Now and Again by Charlotte Rogan Read Free Book Online Page B

to move quickly,” said Penn.
    “Exactly right,” replied Louise.
    And it no longer made him angry when his father said, “What do you say you put those government-issue leadership skills to work for me?” He could reply, “I’m not cut out for finance, Dad,” without feeling he had to scrape the glue off of his feet or ace his serve to win the set.
    Immediately after the meeting in the DFAC, the colonel sought the captain out for a quiet word. “Hold tomorrow morning’s convoy for a couple of hours,” he said. “Just in case something changes and the supplies are needed somewhere else. I’ll let you know by eight hundred thirty hours.”
    Sinclair followed the colonel toward a vehicle that was waiting for him near a row of containerized housing units. “Where might they be needed?” he asked.
    “I’m guessing Anbar Province, but I’ll know more after my meeting at HQ.”
    “Al Anbar Province? We’re abandoning our projects in Tikrit?”
    “We’re not abandoning anything yet, Sinclair. Did I say I’d have more information after my meeting at HQ?”
    “Yes sir, you did. It’s just that we’ve collected some books and other supplies for that school we’re building on the outskirts of Samarra. I thought the men could drop them off on their way north.”
    Some months before, Sinclair had joined forces with a construction unit that was building a school in its spare time. He saw it as a way not only to make a lasting contribution, but also to foster cohesiveness in his cobbled-together logistics unit, which increasingly seemed to be made up of misfits transferred out of units where they had gotten into trouble or failed to fit in. And the unit had gelled—at least it was gelling. Now Velcro only had to say, “Look sharp!” for whomever he was addressing to jump away from the computer where he was playing solitaire or trying to discover what his girlfriend was doing behind his back and say, “Yes sir! What can I do for you, sir?”
    Now and then he or Velcro laughed and said, “Don’t forget that we were transferred in from other units too. What does that say about us?”
    “Good,” said the colonel as he got into the waiting Humvee. “Building infrastructure is an important benchmark. But the strategy is changing, which means the kinetics will have to change as well. This isn’t just about winning hearts and minds, Sinclair. This is about searching out the bad apples before the rot spreads. This is about clearing neighborhoods and safeguarding residents from violence and intimidation. We’ll have to wait to see if and how your school fits in.”
    “Finishing what we started is important to the men.”
    “No campaign plan survives first contact with the enemy,” said the colonel. “Do you know who said that?”
    “Yes sir.” It was Moltke the Elder, but it could have been Penn’s father, who never tired of stressing the Darwinian need to adapt.
    “What we started is a war,” said the colonel. “Not that we started it.”
    “Yes sir.”
    “Everything in war is simple, but the simplest thing is difficult,” said the colonel.
    “Clausewitz,” said Penn.
    “The little things are the big things.”
    “I don’t know who said that, sir, but the school nicely illustrates the point.”
    “I said it, and you can quote me. I’ll let you know about the school.”
    The colonel squinted at something over Penn’s shoulder. Then he signaled the driver and shouted above the noise of the revving engine, “The stop-loss is bound to hit some of the troops pretty hard. Don’t let them sit around bemoaning their fate. Don’t let them skimp on safety. Tell them they have the rest of today to get it out of their systems, and then you expect them to buckle down. I’ll let you know where to send the convoy. And give any troublemakers something to do!”
    The wheels of the colonel’s Humvee dug in and then spun free, causing it to buck forward while the wind sent a column of dust spiraling across