we please listen to the good captain explain to us the services she offers? I for one would like more information on how to not accidentally almost kill myself in the future.”
    The room groaned beneath the joke and Emily saw his name tag. Staff Sergeant Carponti. His eyes lit with an impish grin and she wished she knew the story behind how the young sergeant was able to defuse the anger between the two big sergeants with such ease.
    “That’s not funny, Carponti.” Reza settled back against the wall.
    “It was my accidental overdose. I’ll make jokes if I want to,” Carponti said. “You can’t because that would just be wrong on multiple levels. But I can make all the inappropriate jokes I want.” He turned and grinned in Emily’s direction and she instantly liked him. “How do we fix this shit, ma’am?”
    “There are no easy answers,” Emily said once everyone’s attention was off the two combatants. “But while Sergeant Iaconelli mocks the issue of bad homes, the simple fact is that the generation of soldiers we are dealing with have been raised differently than many of us were. A large portion of our force comes from broken homes, have been victims of trauma at a very young age.” She deliberately avoided looking in Reza’s direction. “What I’d like you all to think about is the fact that many of you are combat veterans. Many of you have lived through terrible experiences as adults. But how would your life be different if you’d been beaten as a child? Or sexually abused? You can mock the younger generation and say they’re weak.” She paused, scanning the faces of the warriors in front of her, looking for any sign that her words were breaking through their hardened shells. “Or you can look at the fact that some of them are even functioning as an act that takes the greatest strength.”
    *  *  *
    Emily hung back as the crowd of officers and sergeants filtered from the stuffy classroom. There had been no further outbursts as she’d continued the discussion but she’d lost one very important player.
    Reza had stared at his feet for the rest of her briefing, his jaw pulsing with more and more anger as she’d gone on. Something had struck a nerve with him and she had no idea what.
    She also did not know him well enough to approach him about it. But that did not mean the worry would leave her alone.
    She stuffed her notes into a plain manila folder as the sergeant major approached. He was a hard, weathered man, a man who’d spent too much time in the sun without sunblock. Who smoked and drank and lived life as hard and as fast as it would allow him.
    “Thank you for coming, ma’am,” Giles said, offering her a hand that swallowed hers whole. She felt engulfed. Surrounded.
    “Thank you for letting me go off topic,” she said quietly. “I think we do too much slidesmanship in the army and I haven’t been around that long.”
    He grinned and it lightened the bleak darkness in his eyes. “Don’t say that too loudly. You’ll get kicked out of the officer corps.”
    She smiled and folded her arms over her chest. “Do you think anyone listened today, Sergeant Major?”
    His gaze shifted to some distant battle and for a long moment, there were ghosts dancing in his eyes. He came back to himself with a grim set to his jaw. “I think so. Maybe one or two. But sometimes, that’s all you can do. And sometimes, it’s enough. Good job today.”
    He left abruptly and Emily wondered if this was what life was always like when dealing with men like this. Still, she had the feeling she’d been given high praise from a man who did not look like he handed it out easily.
    She picked up her hat and her papers and started for the door, somewhat disappointed that no one had stopped her to ask questions. Usually at least one or two soldiers lingered after her briefing, wanting more