I even offered to drive. All she had to do was come along and criticize my car. “Your allegiance to that antediluvian ark is not my fault,” she said. “At what point does an ark become postdiluvian?” “Just pick me up. And bring coffee.” Our destination was the headquarters of the New York National Guard Forty-Third Infantry Brigade Combat Team. One of the distinctions of a national guard force over the regular army in a hostile theater is all the soldiers come from the same state, often the same towns and cities. That’s why the unofficial name for Jimmy and Alfie’s unit was the Long Island Forty-Third. Likewise, the VA center in Nassau took care of local veterans, so it wasn’t surprising that Jimmy had stumbled over Alfie in the psych ward. I didn’t exactly have a reason to go there, other than heightened curiosity about their service together in Iraq. I assumed Jimmy had already said whatever he was going to say, so this seemed the next best way to go. I didn’t know if they’d talk to me, which was another reason to bring along Jackie, who was almost as good as Eddie at getting people to open up.
