Finally, they retired early for the evening. Mitchell would sleep in his old bedroom and, as expected, Dad still hadn't changed a thing. The dog-eared and fading Metallica and Michael Jordan posters still hung from the back wall; the Atari 2600 game console still sat atop Mitchell's dusty old Zenith; and the Uncle Sam poster--I Want You for U.S. Army--was still tacked to the wall above Mitchell's bed.

In fact, Dad had left all of the kids' bedrooms untouched. Mitchell assumed that all the memorabilia made Dad feel less alone. Jenn had been arguing with him for years to get rid of everything, sell the old house, and get a nice little house in The Villages, Florida. Dad would have none of it. He still had a few more years to go before retirement, and with work and his woodshop, he was "too busy to even think about that."

Even Mitchell's comic book collection still sat in plastic milk crates inside his closet. He thumbed through the stacks, pulling out an issue of DC's Sgt. Rock and another, Marvel's The 'Nam, both among his favorites. He brought them back to the nightstand.

After stripping down to his T-shirt and boxers, he sat on the bed and looked around. He could never have imagined that the little boy sleeping in this tiny room would, years later, travel around the globe. He was just a small-town kid who had joined the army because he couldn't afford college and had planned to use his GI Bill benefits to help pay for tuition once he got out. He and thousands of other guys had the same idea.

But army life suited Mitchell. The camaraderie, the loyalty, and the pride he felt were unlike any he had experienced in civilian life.

One night at the hospital, just a few days before the cancer had taken Mom, she had held his hands and said, "Scott, just remember, you are a very special boy. You were not born to live an ordinary life. Do everything you can to make the best of it. I know you will make your father and me very proud."

He never forgot those words, and he often thought that his mother somehow knew what would happen to him.

Mitchell shut off the main light, flicked on the small reading light on the nightstand, and settled down for a good read before turning in.

There were two things about the wedding that Mitchell dreaded, and he was about to get past the first.

He stood in his dress blues beside Tommy and his new bride, Rebecca, along with over one hundred guests in the banquet hall. With a flute of champagne in one hand, a microphone in the other, best man Mitchell cleared his throat.