DAY FIVE
16
Moose woke to a bright blue morning and an electric alarm clock that read 0730. Cooke had told the men they didn’t need to be in the motor pool until 0900. More census work was scheduled, but Cooke, because of the late night, wanted his men to get enough rest.
Moose felt good, strong, vindicated. He had replayed yesterday’s action multiple times overnight and he believed he’d done everything right. It was bizarre: he’d killed a man and was satisfied with it. The violence was right and necessary. Pulling the trigger was merely the climax of an inevitable chain of events. It put him in a special club. He was now somebody who had killed in combat and people back home would think he was a bad-ass son-of-a-b***h. It felt great.
Similar thrills came during football. When as a lin
