Free Shooting the Moon by Frances O'Roark Dowell Page B

told me.
The sound that comes right before the sound of everything getting blown to smithereens.
    I did not want Private Hollister to go to Vietnam.
    I didn’t want anyone else I knew going to Vietnam. But Private Hollister was the one who I might be able to help.
    In my hand I held one very important card.
    I made a fist.
    I got ready to knock.

eleven
    When I got to Cindy’s, she wanted to put on a ballet for me, and I said sure. But I barely paid attention, I was so busy thinking about what I would say to the Colonel. Somehow I had to convince him to keep Private Hollister at Fort Hood. But how do you ask the most full-out Army man in the Army for a favor like that?
    My biggest obstacle was plain and simple Army protocol, which of course the Colonel was a stickler for. You did things a certain way, played by the Army rules at all times, followed the chain of command. If the rumors were true, some bigwig over in Vietnam had decided he needed moreradio operators, and some other bigwig, probably at the Pentagon, looked through his files and came up with the great idea of sending a few from 1st Signal Troop, Fort Hood. The paperwork would be drawn up by a clerk, copied in triplicate, rubber-stamped, and sent over to Fort Hood and up the chain until it reached the Colonel, who would sign it, unless there was an excellent reason not to. He did not mess with protocol. Period.
    â€œYou aren’t watching me!” Cindy stood in front of me, hands planted on her hips. “You’re looking at me, but you’re not watching! I know, because that’s what my dad does too.”
    â€œI was watching, really,” I lied. “You looked really good. I like how you twirl around.”
    Cindy nodded, like she agreed that she was quite a fine twirler. “My mom says if I keep practicing I can get real ballerina shoes with hard toes. And maybe I can take lessons over at Miss Marie’s Dance Studio in Killeen.”
    â€œYou want to show me some more?”
    Cindy sat down next to me on the couch. “No, I’m tired now. And I’m very sad.”
    â€œWhy are you sad?”
    â€œBecause my mom told me Mark won’t be home for Christmas. Hell still be fighting in the war.”
    â€œTJ won’t be home for Christmas either,” I said, realizing it for the first time. What would it be like, to go downstairs Christmas morning by myself, to see if Santa Claus (aka the Colonel) had come? What would it be like without TJ behind me, excited as a little kid, even when all Santa had left him the last few years were clothes and new sports equipment?
    â€œDo you think Santa Claus goes to Vietnam?” Cindy asked.
    I nodded. “Sure. He goes everywhere. When we lived in Germany, he came to Germany. He’ll go to Vietnam, too.”
    Cindy sat up. “I was born in Germany. I was born in West Berlin, West Germany, in a United States Army hospital. I was born in Berlin, Germany, but I’m still an American, so don’t tell me I’m not.” She elbowed me in the ribs to emphasize her point.
    â€œI was born in Heidelberg,” I told her, moving over a few feet so she couldn’t get me again. “ButI’m an American too. All Army kids born in Germany are.”
    â€œA boy at school called me a Nazi. He said I was like Hitler.” Cindy chewed on a cuticle, her eyes darting around the room. “I told him he was crazy. I said, ‘You’re so crazy it makes me hate you.’”
    â€œThat’s happened to me,” I said. “Kids calling me a Nazi. They think it’s funny.”
    Cindy and I looked at each other. Now we had two things in common: brothers in Vietnam and being called Nazis by jerks.
    It was quite a list.
    â€œWe’re Americans, you and me,” Cindy said, and clapped her right hand over her heart. “We’re not stupid Nazis.”
    â€œNot us,” I agreed.
    We sat there quietly for a minute, with a friendly