T.J. was proud. He had finally gotten his promotion.

Normally, a company formation was not held in a forward base. It was too tempting a target for mortar fire. But it was decided that tradition should rule. The company was formed.

T.J. would have none of that. This was too long coming. He decided to watch through binoculars from a safe distance.

“Attention to orders. PFC T.J. is promoted to Specialist.”

T.J. saw the signal and slapped his new rank on. He gave a thumbs-up.

The first round started to fall. “Hmm…” T.J. thought. “Maybe I can make sergeant soon.”

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.