Boom! This one was more than a flash. The plane in front of them received a direct hit and turned into a fireball before their eyes.

Tom held back a cry. Who was in that plane? Anyone he knew? Projected losses that had looked so analytical on paper suddenly took on flesh and blood and form.

Boom! Another fireball.

The pilots jerked right, though they couldn’t predict the aim of the ground guns any better than the ones that had just been hit. Something impacted the left window and glass shattered onto the main pilot’s lap. He brushed it off and continued as if it was nothing.

Tom heard the wheeze of air as it whooshed through the plane like a scream.

“Stand up! Hook up! Let’s go, Easy Company!”

Winters had a voice that could remarkably be heard above the roar of engines and gunfire and racing pulses.

Tom and William and the rest of the soldiers stood on wobbly legs that struggled to find their place as the plane was tossed to and fro. Their position was questionable, and Tom heard the pilots arguing about the need to gain altitude and the concern that if they didn’t level up with the other planes, the parachuters could be hit by one of their own. Sucked into propellers.

It was a gruesome thought.

Danger in the sky. Danger in the descent. Danger on the ground.

Hank. Dr. Weinstein. The McClintocks. William.

Tom repeated their names over and over, reminding himself who he was doing this for.

Hank. Dr. Weinstein. The McClintocks. William.

Uncle Sam. Uncle Sam and the red, white, and blue.

Red, white, and blue. Panic rose in his chest and he clung to every familiar word as if it were a life preserver and he felt it clinch like a vise.

Tom looked around. The cords attaching all of them to the plane looked like overcooked spaghetti noodles, flapping back and forth as they were pitched about by the wind.

“Okay, check!” shouted Winters.

Tom took a deep breath and exhaled.

“Okay!”

“Okay!”

“Okay!”

It was repeated throughout the back of the plane as each man acknowledged their readiness.

The red light at the open door held steady until the first man was ready to jump.

It turned green, and he disappeared.

Red.

Green.

Another man jumped.

Red.

Green.

William jumped.

Red.

Green.

And then it was Tom’s turn. He’d jumped so many times. Maybe hundreds. But never when the air was saturated with enemies.

He took a step and then another and felt the exhilaration of that first free fall. He closed his ears to the chaos around him and focused instead on the sea of parachutes that he knew were white but looked green as lightning and gunfire flashed and reflected off of them.

It seemed like the sky had a bad case of smallpox and Tom almost laughed at the observation.