The Last Promise From Hamburger Hill

Real.

I looked at him once before opening it.

“You knew my father?”

James gave a broken little laugh.

“Knew him?” His eyes watered again. “Marcus… your father saved my life three times in eight months.”

Something inside my chest cracked open.

My father had always been a photograph to me.

A twenty-three-year-old man frozen in uniform.

A folded flag.

A name carved into stone.