Then the shelling stopped, and my spirit, reluctantly leaving the peace of its elevated plane, slipped back into my body. I was whole again. I was a whole man. The Jesuits at college had stressed that: the purpose of a Jesuit education is to create a whole man. And I was a whole man again in my foxhole; a whole in a hole. I crawled out to the edge of the perimeter and called to Smith’s fire-team. “Yes, sir,” Smith said in a whisper. “You guys all right?” “Outside of being cold, wet, miserable, hungry, and scared shitless, we’re just fine, sir.” “No casualties?” “No, sir. Because I’m black, the
...more
