Rowe tried to defend himself, suggesting my record was exaggerated.
“It’s classified,” I said.
He ignored me.
Big mistake.
Reeves stepped closer, his tone sharpening. “Did you put your hands on her?”
Rowe hesitated. “I was assessing mobility.”
“He grabbed my wrist,” I said.
Reeves turned to the officer behind him. “Document that.”
And just like that, this wasn’t an opinion anymore—it was a record.
Then Reeves asked one question that changed everything:
“Were you on the live command link during the Deir al-Hassan extraction?”
Rowe blinked. “No, sir.”
Reeves nodded slightly. “I was.”
Silence.
Even I hadn’t known that.
Reeves looked back at my arm. When he spoke again, his voice carried something deeper—memory.
“Do you know what that arm was doing when it was torn apart?” he asked.
Rowe didn’t answer.
Reeves did.
“It was holding pressure on a severed femoral artery. Inside a damaged helicopter. After an RPG strike. Forty minutes. No relief.”
That was the first time anyone had said it out loud on U.S. soil.
And suddenly, I was back there.