PART 1: The Brass Compass   The air inside “The Brass Compass” tasted of stale hops, furniture polish, and seventy years of unwashed…

PART 1: The Echo of Sarajevo   The guard at the Camp Pendleton main gate didn’t look at my face. He looked at…

PART 1: The Silence Before the Storm   The wind off the Rockies didn’t just blow; it cut. It was a physical weight,…

PART 1 The collision happened in the narrow, humid dead zone between the beverage station and the salad bar. It was a mundane…

PART 1: THE SILENCE OF THE GRINDER Coronado smells like salt, diesel, and the nervous sweat of men who are afraid they aren’t…

PART 1: THE SILENT WAR The heat rising off the tarmac at the Naval Special Warfare Center in Coronado wasn’t just hot; it…

PART 1: The Silence Before the Storm San Diego smells like salt spray, diesel fuel, and, if you stay out late enough, bad…

Part 1 I never wanted to go. I can admit that now. That sunny Saturday morning at Camp Pendleton, I was the reluctant…

PART 1 I thought I was a god. That’s not an exaggeration. At twenty-three years old, I was a specimen of physical perfection.…

PART 1 The steel handcuffs bit into my wrists, cold and unforgiving, but they were nothing compared to the stares burning into the…