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new recruits they encountered by telling them about it.
    But Scott’s foot wasn’t recovering. As they marched to supper, it went from sore to throbbing and his boot started to feel way too tight.
    After dinner, Alexander told Second Platoon to form up, instead of going back on their own. He started out marching them back, but quickly broke them into a double time. Instead of the two blocks back the barracks, they circled around for several blocks. Scott was nearly carrying his foot; he was almost in tears at this point.
    Finally, Alexander turned the platoon onto the company street, and they went back to a straight march, coming to a halt in front of the barracks. Most of the rest of the company was just milling around, relaxing after the long day. Alexander broke formation then had the platoon take a seat on the gravel. He sat down on a bench and started talking about what an important day it had been, how they’d crossed into the last 30 days of basic training.
    Scott was barely listening, his foot hurt so badly. He was sitting in the back of the group, his head down. Since Roni’s letter, he really started to feel better about this place. Not good, but more that it was survivable. After Saturday and getting back out on the field and kicking again, he started to feel the rhythm might be back. He even thought if Roni could still think about design, maybe he could still think about football.
    But know all he could think about was pain. He didn’t even hear Alexander say, “Dismissed,” only noticing as the rest of guys started to leave. He struggled, and it was only Carl grabbing him under the arm that helped him to his feet. He started to limp back to the barracks, when Alexander stopped him.
    “Mitchell, I rarely say this to a trainee, but I think I was wrong about something,” he said. “You’re really in a lot of pain, aren’t you?”
    Scott nodded, “Yes I am, Drill Sergeant. A lot.”
    Alexander pointed at the bench. “Sit down, son.”
    Scott did, gladly. Alexander reached down and squeezed Scott’s foot, finally putting his thumb on exactly the spot. “Ahhhhh, SHIT,” Scott yelled. “Yeah, that’s the spot.”
    “Well, Mitchell, I owe you an apology,” Alexander said, sounding more like a coach than a DI. “Maybe we should have skipped that run.”
    Scott wasn’t prepared for that answer. While he and Alexander had come to an understanding in certain ways, Scott was still the trainee and Alexander was still the DI. He wasn’t sure how to take it, but at this point, he didn’t care.
    Alexander took him back to the operations shack and called a taxi for him. It was nearly 1845 hours when the cabbie dropped him off at the base hospital front door. He limped in, past a row of pay phones, and followed the signs to the emergency room. After paperwork, and a quick exam, he was sent to X-ray and after the pictures, he returned to the ER waiting room.
    The TV was on, it had just passed over to 2000 hours, and on what had become a pretty dreary Tuesday night, M*A*S*H was coming on. Scott loved M*A*S*H; it was his favorite show and Hawkeye Pierce was his hero. And this was the first TV he’d seen since he left for basic training.
    It was the episode where Hawkeye and BJ had managed to get Radar promoted to 2nd Lieutenant. Scott watched as if he was afraid if he looked away, the screen would grow dark. And as luck had it, it took until the end of the show before they called him back into the exam room.
    “You have a broken bone in your foot,” the ER doctor told him. “You’ll need a cast for a few weeks, but you should be fine. You’ll need to be on crutches, no weight on it for a week, then come back and we’ll give you a walking cast.”
    The day just hit bottom. A cast, crutches, adapted duty. This was about the last thing he needed. As the cast room tech wrapped plaster gauze around his leg, he watched his right foot disappear beneath it. They’d been through a lot together and this was a