“Why would they?” I said. “I don’t put it on my resume. The airline knows I flew military, but
they don’t put it in the crew file. That citation is mine, not theirs. I keep it to remind myself that the worst day of my life is already over. Everything else is just turbulence.”
The flight attendant — her name was Rachel, I learned later — stepped forward. She was young, maybe twenty‑four, with a small silver cross on a chain around her neck. “Captain Hope,” she said, “I just want to say… my dad was a Marine. He always told me there were women out there who did things nobody talks about. I guess I just met one.”
I looked at her, and for a second, I saw my own daughter — who I hadn’t seen in four years when I got back from that deployment, who I’d spent every year since trying to make it up to. “Thank you,” I said. “Tell your dad thank you for his service.”
