“Why wouldn’t they?” she answers incredulously, as she pushes her hair out of her face. “You’re a hero, Gabe. Everyone knows it but you. For months you only focused on what you didn’t do that night. What you should’ve been focusing on was what you did.”
I stare at her, meeting her gaze. “I know,” I answer.
And finally it’s true. I do know. I know that I couldn’t have stopped what happened that night. It wasn’t my fault. The failure wasn’t mine.
It’s something that’s taken me quite a while, but I’m at peace with it now.
Because the wheels of the government turn slowly, it wasn’t until a month ago that we got the call. They wanted to honor Brand and me for that night. Brand with the Purple Heart and me with the Medal of Honor.
A medal for outstanding valor in the face of great peril, above and beyond the call of duty. That’s what the president said to me today as he hung the blue ribbon around my neck.
Maddy and Jacey sat in the front row and cried.
And Mad Dog’s wife was there next to them. It took her months. But time and a letter from Maddy made her understand that I would’ve given my life to save Mad Dog’s.
And I would’ve.
But that’s not how it happened. So I’m here today to honor his memory in the only way I can.
Kneeling, I drape the blue ribbon around the top of his headstone.
“Don’t let this go to your head,” I tell him.
Of course he’s not here to hear me. But somehow, with the quiet reverence of this place, it seems almost possible that he is. That he’s standing behind me with a bottle of Mad Dog in his hand, laughing as I leave my medal with a dead man.
But that’s OK.
It belongs here.
I need to leave it behind, along with everything else that happened that night. I don’t want to think about it anymore.