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Adriana didn't know what Currahee was, but by the looks on the men's faces, she knew it couldn't be anything good. Sobel stalked off and Winters turned around and addressed them.

"2nd Platoon fall out. You have two minutes."

The men all turned on their heels and jogged back to the barracks, and Adriana followed them. Luckily she already had PT gear on under her uniform.

"I ain't going up that hill. Not again," Perconte

"What is Currahee?" Adriana asked.

"The Fucking biggest hill I have ever seen," Perconte answered as Martin slammed the door open and stormed in the room.

"Hey Perconte what are you thinking? Blousing your pants."

Martin sounded disgusted.

"Shut up Martin alright? He got everybody," Perconte hissed defensively.

"Yeah well you should know better! Don't give him no excuses!"

"EXCUSES!" Perconte stood up. "Why don't you come over here, look at these trousers, get down, and you tell me if there is a crease on them!"

Adriana was afraid it would come to blows, but thankfully Lipton entered the room at that moment telling them to get moving. Perconte just stood there glaring off at the south wall.

"Move your ass Perconte!"

He growled and stomped past Lipton. As they walked down the gravel road some boys from Able Company were dressed ready to go out on their weekend pass and were taunting the Easy boys on the loss of their passes. LIebgott frowned and gently elbowed Adriana, who was trying to stay inconspicuous in the middle of the group.

"Watch this."

Liebgott started to jog, followed by most of easy. As they began to run, they pushed through the group of Able boys, knocking some of their hats off and even knocking one to the ground. They continued their run, and when they got to Currahee, Adriana really believed Sobel had been joking when he said three miles up, three miles down, but Luz warned her, he wasn't.

Adriana had always liked running, but nothing she had ever done compared to this. She had grown accustomed to jogging around the White House every morning, but this was too much. The gravel shifted unpredictably under their feet, and when it was uphill, it was not just uphill. It was an 80% slope in some places. Sobel shouting the whole time didn't help anyone either.

"What do we run?"

"Currahee!"

"And what does Currahee mean?"

"We stand alone!"

"How far up? How far down?"

"Three miles up, three miles down!"

Adriana didn't know the correct responses, but quickly learned. Not that she could have yelled at the top of her lungs even if she wanted to. She was already exhausted.

"What company is this?"

"EASY COMPANY!"

"And what do we do?"

"Stand alone!"

As they went, poor Muck caught, and twisted his leg in a pothole. Malarkey tried to help him discreetly, but Sobel saw it.

"DO NOT HELP THAT MAN! DO NOT HELP THAT MAN!"

"You have 13 minutes to get to the top of this mountain if you want to be in the paratroopers! HIGH HO SILVER!"

"Doesn't he… have an… off button?" Adriana panted to Luz.

"Nope," he answered simply.

"Great," she sighed.

She tried to breathe deeply, but she found it was impossible. Luckily Liebgott was running behind her so if she slowed down too much he could give her a little nudge. She thought they would all be annoyed with how slow she was going, but Luz, Liebgott and Bull seemed very happy to help her when she needed it.

Later, how much later, Adriana didn't know, Winters made it up to the top and stood encouraging the next six or seven people coming up. Adriana was right behind Perconte but tripped and almost tripped Luz. All he did was reach his arms under hers and lift her back to her feet. He seemed like he had done that before. He basically pushed her rest of the way to the top where Sobel was yelling.

"We are coming on 23 minutes. That may be good enough for the rest of the 506th but that is NOT good enough for Easy Compay!"

They were released back to their barracks for twenty minutes for lunch and all of the men finally got a good look at Adriana. She could feel the many pairs on her as she walked to her cot and pulled her other belongings out. Finally, after five minutes of Adriana pretending no one was watching her, she rotated her body to face the room.

"You might as well get it over with now," she said crossing her arms on top of her knees.

Everyone looked startled that she had been so upfront. Liebgott, who was on her left leaned over his cot and looked like he was going to say something. She watched him expectantly. His dark mahogany eyes looked down his pointed nose at her.

"Why did you decide to be in the airborne?"

"Why did you decide to come to war at all?" Martin asked.

"Why did any of you?" she asked.

The men glanced at each other.

"I heard about Pearl Harbor from my father's security," Adriana began pulling out a photo. "My father always tried to protect us from whatever was going on in the government, but I always wanted to know, so I learned to listen. To security especially."

She handed the picture to Liebgott. He took it and grinned. The President was smiling up at him with a young Adriana in his lap.

"I told my father I wanted to help. He assumed I wanted to be a nurse, but I read an article about the Paratroopers."

She snickered.

"He laughed at me, but I asked him to make it happen. So he did." She paused. "He wouldn't have been able to stop me anyway."

"But why not a nurse?" Perconte asked.

Adriana shrugged.

"I've always been interested in history. In the wars and the battles. I've studied battle strategies and tactics my whole life. Learned all I could about weapons and how to dig foxholes and trenches. I graduated as the top of my History class."

"What about the other classes?" Luz asked grinning.

"That was the only one I was really interested in," she said with a laugh."

She looked at all of them and interlocked her fingers under her chin.

"Look boys. I can't promise I will be perfect, but I can promise I will serve alongside you and protect each of you to the best of my ability. I may not be a man, but that doesn't mean anything."

The boys glanced around at each other. Then Malarkey smiled at her.

"That's all anyone can ask."

The next few weeks were a pain in the ass, although she could say she had new brothers. Adriana could feel any extra fat she had melting off. When she was in the barracks, she would look at herself in the small mirror over the door and marvel at how her body had thinned out. All of the extra weight had been replaced by muscle. Her arms and back were surprisingly toned, and her stomach was becoming more defined. If she could thank Sobel for anything, it was making them run Currahee as many times as they did in a week. She knew from discreetly watching the men in her barracks change that they were feeling the effects of their hard training as well. Malarkey in particular had a wonderfully built upper body. She could stare at him for hours if she let herself, but she didn't because she was supposed to be like a sister to them. Luz and Liebgott were less muscular than Malarkey, but they were also appealing, and Luz was funny as hell. Liebgott was sarcastic and charming.

The one time they had weekend passes, Adriana watched carefully how all the men interacted with women they met. Luz rarely even got looked at by women. Adriana felt bad for him, but he either didn't mind or he was good at hiding it with his humor. Liebgott was charming but quiet. Women enjoyed the mystery about him. Surprising to Adriana, because she was with them every second of every day, they were all incredibly respectful. Even when they got some liquor in them, they were complete gentlemen.

"So your daddy is the President," Guarnere said one night when they were supposed to be asleep. "Must be nice."

"And why must it be nice?" Adriana asked from her cot across the room.

"You grew up in the White House. You probably got everything you ever wanted. Yah Prick."

Apparently she had been wrong about all men being gentlemen when they were drunk.

"Are you fucking kidding me Guarnere?"

She was a little more drunk than she'd originally thought because she took the bait.

"You know what growing up in the White House was like? I got made fun of in school. No boy ever wanted to go on a date with me in High School because I was the president's daughter. I never went ANYWHERE without an escort. I wasn't allowed to go to birthday parties or off campus field trips. I got to stay in a pretty, white jail in the middle of Washington D.C. You know I had never even seen the city or any of the monuments until I was eighteen and could legally release my body guards? Don't talk to me about privilege, Bill. Privilege doesn't mean anything if you don't have anyone to share it with."

Guarnere didn't seem to have anything to say. No one did.

"Was it really that bad, Adri?" Shifty asked from her right.

She wiped a tear she didn't even know had fallen. Luckily it was dark. She had kept herself from crying in front of them that long. She wasn't about to change that now.

"Yes," she said flatly, then rolled over and closed her eyes.

She didn't fall asleep before she heard Luz whisper to Guarnere.

"Way to go dumbass."

The next morning was a Monday. Guarnere was nursing a hangover at breakfast and by the time he and the rest of the men had to do their Monday run of the obstacle course, his mood had only soured. Adriana made it a point to stay away from him. Her run in with him the night before had been her first real argument with the people she had come to call 'her' boys.

Several men in Easy and other companies alike had expressed their dislike for her and what she was trying to do. Colonel Sink usually managed to squash the arguments before they got going, but the men still talked. Adriana however was faring well. She was generally up front in the runs up Currahee and sometimes even came out first on the obstacle courses. Unless they were running them with another company. The men from Dog Company refused to help get her over the seven-and-a-half-foot wall, and the boys from Fox actively tried to make her fail. Pushing her off the swinging bars, tripping her on the tires, pulling her backward by her feet when they were crawling under the barbed wire. If the pigs blood and intestines weren't enough with that obstacle. But she was managing.

That day, however, Sobel and the other Captains had called for all the companies to run the obstacle course together. This put Adriana squarely between Dog and Fox companies, and they knew it. They could be heard from both directions hooting and cat calling. She tried to stay ducked between Luz, Malarkey and Penkala in the middle of the formation while they waited for their turn. Bull kept glancing around catching the other men's eyes. Finally, Malarkey spoke up.

"Hey Adri," he asked. "Can you sing?"

"What?" she asked momentarily distracted from someone in the company behind them trying to guess how many sexual partners she'd had.

"Can yah sing?"

"Come on Malark," she laughed. "I sing all the time."

"No no, not the stupid songs we make up to get us through the day. Really sing."

She laughed.

"Maybe I'll show you when we get back."

He was about to protest when Sobel could be heard.

"ROOSEVELT! Get your scrawny ass up her!"

"Duty calls," she sighed and with a few sympathetic looks from her friends, she darted to her right to get out of line.

Sobel was in front, right to the left of Toye and Guarnere. She sighed her disapproval but jogged to his side anyway.

"Yes sir."

"You will run here from now on."

"Yes sir," she said with a sigh and fell in line next to Guarnere.

Before she could say anything to him, someone in front of her whistled. She rolled her eyes. Dog Company.

"So you decided to come hang out with us boys?" one of them asked.

Adriana ignored him. Toye and Guarnere glanced at each other over her head.

"Hey!" the Dog Company guys yelled until she looked up. "How many people did you have to sleep with to get here?"

"No, no she didn't have to sleep with anyone. Her daddy is the President and she can do whatever she wants," another guy said elbowing the first.

"Besides no man would want to sleep with her anyway. Any woman who would want to come here has to be a whore."

This earned a laugh from the surrounding Dog Company men. Adriana glared at her feet but didn't say anything. Toye looked for Sobel, but he had conveniently disappeared to the back of the Company.

"Well I don't know about you boys," Guarnere spoke up. "But I'd say our little Rosie wanted to help defend this country. What do you say Toye?"

The Pennsylvania man pretended to pause and think before he agreed.

"Yeah I'd say your right. And I'd also say it took a lot of balls to walk in here by herself when the only thing she knew for sure was that some men who were supposed to be her friends and allies in the war were going to laugh and jeer at her."

Guarnere nodded and stepped up between her and the men of Dog Company.

"Yeah and I'D say if ANY man in ANY company has a problem with her, they'll have to go through me."

"And me," Toye said standing next to him.

"Me too," Luz yelled from his spot further down the line.

He pushed his way up to them and stood next to her. There was a chorus of agreements as most of Easy joined them to stand around Adriana. The Dog Company boys scoffed but turned and walked back toward the course. Everyone could hear them as they walked away.

"I guess we know who she's sleeping with."

Guarnere stiffened and Adriana grabbed his arm.

"It's ok," she said to him. "Just let them talk."

Guarnere frowned then looked at her.

"Nope. Can't do it."

He shrugged her off and darted after the men. He and Toye shoved past them and followed the talkers out onto the course. Malarkey, Muck and Luz followed throwing men around them off their feet. Guarnere got to the ones still running their mouths and yanked them down from the bars. They landed in the mud and he and the other four jumped down above them, and Guarnere put his finger in the face of the instigator.

"Now I tried to be nice, but that isn't getting through your thick skull, so I'm just going to have to make you listen. You stop bothering our girl. You stop talking to her; about her; near her. Just forget she exists. Leave. Her. Alone."

Guarnere leaned down so his face was centimeters from his nose.

"Or you'll really have me to deal with."

Bill Guarnere was not to be trifled with on the best of days. Today was not this soldier's best day. He gulped and tried to nod, but it wasn't fast enough for Guarnere.

"Do. You. Understand?" he asked, getting closer.

"Yes," he choked out.

At that moment Sobel could be heard above them.

"What the hell is going on down there!" he screeched.

"Just helpin' a friend, sir," Guarnere yelled back.

He grabbed a handful of the soldiers' shirt and yanked him to his feet. They climbed out of the pit covered in mud and he scampered away to run the rest of the course. Adriana reached for Guarnere and turn him to face her.

"You really didn't have to do that," she said keeping her hand on his shoulder.

"Yes I did," he said. "If someone feels like they can do that to you now in training, what is going to happen in the rest of the war?"

She smiled and found his eyes.

"I'm sorry for last night," she said.

He frowned.

"Why? You don't have anything to be sorry for. I was the jackass."

She nodded.

"Yeah you kind of were. Now get going or you're going to get your pass for next week revoked by Sobel."

He elbowed her in the ribs.

"Now that I think about it, that might not be such a bad idea," she said loud enough for him to hear her.

He turned and ran backward long enough to flip her off.

"Hey Guarnere!"

He looked over his shoulder.

"Thanks."

He saluted then swung up onto the cross bars followed closely by Adriana.

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