“We were in a bad way. Things were FUBAR,” he says and tips his beer to the neon sign of the term on the other side of the room. “There were ten of us that went in and one by one we were falling. We had no cover, no help, and air support was twenty minutes out when we had only about five minutes left of ammo. It was fucking terrifying. Somehow Gunner was able to get back to one of the Humvees. It was one of the only ones we had with armor on it and the fucking guy literally starts it up and plows right through the building where some of the enemies were taking cover. He came in like a goddamn superhero.”

“I can hear you, Nix,” Gunner warns as he walks past to grab some more beer glasses before moving back to the other end of the bar where I think he’s purposely keeping to.

“He can threaten me all he wants, but it’s not going to work.” Nix gives him the bird and a grin. “You need to know that he barreled through that building and back into the firefight he’d escaped from. He was like a madman, running around without us being able to lay down cover for him. We were all hit in some way or another and he did everything he could to pull us, carry us, and shove us into the Humvee so he could get us out of there to a location where we could defend ourselves until air support came. It was like he was a different person, Chase. He came in shouting orders to us left and right, trying to take out the enemy when he could, and trying to save us all at the same time. He did that three times. Three times he pulled that Humvee out and then plowed back into the village to extricate and save us. Three fucking times before . . .” Nix gives a shake of his head and then clears his throat as emotion I didn’t expect overwhelms him.

“Thank you for telling me this much. I didn’t mean to make you—”

“The Humvee, on the way out the third time . . . it hit an IED. I have no fucking clue how he didn’t hit any before that considering the whole goddamn village was surrounded by them—something we found out after the fact. But he found one on the third and final way out.” He shakes his head. “I remember seeing it explode. How parts, how everything—just blasted into the air. It was about that time that the air support arrived, so we had to take fucking cover from them hitting the town. We didn’t know if Gunny or the other two guys he’d rescued were alive or dying or anything.”