Hayes frowned, his military mind calculating the discrepancy. “The official casualty report states instantaneous death via blast overpressure.”
“The report was falsified by the platoon leader to cover his own tactical failure during the ambush, sir,” Rostova said without blinking. “Tyler—Private Vance—lived for twenty-two minutes behind a compound wall. I was with him.”
Vance made a choked, dying sound in the back of his throat. His knees buckled slightly, but he caught himself, leaning heavily on the edge of the Commander’s desk. He stared at the plastic bag in Rostova’s hand.
“I put three tourniquets on him. I pushed two bags of whole blood. But the shrapnel had severed the femoral artery completely, high up,” Rostova said, her voice finally softening, slipping into the gentle, mournful tone of a combat medic delivering the worst news in the world. “He knew he was bleeding out. He knew the gunships were too far away.”
Tears suddenly spilled over Vance’s lower eyelids, cutting tracks down his weathered cheeks. “He suffered,” the Sergeant Major whispered, his terrifying facade entirely shattered. “My boy died in agony.”
“No,” Rostova said sharply, turning her head to look directly at the broken man. “He didn't.”
Vance looked up at her, his eyes begging for it to be true.
“He was in pain at first,” Rostova said, “but then his blood pressure dropped, and the adrenaline took over. He stopped feeling it. He was remarkably brave, Sergeant Major. He didn't cry. He didn't panic. He just got very focused.”
She slowly opened the plastic bag and slid the blood-stained notebook out onto the desk, resting it gently next to the silver dog tag.
“He made me take his second dog tag off his boot,” Rostova said. “He said he knew you. He knew how you’d react. He said you would blame yourself, or you would blame the Army, and that you would turn hard and bitter.”
Vance squeezed his eyes shut, a sob tearing through his chest. He covered his mouth with a trembling hand, realizing that his dying son had predicted exactly what he would become.
“He made me promise to find you,” Rostova continued softly. “But he made me promise not to give you the tag, or his notebook, until I believed you were ready to read his final words. Until I believed the grief wasn't going to kill you.”
“Why today?” Hayes asked quietly from behind the desk, deeply moved by the scene unfolding in his office. “Why let him strike you today?”
“Because the anger finally boiled over, sir,” Rostova said. “He couldn't hold it in anymore. The dam broke. He’s ready now.”
She nudged the notebook across the polished wood toward Vance.
“I couldn't save his life, Sergeant Major,” Rostova said, her own eyes finally shining with held-back tears. “But I wrote down exactly what he told me to write, while I held his hand.”
Vance reached out with a trembling, hesitant hand. He touched the leather cover, running his fingers over the dried blood of his only child. He opened the book to the final page.
The handwriting was not Tyler’s. It was the neat, precise script of a medic under fire.
Vance read the words through a blur of tears.