They shared their solemn last smokes before battle, and the jubilant smokes after. They dressed in the same order, arranged their kits just so. Cleaned their guns in a choreographed ballet of pieces laid out on the ground and pieces reassembled. They told the stories and said the magic words. Nobody laughed at them. All the men of Company B were putting precious things in their pockets or taking precious things out of their pockets. If that dumb pebble you kicked down the long road from France was in your pocket the day you almost bought it, it had to go in your pocket every time after. If it was left behind with the chaplain the day you almost bought it, the pebble had to always be left behind with the chaplain.

The men went around giving secret handshakes, kissing each other’s dog tags, reciting a canon of catch phrases, platitudes, dirty jokes. Every platoon had that one guy who could materialize out of nowhere to snuff your match if you dared try to light three cigarettes on it. And another guy who, if you threw your spent match on the ground, looked at you like you’d just shit on his shoes, then picked up the match and threw it over his left shoulder.

“That’s for salt, you moron,” someone always said.

“It’s for matches, too.”

“Bullshit.”

And they’d argue for an hour about it, knowing it was all bullshit. The superstitions and rituals, the matches, even the arguing—all bullshit. But they were unable not to cling to it. It was how the trust went on thriving. Trust in your buddy, trust in the squad leaders, trust in the platoon, the division, the mission, the cause, the war and above all, trust in their definitive stance on the right side of history.

Before battle, some went alone to take a last nervous piss. Others went together and crossed shaky streams. If they did it once and got lucky, they had to do it always. They prayed and davened and spit and swore and smoked and shook and touched. They filled and emptied their pockets, cast their spells and went off to fight. Some came back alive, and each mourned differently for the ones who died. There were soldiers who could cry in the open and soldiers who crawled away to mourn. Soldiers who broke things in their grief, soldiers who consoled themselves by picking up tool kits or shovels and putting things together. And soldiers who did absolutely nothing at all.