All in a Day's Work

Honorably discharged after four years of service, the twenty-two year old Sam McKnight found some difficulty in readjusting to civilian life. Sam still talked military, answering questions with “Roger that,” or “affirmative;” Sam looked military, with a muscular build and buzzed hair, standing straight at six foot two; Sam even walked military, carrying himself with a sense of pride for his service and for his country at a brisk ten-minute-mile pace. Sam practiced simple tasks to readjust, consciously telling himself to check his phone regularly, a leisure he had grown to live without, and checking the time—which still read thirteen-hundred on his phone—to retrain his brain from military time.

Sam waited in line for a teller at the bank, and checked his phone to find a picture from his wife, Jennifer, of her and their newborn baby, Stella. Sam smiled for a moment, then heard the door open and a man step inside holding a gun and yelling for everyone to get on the ground, and just for a second, Sam was back in Kevlar, in the dunes of Afghanistan with his platoon in the middle of an ambush.

Everyone dropped to the floor, except Sam, who was still caught in his dream. The gunman pointed his weapon at same and asked, “Are we going to have a problem, pal?”

Sam, ripped from his memory, faced the assailant, and, before given the chance to say yes, recalled the words of his wife, “You're not in Afghanistan anymore, you're not Sergeant McKnight anymore, you're my husband, and a father, stop trying to be the hero!” Sam thought about this long enough for the gunman to become anxious, and then lied down on the floor with the rest of the civilians.

“Good,” the gunman said. He pointed the gun at the tellers, “Now, you three, start filling bags.”

As he waited with eyes closed and head rested against a wall, Sam flashed back to the ambush. He called out orders to Murphy, to Valez, to Burnes, and to himself. He stayed low and behind cover at all times. He kept his eye down the sight and moved toward the target, effectively turning the ambush into a backfire.

Sam opened his eyes, but saw dunes. He looked around and saw his platoon rather than civilians. Then his eyes focused on the enemy. He rose slowly from the floor, staying low. He placed his hand on the wall to gain a boost. Sam took a deep breath, and then his phone rang.

The gunman pivoted toward the sound of the generic, two-tone ring emitting from the phone, now in Sam's hand. “Turn that off, now!”

Sam ignored him. He looked at his phone; a picture of Jennifer and Stella shown on the screen above a bar that read, “swipe to answer.”

“Hey, pal,” the gunman beckoned, “how's about you turn that off so it don't hafta get ugly in here.”

Sam continued ignoring him, staring into the eyes of his wife, and smiling at his daughter.

“Pal,” the gunman said. He put his thumb on the hammer and slowly clicked it back. “Turn it off,” the man said. He began pulling the trigger slightly, “Last chance.” A bead of sweat rolled down his forehead as the ringer finished it's final note and he released the trigger. “Give it here, pal, you've lost privileges.”

Sam re-focused on his surroundings after the image of his wife and child faded to black and noticed the gunman standing over him with an empty hand outstretched toward the phone. Sam sat back down against the wall, gave up his phone and the gunman thanked him. He looked at the people next to him: on the right, an overweight, balding man with a thick mustache and a business suit who has not looked up from the tile floor since he walked in the bank; on the left, a blonde woman holding her baby. Sam was taken aback that she was looking at him as well, then she mouthed the words, “Are you trying to get us killed?”

Then Sam realized that the people in the room cared too much for their lives to even attempt saving anyone else. The military trained Sam differently than that. Dying for someone or something he loved was an honorable death, not a stupid decision.

Sirens grew louder outside and the gunman cursed at the sound. He thought for a second and then pointed at the man next to Sam. “You,” he said, “fat man, get up and come with me.” The fat man stood up and the gunman took him by the back of the collar and walked him to the glass front door. He opened it enough to slide the fat man out and step out behind him.

Sam did not listen as the gunman began shouting commands to the officers in the street. He only made out a few words which were pizza and thirty minutes. Sam watched as the gunman reentered the room and threw the fat man back down on the floor, it was obvious, to Sam at least, that this gunman had not planned to turn this into a hostage situation and did not know what to do from here. A threatened man with a gun and no plan is a dangerous thing.

The sweat was really pouring down the gunman's face now. Every noise sent him spinning with his finger on the trigger. The baby next to Sam finally woke up, and, after a few seconds, began to cry. The gunman frenetically spun toward the lady and yelled, “Shut it up! Shut that baby up now!”

Sam saw the deranged look in the eyes of the gunman, and looked at the frightened woman at the other end of the barrel. Sam looked at his own feet and saw boots instead of flip flops, he saw ACU's instead of shorts and a T-shirt; he felt a helmet on his head and Kevlar on his torso. He looked back over to the woman next to him and saw Jennifer, and the baby was Stella. Everything went silent and Sam was filled with a white-hot rage.

Then, everything went black.

Sam was back in Afghanistan, clearing up the rest of the ambush. He checked on his platoon in time to see an Afghani pop up from the dunes and run toward a private with his back turned. Sam took him out and the private turned only to realize the Afghani man was holding a grenade. The private ran for cover, Sam did not see the grenade until it was too late. He remembered being helicoptered back to base with the private telling him he took a piece of shrapnel to the helmet that knocked him unconscious. The private started saying, “Sam, Sam, Sam, wake up, Sam,” but it was Jennifer's voice.

Sam woke up in a hospital bed with bandages around his stomach. His wife stood at the side of his bed with Stella. “What happened,” Sam asked with a groan.

“You,” Jennifer paused, “you went all 'trained-killer' on some guy with a gun.”

“Then why am I here and not him?”

“Well, you're here because he shot you.” Jennifer teared up a little, but then chuckled, “but, he's here too.” Jennifer pointed to the room next door at a man lying motionless in bed with nurses checking on him. “The doctor's said he'll need some work.”

Sam stared at the gunman in the other room, and then noticed the notes all around his from the police officers standing guard and the civilians in the bank he saved. Many of the notes had the word “hero” in all capital letters.

“I guess it's true,” Jennifer smiled through her tears, “you can take the soldier out of the uniform, but you can't take the uniform out of the soldier.” She looked at her husband, smiling, then added, “And I wouldn't have it any other way.”