AR 670-1: Wear and Appearance of Army Uniforms and Insignia.
"Don't get lost."
"We won't," SSG Pierce replies as she shoulders her assault pack.
She's not being cocky, or sarcastic, she's simply stating a fact. She's confident in a way that's causal and implied; she doesn't make a big deal of herself. You want to be like her when you become an NCO. You want to be so badass that you don't even have to worry about proving yourself. Now that's badass.
"If you're not back in two hours we're sending someone in after you." A senior sergeant jokes from the duty van. "Can't have our medics getting lost in the woods."
"At least they'll know how to treat hypothermia."
"I have a radio if it comes down to that." She's taking them at face value to keep herself professional.
You watch her lead her soldier to the start of the land navigation course that your unit is training at today. The medics are the last group from Headquarters Platoon to enter the site. They have a list of the grid coordinates they need to find with just a map, compass, and protractor. When they get to the grid point, there should be a placard there with a number sequence, they'll write it down and bring their list back to see if their navigation had been accurate.
You wished you could be with your team, but you're broken, so you're hanging out by the radios just in case someone really does get lost.
SSG Pierce hands the compass and map to SPC Flanagan.
"You're in charge here," she says softly, out of ear shot of the sergeants in the duty van. "I'm just up for a nice walk."
You did notice that she is the only staff sergeant going through the course that isn't a squad leader. You wonder if it's because Flanagan needs help, or if she wants to get away from the cackling Operations Sergeants that were giving her a hard time just now. Whatever the reason, you respect her for it. It's easy to sit around and do nothing; it's kind of cool of her to go through the course with her soldier. Flanagan gets his bearings and they walk off. You see her cock her patrol cap back just before disappearing into the wood line like everyone else.
Eventually, people start coming off the course, huffing past you to get to the duty van and check the accuracy of their points. There's been a string of people who have been way off target. You're proud to see that your squad did alright for themselves and you wish that you had been with them. A lot of people have disgruntled looks on their faces; cold, and tired, and ready to get out of the field. Just as many are pissed because they failed and would have to come back next week to retest.
An hour later, you hear them before you see them.
It nearly surprises you that you can recognize her laughter. They come tearing out of the woods like bats out of hell, catching everyone's attention and you stifle the smile that comes to your face when you see hers.
"Sergeant Pierce!" A Platoon Sergeant calls over from the duty van. "What do you think you're doing?"
Her smile fades as she straightens her cap, but it doesn't disappear entirely. "Getting Specialist Flanagan here ready for Pathfinder School."
"As if." He rolls his eyes at her. "Like his scrawny ass could make it."
"He'd have to survive Air Assault School first," another chimes in. "Good luck with that."
All traces of the smile disappear instantly, and you feel a wave of secondhand insult on their behalf.
"Let's see if his work proves otherwise." She takes the clipboard from her soldier and marches up to the duty van, holding it to the grader. Flanagan hangs back a little, realizing that this isn't his battle. You can see the nerves in his eyes, because suddenly SSG Pierce's pride is riding on him.
"They're all wrong."
You watch the disbelief wash over her face. "That can't be right."
"I'm looking at it right here." He taps the backs of his fingers against the clipboard. "They're all wrong."
"There's no way." She shakes her head. "I checked all of his work."
By this time everyone is watching the senior medic arguing with a senior sergeant about land-nav points.
"Maybe you're not as good as you think you are Pierce, you'll both come out to retrain next week."
"You must have the wrong grading sheet," she presses, determined, "ours is two-alpha."
He glances down, just to be sure that it was the right one, and you see it in his eyes—she's right and he had been using the wrong sheet. His eyes skate around, knowing that everyone has realized his mistake too. Without a word he pulls out the right sheet and sure enough, "You're a Go at this station, now get out of my face."
He nearly throws the paper in her face.
"Yes, Sergeant." She takes the paper and waves at Flanagan, together they walk over to where Headquarters Platoon has been congregating.
"How did you know we weren't wrong?" you hear him ask under his breath.
"Because you kicked that course's butt. You did really good today, Flanagan. I had total faith." She smiles at him, punching his shoulder. "I'd follow you into the woods any day."
More than one soldier would stand up and say that they would follow her to war, and that's a huge compliment. You sure feel that way.
She catches you watching. You drop your eyes back to the clipboard in your hand and write down their return time. You have twelve people still on the course and it's your job to keep track of that because you can't do anything else. The medics beat a lot of the Military Police teams that started before them. You think it's because medics are smarter than grunts like you.
Moments later, you notice the worn boots on the ground next to your folding chair. You don't have to look up to know who it is, you've had her boots memorized since forever. There's a few speckles of red dye along her laces from the fake blood medics use during training, scuffs on the toe from doing real work, and some blotches of a darker color that you want to assume is actual blood dried into the tan leather.
Experience radiates off this staff sergeant and you feel like she's a world ahead of you. You've never deployed before, you don't have bloodstained boots, you've never shot your weapon outside of a range. You should be thankful for all of that, but you want to have your own 'no shit, there I was' stories.
You'd really like to be like her one day.
"How's the ankle?"
You look up because it's polite and answer, "Doing a lot better. I've been following all of your instructions, Sergeant."
"Good." Her eyes smile more than her mouth. "I think you can start running again next week, right?"
"Yes."
"Awesome." She glances at the paper on your clipboard. "Are you tracking times?"
"I am, your group did better than a lot of people."
You meant it as a compliment and the way she smiles makes you feel like you just told her that she looks pretty today—which she does, she always does.
She falls into the empty chair besides you, the communications guy went to the porta-john and left you alone with all the radios.
"Playing Commo?" She laughs, picking up one of the receivers.
You offer a short smile. "More like secretary."
She crosses her legs at the knee and it's ladylike even in her uniform. You like it. You realize you've never seen her in her civilian clothes and that surprises you.
Of course, she's kind of new to the unit, and hasn't been forced to go to mandatory-fun days put on by the company's horde of army wives. You'd like to see her in a pretty sundress and some heels.
You would give an entire paycheck to see her hair down.
"Ha," she snorts in a cute little way. "Talk about secretary, I have to pull staff duty this weekend. Total waste of a Saturday."
"Saturdays are the worst," you sympathize. "I'm sorry, Sergeant."
Staff duty, the twenty-four-hour shift at the company barracks to answer phones all night, is a waste of your life. Thankfully you weren't on the duty roster until next month.
"It's fine. Did you see them try to scam Flanagan into retraining?" she asks like it's a joke, but her voice is quiet.
"I did." You nod. "I think that guy's an idiot, Sergeant."
She chuckles and it's obvious that she agrees, but it wouldn't be professional to say it.
"It was..." you're not sure if this is out of line by saying this, "pretty cool, the way you stood up for Flanagan like that."
You try to imply that not many sergeants would do something like that, and she knows it's true.
"Well," she scratches her nose, "us medics have to stick together. You know, Headquarters Platoon is really tight because a lot of the guys get picked on because they're not MPs. When one of them does well at soldier stuff like this, it's really important to make sure everyone knows it."
It's true. There's something between the Military Police in the unit and the soldiers that support them. Headquarters Platoon is full of the soldiers that aren't MPs—the medics, the cooks, the communications guys, mechanics, and supply clerks. Everyone that a Military Police company needs to function.
What sucks is that the MPs treat them like cast offs because they are support, or 'softer' soldiers. You've been known to look down at soldiers in Headquarters Platoon. It's a learned behavior, your sergeants do it, so you've picked it up.
You should probably change your attitude.
"I mean, this isn't the first time I've been in an MP unit, so I know the drill," she continues, rolling her eyes. "No offense, but I liked the infantry better."
You've seen her deployment patch from the 4th Infantry Division. It's impressive to you, who has nothing on her sleeve. She glances at your rank.
"You'll be a sergeant soon." She smiles again. "This is good to see. Leadership isn't always about what a soldier is doing wrong, you have to let them know when they're doing something right, too."
You almost burst into a smile from the implied compliment. She has enough confidence in you to think that you're worth mentoring. You want to say something intelligent in reply, but all you can think is how none of the sergeants in your platoon understand that concept.
Then the commo guy comes back so she stands.
"Keep it in mind," she tells you in passing, "and if you need any more ibuprofen, just let me know."
You try to keep from watching her as she moves away, showing everyone that the combat uniform can make a woman look—she glances back at you and your eyes shift up from where you had been staring. She's caught you. There's a twitch of her brow and she's trying to decide if you were checking her out.
The way you pull down the bill of your patrol cap and refuse to look up from your clipboard probably makes you look guilty as fuck, but you don't have the nerve to do anything else. If it was possible to die from embarrassment, surely you would have, and it would have been the medic that killed you.
You stumble while rushing down the stairs from your room. These nylons don't give you any traction to work with and you're too busy trying to tuck your white dress shirt into your skirt to focus on where you're going. At least your ankle feels great. You make it into the lobby of your barracks building just in time to be considered on time. You're fifteen minutes prior and even if you're not wearing your shoes, and your jacket is unbuttoned, you're still here and on time.
Too bad the sergeant that planned the inspection of your dress uniform didn't have the decency to show up on time. In the Army, fifteen minutes prior is on time. You're counting his ass as late.
You look around again, just to be sure, before muttering, "Fucking dick." You put a hand on the wall for balance and slip on one of your shiny black pumps. "Early is on time, my ass."
"Where are your crutches?"
You nearly drop your other shoe, looking over to the duty desk where you find SSG Pierce sitting. You've been very disgracefully avoiding her eyes for the past few days. Are you proud of it? No. You're ashamed of yourself. You have a backbone, somewhere, just not when that certain staff sergeant is around.
You can't read the expression on her face, so you take your hand off the wall to put it behind your back with the other, standing at an odd version of parade rest with only one shoe on and your jacket still undone.
"Upstairs, Sergeant?"
Your uncertain tone makes it sound like a question, but she knows it was the answer. Finally, her serious expression fades into something close to amusement. She takes her time to appreciate your less than professional appearance. "I take it you're doing a Class A inspection?"
"Hot date, actually."
She blinks at you, because that was inappropriate, and you're not sure who's more surprised that you say it.
"I hope not," she snorts quietly, deciding that she can't take you seriously when you look so messed up, "because Sergeant Karofsky isn't that good looking."
"That's an understatement, Sergeant." You're feeling more comfortable around her, maybe because it's just the two of you in this large lobby, and maybe it's because she looks like she's happy to see you. Sitting at that desk all day is so boring that you're not surprised that she's looking for company.
She laughs, waving her hand dismissively at you. "Fix yourself, Lopez."
You break from your parade rest and put on your other shoe, making sure your dress shirt is straight before buttoning your jacket. You hate this uniform, it's stiff and always makes you feel fat, which is ridiculous because you know you're in the best shape of your life, ankle not included.
She's watching you again, her eyes roaming up and down, and you know that she's looking at your uniform the way sergeants do during inspections. Still, you wish she was looking at you just to look.
"Come here."
There's no way you can refuse, so you walk over, your heels clicking lightly on the tiles, a steady cadence to your impending embarrassment.
You stand before her, automatically going to the position of attention. Your arms against your sides, heels together. You can't look at her, so you look off into a space on the wall behind her.
"How long have you been in the service?"
"Two years, Sergeant," you answer for the fact that there's no service stripes on your sleeve. The fact that you haven't been deployed is also glaringly obvious, so she doesn't insult you by asking.
"Gosh, you soldiers make me feel so old." She rubs her hands over her face as if she can feel wrinkles.
There aren't any wrinkles there, you would have noticed them. She can't be that much older than you, sure you blew off a few years after high school before you decided to do something with your life, but there's no way she could be that much older than you.
She can see the question in your eyes. She offers, "I'm twenty-five, been in for seven years."
That's three years older than you and five years more experienced. You know enough to realize that she's had good luck with promotions. It's not really that surprising though, she's great at her job.
"This is your first duty station then." It isn't a question. Her real question is, "Do you like Fort Campbell?"
"I hate the south," you answer honestly.
She snorts, and you look down to catch her smile. "I thought that when I first got here too. Clarksville has grown on me, but I totally miss Fort Carson."
"That's in Colorado, right Sergeant?"
"Yeah." She smiles at the memory. "The place is great. There's snowboarding, and hiking, and fishing, and a great dirt bike track about an hour from town. I loved it there."
You never pegged her for the outdoorsy-sporty type, but you can see it—you would love to see it. The jeep she drives should have been a clue.
God, the first time you saw her driving that jeep you were working the road, sitting in your patrol car at the speed trap on Air Assault Street. She drove past with the top down and all the doors off, her foot propped up on a spot just under her side-view mirror. She spotted your car just as she hit the hill, and gave you a smile and a wave, adjusting her aviators slyly as she drove on by.
She had been speeding and you were too turned on to even move.
You're still not sure if she could tell that it was you in that car. You'd like to hope that if she did, she would take it as a kind gesture. Honestly, you would never give her a ticket. You've thought about pulling her over just to have a reason to talk to her. Maybe she'd be into the sense of authority you have when you're doing the police work part of your job.
You certainly have a thing for authority, namely hers over you.
Of course, you're not just attracted to her because she outranks you by two pay grades. You're attracted to her because she's smart, beautiful, and a great leader. If she gave you an order you would do it in a heartbeat, and without the flack you give other sergeants.
All she had to do was ask.
You'd do anything.
"Your neck tab is crooked." She stands, and for a moment you think she's going to reach for it, your body goes ridged in an effort to remain casual. You're both thankful and disappointed when she crossed her arms over her chest, tilting her head in a pondering manner. She's staring hard at your jacket, where your awards and decoration ribbons are pinned into the fabric.
"And I'm not saying this to be mean," she looks at your eyes and you can tell she's trying to be gentle with you, "but your uniform is all sorts of messed up."
You feel like you let her down.
"Did you do this yourself or did someone try to help you?" She's picking up a random folder from the desk and holding it across your chest.
"We did it as a squad last month," you answer, trying to keep your voice level. Even if it's only a manila folder, the fact that she's causing some sort of indirect pressure against your body—a sensitive part of your body, makes your blood rush. "Sergeant Karofsky told me I was fine."
"He probably doesn't know anything about the female uniform standards," she mumbles. "See, your name plate is supposed to be level with your ribbons."
You glance down, and it is, all sorts of messed up.
"And I'm just eyeballing it," she throws out a disclaimer like she could be wrong, and you almost laugh. You'd take her guess over anything Sergeant Karofsky says. "But your marksmanship badge looks way too low."
She glances at the clock. "When was he supposed to be here?"
"He told me to be here at noon." You have reservations about letting her know that he's late, because you don't want to get shit if he gets into trouble. "I might have heard him wrong, though."
She quirks an eyebrow at you, she knows what you're trying to do.
"Do you have a ruler?" she asks, taking the folder away and setting it down.
You shake your head. "No, Sergeant."
You can tell by the way her lips tuck to one side that she doesn't like that answer. She's pulling her cellphone out of her pocket before you have time to say anything else.
"Flan, hey, yeah it's me. Look, sorry for calling you during the weekend, but are you in the barracks?"
You listen to her inquire about the needed item, and as she hangs up, she turns back to you.
"Do you want to put your uniform together right? Or wait for your NCO to get here and tell you you're fine?"
"I want to do it right, Sergeant." You know there's no other answer, and really, you're thankful for an excuse to talk to her.
She's happy to hear that, "Alright, then take everything off."
An irrational thought in your head flashes to the image of you taking everything off, as in everything, walking over to her, pushing her into that desk chair and—but you know she means everything on your jacket. You slip off your jacket and start taking out ribbons and badges, setting them on the desk for safekeeping.
Flanagan shows up in his pajamas with the seamstress ruler that you need, glancing between you and his boss.
"Did I miss the memo about a Class A inspection?"
"No, I'm just helping Lopez out." She takes the ruler from him, and you're jealous about how comfortable he seems to be with her. You push it down because it makes sense, they work together. "She's getting ready for the Soldier of the Month board, right?"
You nod because that competition is the only reason you'll ever wear this uniform.
"I thought I saw your name on the roster." She has a different kind of smile on her face this time. "Flanagan is going too."
"I feel a little betrayed that you're helping my competition," he says in his awkward Irish accent and she laughs like he was joking. You don't think he was joking.
"Don't worry, Flanagan," you tell him. "I don't have a shot in hell of winning."
You know it's a fact. The board is about sitting in front of all the seniors in the company, in this stiff uniform, and answering stupid Army related questions like, what's the maximum effective range of an M4 rifle? What regulations covers wear and appearance of the military uniform? Or who's the current Secretary of Defense? You couldn't give a shit about any of it, but you've been studying your ass off so you don't make a fool of yourself.
This time he thinks your joking. He chuckles and says he'll be keeping an eye out for you. SSG Pierce thanks him again for the ruler and his time. She promises to make it up to him, even if it was just a five-minute trip downstairs. When he leaves, she turns back to you. The weight of her stare makes your breath catch. You look down to your jacket to avoid it.
"You can't walk into the board with that kind of attitude, they'll rip you up."
"They're going to rip me up regardless. I've never been to a board before, and I don't even know what you're supposed to do when you get inside," you mumble, because it's embarrassing that your leadership hasn't taught you any of this.
You can still feel her eyes on you while you take off the last pin from your lapel.
"I have a pizza on the way," she says like it's no big deal. "Let's take care of your uniform, eat some fatty food, and I'll break down the board process for you."
You're trying to not get emotional that she would offer to teach you something like this, so it takes you a moment to respond. In the seconds of silence something in her eyes shifts to uncertainty and she adds, "Unless you have better things to do on a Saturday. I'm going to be stuck here all day, so it's easy for me to want to be productive, but I'd never hold you here just to keep me company."
You wouldn't need her to keep you here.
"I don't have anything better to do," you say honestly, and to put her at ease. "I need to get this right, and I'm just glad someone is willing help me out."
She looks flattered by the obvious amount of respect and gratitude in your voice. There's a light pink blush appearing on her cheeks, but she tries to keep her composure, "Then let's get started."
She walks you through it, and you know it's not about getting it done to her, it's about making sure you understand why she's doing it the way she's doing it. You feel great that she thinks you're worth her time, that you're worth teaching this to.
"Alright, now this is the tough part." She picks your nameplate up and hands over your jacket.
The only pins you've put on were on your lapels and shoulder boards. You know what's coming.
"The best way to do this is when you're wearing the jacket, that way I can place everything where it lays flat against your..." she trails off and makes this short hand gesture to your chest.
You're lifting your arms into your jacket, and her eyes linger on your breasts as your white dress shirt is pulled tight against them. Your stomach tightens, and you try not to read into it. You look down to close your jacket, like you don't know where the buttons are, just to give yourself a break from following her eyes on you.
You hear her take in a breath through her nose and see her hand move to scratch her eyebrow. Is it you or is she nervous? Maybe you're so nervous that you're projecting your nerves onto her. Are you making this awkward?
"I'm ready when you are."
You say it with a tone level enough to impress yourself, and it's enough to pull her back into sergeant mode. She licks her lips and nods, stooping to get at eye level to her work—your chest, but it's uncomfortable with your height difference and she pulls the chair over so she can sit, rolling close to you. Like this, the angle is almost perfect.
She twists at her waist, so you won't be standing between her legs, leaning forward. She eyes you again, holding your nameplate delicately in her hand as she tries to place it as level and centered as possible. It's falling on top of your left boob and she holds it against the fabric with careful fingers. She hesitates for a second.
"Can I..?"
She can't quite verbalize what she needs to do so you reply, "Whatever you need."
"Um... what's the regulation about the nameplate?" she asks to keep your focus on something else as she reaches up with her other hand.
She unbuttons one of your gleaming gold buttons and her hand slips inside, skating between your jacket and your white dress shirt. You rattle off some regulation about two inches from some button and centered off something.
You can feel your ribcage cower away from her touch, if she touches you...
"Good." She nods like she's listening, maybe she is, maybe she's too focused on keeping the fabric of your jacket lifted enough to prevent her hand from touching your chest as she pushes in the pins on the back of your nameplate. As soon as they pierce the fabric she retreats. And you discreetly take in a calming breath.
"Now," she rolls back on the wheel of the chair to make sure her work is level, "what about your ribbons?"
You give her that regulation too, watching her roll back towards you.
"If you know the book answer, then why did your jacket look so messed up before?" She laughs, picking up your ribbon rack. She looks over them, just to make sure that they are in order and you're pleased to find that at least you did that right. You want to shrug and catch yourself before you do.
"It's really hard to get everything straight when you're doing it yourself." It's the truth and when you were doing it with your squad no one wanted to help because they didn't know the female standards.
"Aren't there girls in the barracks you could ask for help?" She's working on the other side of your chest now as you scoff.
"I'd rather not."
She understands your meaning and says, "I know that some of the girls in our unit might not be very... squared away, but the thing about it is, people are going to lump all of us together, just because we're girls. So, if they're messed up, it's a reflection on all of us. We're the only ones that are going to go out of our way to help each other, and if we don't, we're just as bad as those men that let your uniform get this messed up."
She makes an adjustment on your ribbon rack and presses it into the fabric to keep that spot while her other hand moves to secure it without stabbing you in the boob. While her hand is in your jacket you can't look at her, so you look... everywhere else.
She gets the pins through the material and refastens your button. Her hands drop to the bottom hem of your jacket and she tugs on it lightly. The backs of her knuckles brush the fabric of your skirt, tickling the tops of your thighs. You are absolutely squirming on the inside. You try to wiggle your toes to relieve some of the antsy tension in your stomach, the need to lean into her touch, and cause more gratuitous grazing.
You thought this couldn't get any worse then she says, "Now," her eyes flick up to yours, with a peculiar light to them, "stand up nice and tall for me."
You swallow thickly and square your shoulders. Your hands are sweating at your sides and you just might be shaking.
She pushes her chair away before you can lose the last bit of control you have.
She squints at you—your chest.
"I think... you're just a little lopsided—the ribbons, I meant the ribbons, not your—"
A flush spreads over her face and you can see it reach the tips of her ears. She coughs into her fist and you look down again to give her a moment. You need it as much as she does.
"Which side?"
"Here." Because there's really no way you can do it yourself, she rolls back towards you. You reach for the ribbons at the same time as she does and your hands touch.
Your eyes meet, and you feel like the air around you has suddenly disappeared. There's no random music from her iPod on the desk, your feet aren't hurting from standing in these heels for half an hour, all you can focus on is her eyes. They're such a beautiful shade of blue. You can see it clearly now that they've widened slightly, caught in the same kind of pull you are in.
"Sorry," you say in a breath, but you don't pull your hands away just yet. You let your knuckles linger against hers, touching unintentionally over your heart and you're sure she can feel the way it's going crazy. Finally, you pull your hands away, dropping them to your sides and surrendering to be the stoic soldier she needs you to be right now.
It's not fair of you to put her in this position. She's trying to help you out and you're making it super awkward.
"Thanks." She drops her eyes to your uniform with a determined look in them.
After you get your name plate and your ribbons level, the rest is downhill. The regimental crest is next, followed by an expert marksmanship badge, identification tabs for your M4 rifle and M9 pistol hang from it.
"You know that they make a tab like this for the bayonet?" she asks with a small smile, trying to break the tension in the air.
"I've seen them in Clothing and Sales," you remember, "but didn't know if anyone would ever be able to wear it. It's kinda like how no one wears the grenade badge, right?"
Her smile takes a turn for the mischievous. "There was this one time, I was stationed at Fort Jackson and you know how it's a training post, so there was this bayonet course. Well, my platoon goes out to it, just to mess around and run through it for like, team building or whatever. I'm pulling medical coverage and of course they don't think that I would want to do it too. Medics can't want to stab things, you know. It's just not done."
A warm laugh is inspired by that, the tight feeling in your chest easing.
"I finally pouted loudly enough that they let me run through it with them. We had such a blast doing it. Took pictures of ourselves in all this fake blood I had in the back of my truck. Ruined a perfectly good uniform," she chuckles.
You listen to the story as she adds the last clasp to the back of your badge. She's too caught up in her story to pay attention to her hands and the back of her fingers graze over that spot on your chest—the one that had tightened into a small peak of flesh. Your knees almost give out because she just inadvertently touched your breast and even through your white dress shirt and sports bra it sends an astounding number of sensations through your body. The most visible is the blush on your face, and the way you suck your bottom lip into your mouth to keep it from trembling.
"So I—I um," she lost where she was in the story and you can't blame her, for as much as you were listening she could have been fighting zombies on the moon. Her hand is gone quickly, and she pushes her chair away to get out of your personal space. "It was right before the holiday ball, so we had to fix up our dress blues, as a joke we all put the bayonet tab on our uniforms. It was hilarious."
She gives your uniform one more glance over. "I think you're done. You can put cardboard behind it to make it look a little sharper, but you look great, Lopez." She smiles again. "Totally ready for the board."
You flush under her praise, and of other reasons, even if it was all her work that got you to this point. "Thank you... for doing this, Sergeant."
She waves you off, scratching her nose and not meeting your eyes. "I'm happy to do it. Here for soldiers and all that jazz."
"Did anyone notice?" you ask, to prolong the conversation before you go back upstairs to your room to sit there and pretend that you don't want to come back down here. "The bayonet tabs, I mean."
She grins. "Only the Sergeant Major."
You laugh at that. "Nice."
"It was pretty awesome trying to explain the whole thing to him." Her eyes shine with amusement. "I don't think he got the joke."
"I wouldn't think so." You lift your feet one by one to take your heels off. They're killing you, but at least your blisters have healed since the ruck march.
"How about..." Her eyes shift from the floor to the ceiling then finally land on yours. "You go change out of that uniform and I'll run through the board procedures with you?"
You were hoping she hadn't forgotten about that part; the promise to spend a little more time one on one with her. You know there's nothing you'd rather be doing on this Saturday than saying, "I'll be right back."