The Colonel smoked at the table, between courses and sometimes while he was eating, a forkful of food in his right hand, a cigarette in his left. He was smoking now, and often his manner of smoking indicated that he was thinking, a certain way of inhaling or blowing smoke out of the side of his mouth, like a process of thought. He was taking puffs, reflecting.

“My men—not the ARVN but my Special Forces,” he said, “some of them surf. We have landing craft near a place called Danang. Just north of it on a lovely shoreline, China Beach, where we bring up our boats. Some of the men surf there—with boards, or body surfing. It’s quite a thing to see.”

“I’d like to try it there.”

“It’s deceptive. The most beautiful places in Vietnam are the most dangerous.” He was still smoking. He pushed his plate away and tapped ashes into the remains of his mashed potato and spoke past Joe to the shadows at the back of the dining room. “I don’t know where this thing is going.”

“I worry,” Sharkey’s mother said. “Sometimes I’m a wreck.”

The Colonel picked a fleck of tobacco off his tongue and spat smoke. “Don’t start.”

On that visit he was home for a week, busy in meetings most days at Fort Shafter, but one morning he said, “Joe, I want to see you doing it. I want to see your moves.”

They drove to Ala Moana Beach Park later that day and walked under the palms across the expanse of lawn to Magic Island, where Sharkey lifted his board from the rack.

“I let them surf for a day or so, because they’re chopper pilots—they’re great at what they do,” the Colonel said, as though finishing an interrupted thought.

At the low grassy bluff on the shore above the break the Colonel stood in uniform, feet apart, watching Sharkey paddle out—and Sharkey took care to paddle efficiently, ducking under the incoming sets until he was sitting on the swell, lifted by the boil, waiting for a good wave.