All Pops has on are his OD shorts and his hat. He's been smoking dope all day and does some dumb-a*s things; he makes one step two feet high. A runner comes to say there is a squad leaders’ meeting with the CO, so when he leaves I start at the outside of the stairs to make one more step and reduce the big one. Callme's cassette is going; it's in the hole, sitting on an ammo crate, wired to the radio battery: the Beatles, “Happiness Is a Warm Gun.” I feel OK. The other guys come back with a log that is twice as long as it has to be, so I quit on the steps and start cutting the log in two while they go out for another one.
A little guy comes walking by with clean fatigues on. He asks me if I'm from Two Squad and pulls out a letter.
“I just got back from Rand R,” he says, “and I met a guy i
