Her smile grows, and she shifts on me and straddles my waist, palms splayed on my chest. As she bows forward, dog tags suspend from her neck. Same ones I wore during two tours overseas. They mean something to me, encapsulating a time of my life that civilians can’t understand—and I always planned to give them to the woman I’d marry. I wish I had brought them to Scotland, and I was kicking myself that I hadn’t. Because the dog tags were her Christmas gift.
