Having triumphed over the white car, the driver of the metallic blue car set his sights on Stoner’s oversized delivery truck as he began to maneuver into position to pass it on the right. Patiently, Dale Stoner did nothing as he watched the metallic blue car draw near. Confident of his ability to pass the lumbering van, the driver of the metallic blue car took one hand off the wheel and reached down to grab his cell phone. Stoner could see that the driver was a young, clean-cut, professional type, wearing a crisp white shirt, a nondescript tie, and sunglasses like those favored by aviators. There was no way, Stoner thought, that this character had served in the Gulf, or Bosnia, or Kosovo, or anywhere else. The closest this geek had gotten to the First Persian Gulf War had been on his television. With that thought in mind, Stoner watched and waited as the metallic blue car continued to close.

Stoner’s patience was rewarded. Just as the front fender of the metallic blue car pulled even with the rear bumper of his truck, the driver of the car turned his head to search for something on the passenger seat. Seizing the moment, Stoner flipped on his right hand turn signal and jerked the wheel of his truck a tad to the right. He didn’t intend to move over into the other lane, for in truth there wasn’t any room in the traffic to do so. He just wanted the other driver to think he not only wanted to do so, but was, in fact, in the act of doing so.

The ploy worked. The flashing turn signal and the unexpected motion of the big delivery truck caught the driver of the metallic blue car off guard. Panicked, he threw his phone over his shoulder, brought his free hand onto the steering wheel, and gave it a hard pull to the right. In an instant, the metallic blue car was up and over the curb. Unnerved and shaken, the driver struggled to control his car as the hard plastic bumper of his overvalued import glanced off not one but two parking meter poles, leaving a gash that would more than eat up his collision deductible.

Though he would have liked to slow down some in order to savor his small victory over the forces of ignorance, Stoner’s turn was coming up. After having allowed himself the indulgence of becoming distracted from his task, it was time to concentrate on making his way safely to the left. Deftly, he nudged his large truck over into the left-hand lane, made his turn, and continued on to his target.

As he approached the Federal building and made for the driveway marked “deliveries,” Stoner tried once more to piece together how this nightmare had all started. Perhaps it had been during the air war when nightly SCUD alerts sent them scrambling into poorly built bunkers where they sat in the dark silence, masked and covered head to toe in chemical protective clothing, wondering what was to become of them. Or it could have been the day his platoon made its way slowly along the road north of Kuwait City that the media had dubbed “The Highway of Death.” Even the mere thought of that experience conjured up memories of sights and smells that still haunted him to this very day.