The Valley Read Online Free Page A

into the mold and pulled him from the oven, they saw what they’d made and cried,
That’s it!
then hugged one another and drank reasonable amounts of sparkling cider to celebrate.
    He was a little of everything and a little of nothing. He yelled at the right people, didn’t yell at the wrong people, didn’t fail in his duties, didn’t cause surprises or embarrassments. He was just so.
    Despite these attractive qualities, Black felt less of the natural suspicion that someone like Gayley would ordinarily fill him with. Most commanders in Gayley’s position, having a lieutenant in Black’s position fall into their lap, would have put that lieutenant in the flunkiest officer job in the whole battalion and forgotten all about him.
    Which was precisely what Gayley had done. Being assigned involuntarily to the S-1 job was essentially an announcement by the Army that
This officer is not suited for any other task.
    But Gayley had not forgotten about Black entirely, and in his own way he’d made a project of his young lieutenant. Mostly this entailed asking him how things were going from time to time, and on the rare occasions when the two were alone giving well-meaning motivational talks on the themes of Making the Most of Things, Turning Setbacks into Opportunities, and Keeping Your Chin Up, sometimes with a bona fide clap on the shoulder for punctuation.
    Black tolerated these with more patience than he ordinarily would, because while most officers in the battalion either ignored him completely or were openly hostile, Gayley was merely insufferably patronizing. That he could work with.
    Besides, there were aspects of Gayley that Black genuinely respected. He was not fat, for one.
    And Gayley had not, in his methodical hand-over-hand up the Army ladder, lost the ability to be succinct. Somehow, despite being known throughout the battalion as a Dudley Do-Right with golden hair and a six-sided jaw who harangued unsuspecting soldiers at length about the power of positive thinking, Gayley could still get to the point when it came to actual work. True to form, he tossed the packet of papers across the table so Black could see it.
    â€œFifteen-six officer.”
    â€œSir?”
    He picked up the sheaf.
    â€œFifteen-six, son. It’s your turn.”
    Army Regulation 15-6 governs investigations of misconduct within a military unit. The 15-6 investigation is the commander’s initial inquiry into possible wrongdoing. The offense might be significant or trivial, might lead to nothing or to court-martials and ended careers. But it all starts with the 15-6.
    The investigation must be conducted by an officer of greater rank to the individual or individuals suspected of the wrongdoing. Because most of the people in the Army are not officers, and because most higher-ranking officers don’t want to spend their time serving as amateur internal affairs investigators, most 15-6 investigations can safely be shunted off on lieutenants, the lowest-ranking officers, without violating any rules.
    Black remembered how a friend had explained it to him when he drew his first 15-6, involving a break-in at a barracks back in the States.
    You are investigating soldiers who don’t know you, because the regulations require that the fifteen-six officer be from a different unit from where the misconduct happened. So they see you only as a rat. You get no help from the unit itself, because you
are
a rat, and also because you are a lieutenant, and no one respects lieutenants because they haven’t proven anything to anyone yet. No one trusts you, you get no help, and the whole thing will suck.
    No sense drawing out the pain. Black began skimming the cover sheet. Gayley said nothing.
    He recognized the unit involved. Third Battalion, 44th Infantry Regiment, abbreviated 3/44, had its headquarters and barracks on the far side of FOB Omaha. Black often passed through its neighborhood on foot while walking across the