"I don't miss anything from home. The only exception is my bike. I miss that. Speed, solitude and no one can touch me." I love Brad Colbert. I wish he would go home and ride his bike. Ray stares into space, quiet and sad and very very small. "Hey. Where the fuck did you go? You haven't said two words since Baghdad." Ray shrugs: "No more Ripped Fuel." His mouth looks quieter, smaller. He has turned into somebody else. "Man... It seems no matter where we go as Marines, it's always some fucking shithole..." Evan arrives with his bags to say goodbye, looking for something. They look blankly back at him, and he finally says goodbye. Ray smiles and nods, softly, but he keeps standing there. They stare at him. "Uh. Thanks," he says, very seriously, for a lot of reasons, and Brad hears that. "Stay frosty," he says, and smiles. Brad watches Evan leave as Espera arrives, inviting them to a football game with Alpha, and tiny Ray stands up. "Back among the living?" asks Brad, and smiles to himself.

Evan meets with Godfather at Battalion; he smiles easily, because he has no idea what Evan's seen, or just how much smarter Evan is. "So what'd you see, reporter?" Evan chuckles quietly. "No other military in the world can do what we do. The Marines are America's shock troops. Is there anything you want to ask me before you unhitch your wagon?" Yeah, I've got some motherfucking questions. Starting with: "Captain Americ... Captain McGraw," he corrects himself with a laser bolt from Ferrando's eyeballs, "Sir." Godfather nods, and attempts to do his usual gift-of-gab thing: "All right now, he walked a fine line, okay, but in the end, he was within the box of acceptable behavior. But in my mind, when you allow that behavior to progress, you end up with a My Lai." (Evan: Word, exactly.) "You think I should have taken harsher action." Evan kind of disbelievingly brings up the two separate attempts at bayoneting a person, and Godfather is like, easy one: "But no Iraqi prisoners actually wounded. All right, now I wasn't there to see what happened and I have conflicting reports from those who were." (Evan can agree with that.) "But we're in a war zone, reporter." (True.) "And if I expect my subordinates to remain effective in combat, then I have to show them trust... Until it's proven to me beyond any doubt that they are undeserving of that trust."