Scott, ever cavalier about matters that he considered trivial, smiled. “Well, as I see it I would have three options,” he replied quickly. “First, I can tell a war story. Folks always expect that from an old broke dick soldier like me. Second, I can tell them a dirty joke. Old cavalryman are not expected to have any couth what so ever, so I wouldn’t be disappointing anyone. And third,” he concluded with a flourish, “I can tell them a dirty war story that’s funny, which would please everyone.”

An attitude such as Scott’s was unnerving to Jan. Having been a journalist her entire adult life, she prided herself on the amount of preparation she put into each and every story she did. She demanded the same from those who worked for her. So Scott’s snide response was always met with a cross expression, a swipe of her hand across the top of Scott’s head, and the same comment. “You are the most annoying man I’ve ever met.”

Unmoved by Jan’s performance, Scott would flash a grin that went from ear to ear, scoop up his second wife in his arms, and squeeze her until she screamed to be let go. Before he did so, he would quickly bend over and smother her in passionate kisses that, more often than not, led to a long night of passionate lovemaking during which Jan would forget about her efforts to change her husband’s slovenly habits.

While a quick kiss would often suffice to solve intramarital disputes on the subject, it did little to solve Scott’s current problem, which was what, exactly, would he say to the multitudes gathered before him. As this was a graduation, a joyous occasion for graduates, their parents, and the faculty and staff alike, his speech needed to be uplifting and positive. That it needed to have a message was a given. A speech without a message, after all, was little more than a collection of words thrown out and left to scour the countryside on their own in search of an idea to unify them.

But what message, Scott thought as he looked down at Nathan, would be meaningful and relevant to my son and his peers? For a moment, he thought back to his own graduation from the Virginia Military Institute. It had been another world that had faced him when he sat there waiting to leap up onto the stage to snatch his diploma from the hands of the superintendent. Even during Scott’s four years as a cadet, the world had changed. He had entered VMI together with four hundred brother rats knowing full well that they would leave that place and go to a distant country known as Vietnam to fight a war that fewer and fewer of their fellow countrymen seemed to understand.

Fate and diplomacy had been spared him that trauma. In its place, however, he had entered a military that was shunned by its own countrymen. Scott became part of the wreckage of an army that was unsure of itself. Only the threat of “The Evil Empire” held that Army together through the troubled seventies. Eventually a handful of gifted leaders who managed to maintain their focus on what was important and a bold commander-in-chief emerged to make the United States Army a force to be reckoned with.