"So you're not really the: what did that calling card say? 'The Executive Assistant to the Director of Homeland Security?"

"Yeah, I am."

"You just said you were still in the Army."

"And I am. Getting the picture, Fernando? When I said I was getting confused about who I really am?"

"I'm pretty confused, Gringo."

"Try living it," Castillo said. "Okay. Let's start with the Army. I'm a major, just selected for promotion-which means that I go on the bottom of a list. When some Special Forces lieutenant colonel retires, or gets dead or promoted, and there is a space for one more lieutenant colonel, the top man on the list gets promoted. Eventually, I work my way up to the top of the list and become Lieutenant Colonel Castillo."

"Are congratulations in order?"

"That may take a while. I'll let you know when it happens and you can buy me a drink."

"You just said Special Forces. I thought you were Aviation."

"I was commissioned into Aviation when I graduated from West Point:"

"I was there, remember? I was still an Aggie cadet, and I wanted that dollar you had to give me when I was the first one to salute you. I got it framed. It's in my office."

"I was commissioned into Aviation because of my father. Into what other branch of service could I go?"

"Makes sense."

"General Naylor wasn't so sure about that," Castillo said. "He thought I had the potential to be an armor officer."

"Hey, Gringo. Me too. I remember our first trip to Fort Knox. That's when his sales pitches started. He thinks he's your stepdaddy, and that makes me his nephew."

"Anyway, full of West Point piss and Tabasco I embarked on what I thought was going to be my career as an Army Aviator. I spent most of my graduation leave taking the ATR exams. Remember?"

"I remember. I didn't quite understand why you wanted an airline transport rating it you were going to be flying in the Army:

"I wanted to be prepared. What occurred to me lately is that that's when all this bending of the rules started."

"What do you mean?"

"Brand-new second lieutenants don't go right to flight school. They spend a couple of years learning how to run a platoon in the Infantry or laying in cannon in the Artillery. Or driving tanks. I don't suspect for a second that General Naylor had anything at all to do with me being sent to Fort Knox for my initial assignment:"

"That's because you know he doesn't like you, right?" Fernando chuckled. "Jesus, he came to College Station and gave me a sales pitch to go in Armor that wouldn't quit. He made it clear to me that if our sacred ancestors only had a couple of tanks at the Alamo, we really would have kicked Santa Anna's ass all the way back to Mexico City."

"So you went in Armor when you finished A amp;M, and you learned all about the Ml Abrams, right?"

"Right. And I finished that just in time to get my ass shipped to Desert Storm."

"And I was supposed to be there, doing the same thing, but I wasn't, right?"

"They found a vacancy for you in flight school at Fort Rucker, as I recall."

"They made one. 'Son of Medal of Honor Recipient Enters Flight School.' Looks good in the newspapers. I had my picture taken with the post commander the day I arrived. I couldn't have flunked out of flight school if I wrecked every aircraft on Cairns Army Airfield."

"Well, so what? You could fly when you got there."

"You're supposed to forget all that and start with: 'This is a wing. Because of less pressure on its upper surface, it tends to rise in the air taking with it whatever it's attached to.' "

Fernando laughed.

" 'And this is a helicopter,' " Castillo went on. " 'It is different from an airplane because the wings go round and round.' "

Fernando chuckled and, smiling fondly, shook his head.

"I was there about three weeks, I guess, and I fell asleep in class. Basic radio procedure or something. I'd been out howling the night before. With a magnolia blossom named Betty-Sue or something. Unsuccessfully, as I remember. Betty-Sue was holding out for marriage. Anyway, the instructor, a lieutenant, stood me tall: Are you bored in this class, Lieutenant?' "

"Well, the answer to that was, 'Hell, yes, I'm bored,' but I couldn't say that. So I thought about what I could say.

'I asked you a question, Lieutenant!' he pursued.

"So I said, 'Sir, with respect, yes, sir, I am a little.'

"That was in the days when I really believed 'When all else fails, tell the truth.' I wish I still did.

"Anyway, he puffed up like a pigeon and asked why. And I told him I had an ATR and knew how to work the radios. I don't think he believed me. He kicked me out of class. Told me to go to my BOQ and stay there.

"The next morning, I was summoned before a bird colonel. I wasn't as good at reading the brass as I am now, but I could tell he was nervous. He was dealing with the son of a Medal of Honor winner, a graduate of Hudson High, who had lied.

"He said, 'Lieutenant, did you tell Lieutenant Corncob-Up-His-Ass that you hold an Airline Transport Rating?'

" 'Yes, sir, I did,' I said, and showed it and my logbook to him.

"I could tell he was relieved.

"He said, 'Eleven hundred hours? Two hundred in rotary wing? Lieutenant, why didn't you bring this to our attention?'

" 'Sir, nobody asked me.' "

Fernando chuckled and took a pull at his drink.

"So, cutting a long story short, I was sent back to the BOQ and that afternoon they took me out to Hanchey, where an IP gave me a check ride in a Huey. I blew his mind when I said I'd never flown one with only one engine before, my Huey time was in:"

" 'The twin-engine models used by Rig Service Aviation of Corpus Christi'?" Fernando interrupted, laughing. "Oh, Jesus, they must have loved you!"

"Shortly thereafter, I found myself wearing wings, and rated in U.S. Army UH-1F rotary wing aircraft," Castillo went on. "And enrolled in Phase IV, which was transition to the Apache. The General himself came out to Hanchey when I passed my final check ride and shook my hand while the cameras clicked:"

"Abuela bought twenty-five copies of the Express-News with your smiling face on page one and mailed one to me," Fernando said. "I was then living in a tent a hundred miles out of Kuwait City."

"I really thought I was hot shit," Castillo said. "Second lieutenants tend to do that anyway."

"Speak for yourself, Gringo. I myself was the epitome of modesty. Phrased another way, I wondered what the fuck I was doing in the desert having absolutely no idea how I was supposed to command a platoon of Mis when we went through the Iraqi berms."

"You did that well, as I recall. Silver Star."

"The way they were handing out medals all you had to do was be there and you got the Bronze Star. You got the Silver Star if you didn't squash anybody important under your tracks."

"They didn't pass out the Silver Star with the MREs, Fernando. Tell that story to somebody else," Castillo challenged, and then went on: "So there I was, at oh-two-hundred hours on seventeen January, sitting in the copilot's seat of an Apache. I couldn't understand why the CWO-4 flying it was less than thrilled to have my services. At oh-two-thirty-eight we flew over the berms you were talking about and then started taking out Iraqi radar installations."

"You were on that first strike?"

"Yeah. And we took a hit. The CWO-4 took a hit. Something came through his side window, took off his visor, and then went through my windshield and instrument panel. He had plastic and metal fragments in his eyes. He said, 'You've got it. Get us out of here and take us home.' There being no other alternative that I could think of, I did just that."

"I never heard that story before," Fernando said.

"For which I received the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Purple Heart," Castillo went on.