Redeployment

A man named Rodriguez approaches the narrator, who is a priest and a chaplain. Rodriguez has blood on his face. The priest thinks about when he used to box. He sees something in Rodriguez’s expression that reminds him of how he felt in the ring, “[t]he space between when rage ends and violence begins” (129). He is four months into his deployment, and a Marine named Fujita has just become the twelfth member of their unit to be killed in action (KIA). Rodriguez smiles, and the narrator wonders if he might be on drugs, and he doesn’t want to be alone with him. Rodriguez says they’ll talk later and leaves.

The chaplain reads from Second Timothy at Fujita’s funeral. Rodriguez also speaks and makes a point of mentioning how Fujita liked the Iraqis. The Marines gather around the casket, and the chaplain observes that “[g]eared up, Marines are terrifying warriors. In grief, they look like children” (132). Rodriguez finds the chaplain afterward in the chapel and says he respects priests and that four months ago, his unit was getting hit every day by suicide bombers. The unit has been in more firefights than any other, which has earned them admiration.