Fiction | June 01, 2009

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The eight weeks of basic training at Fort Ord were just about what he’d expected. Then he got his orders. Waited, in a set of starched khakis that felt too stiff, too thin in the October wind, with a dozen other soldiers for the bus to the Army Language School in Monterey. It was already an hour late. Another private behind him griped, “Hurry up and wait,” and he turned to see who, but it wasn’t anyone he recognized. When they finally boarded, the hurry-up soldier sat down beside him, stuck out his hand and said, “Roscoe Drummond.”

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