In attendance was a dark, handsome man of Samoan ancestry named Isaia Vimoto; he was the command sergeant major of the 173rd and the highest enlisted man in the brigade. Vimoto’s nineteen-year-old son, Timothy, was a private first class in Second Platoon, and after the ceremony Vimoto asked Battle Company’s First Sergeant LaMonta Caldwell where his son was. Caldwell walked Vimoto over to the wire and pointed down-valley. ‘He’s down there at Phoenix,’ he told him. Vimoto had requested that his son serve in Battle Company because he and Caldwell were best friends. ‘You tell him I said hello,’ he
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