Read Sparta for Free Online Page A

side.
    â€œWelcome home, gentlemen. Dismissed,” he said. “Go see your families.”
    At once the platoons broke lines. The men of Dingo Three turned and waded into the milling families as though into the surf, the dense MARPAT brown mingling among the bright colors of the crowd.
    Conrad swiveled, looking for his parents, at the same time watching the reunions around him. Haskell, a grunt from third squad, had barely taken a step before he was seized by a beefy teenage girl with heavy arms and long oiled black curls. “ Bobby! ” she screamed. She threw her arms around his neck, leaning against him and knocking his hat back on his head. Haskell drew back, tucking in his chin, raising his hand to his hat. But she was clamped full-on against his chest, and she pressed her meaty lips over his. A group of plump girls in bright tube tops stood nearby, watching and giggling.
    Private First Class Jackson, second squad, had begun moving slowly into the crowd when a girl in a red dress came running through it and threw herself on him. She jumped into his arms and wrapped her legs around his hips like a monkey. It was somehow electrifying and obscene, with the small children drifting past. Jackson staggered at the impact, but recovered. He put his arms around her and began turning slowly. Her red dress flared out around her in a rippling circle.
    Everyone in the platoon knew who the women were. They all knew names, pictures, stories. The beefy girl kissing Haskell was someone he actually hardly knew, a sort of long-distance girlfriend. They’d gotten to know each other while he was in-country; they’d never even fucked. It got like that, though, people sending hot emails back and forth to people they barely knew back home. All that testosterone had to go somewhere, speeding out onto the Internet.
    Jackson’s girlfriend, Helena, the girl in the red dress, had been a cheerleader back home in Oklahoma, and Jackson was always talking about how strong and flexible she was. Jackson ate coffee powder for energy when they went out on patrol, and when he got stoked, you couldn’t shut him up.
    â€œCheerleaders, man,” he’d say, shaking his head. “You have no fucking idea. They can do anything. Twist into pretzels. Yes! ” He squeezed his eyes shut. “They bend themselves all around like acrobats.”
    After that, “cheerleader” became code for anyone who could do something extraordinary. Bad guys, Ali Babas—which was what you called bad guys—Marines, anyone. And here was the cheerleader herself, doing a flying fuck-jump like a monkey as proof. Jackson was proud of it; that’s why he was swinging her in that circle, her dress flaring. He wanted everyone to see it.
    In-country they talked about women all the time, on patrol in the Humvee, on security, back at the outpost, laughing and lying and sweating and swearing. Once, Jackson had impersonated Helena in a dance contest. He came out from behind a curtain wearing an orange towel and white socks, waving pom-poms made out of white paper he’d gotten from the mess hall. They’d all cheered while he kicked, raising his knees and grinning.
    Usually Conrad wasn’t part of those things: as an officer, he kept apart. There was a lot he didn’t want to see, stuff he left to the sergeant. But the men had invited him to the dance contest. “ The cheerleader,” Jackson had shouted, waggling his eyebrows, swinging his hips inside the orange towel. “ Take it off, ” they’d yelled back. “ Take it all off! ”
    Now Conrad snaked through the crowd, pushing gently past Vasquez: he and his wife had found each other. They stood embracing, locked into each other’s shapes. They were nearly the same height, and they seemed fitted together, eyes closed. They were silent, and Conrad looked away to give them privacy.
    He was glad Claire hadn’t come. He wouldn’t know how to