That evening Tim Fresco pulled into his parents’ driveway, put the truck in park, and sat staring at the house he had grown up in. Funny how it looks so much smaller now, he found himself thinking as he looked back over the past year. Funny how much bigger the world got.
Just over eight months into their tour, Tim’s platoon had been on routine route clearance patrol and had been ambushed, taking heavy fire. He vaguely remembered shouting as the first wave of chaos unfolded all around them, then seeing Dack collapse to his left.
But as he lunged toward his best friend to check Dack’s injuries, an enemy soldier’s round pierced his left shin, shattering Tim’s lower leg and sending him writhing in pain to the ground. The next thing Tim remembered was hearing someone call for a nine-line medi
