The echoing cacophony of the seventh inning pounded through the tunnel. He stood with his daughter mere feet from the field, separated only by the dugout and short concrete steps. He’d maneuvered his back to the tunnel wall, eliminating some of his rising anxiety in the confined space. His eyes swept left, right, left, compulsively vigilant. He didn’t want to be here, not like this. 

Games were always loud, but especially so when a brigade of Red Sox invaded the Bronx. He brought his daughter to a few games per season, and always one against Boston. She was nine when the tradition began—after Afghanistan. Year by year, he could afford better seats. Row by row, they moved closer to the field and to each other. He matured into the monotone of middle age as her freckles faded into a Film and Media scholarship at Columbia. 

Questions ricocheted through his mind. Why am I even here? Why did I agree to this stylized feel-good ceremony? He didn’t feel deserving, but his daughter had set the whole thing up. He imagined her sending emails, making phone calls, and probably doing some kind of paperwork. Was there a waitlist? How long had she been planning this? She’d told him how afraid she had been that he would not come back from the war. That she eventually realized he was most alive at baseball games. She wanted this for him and, he supposed, that was enough. He decided to give her the gift of believing she was honoring him for his service. 

The pretty woman holding a clipboard smiled at him. He wanted to smile. He tried, blushing instead. He could imagine how she saw him. The veteran. The presumed hero. What would she think if she could see the real man? The hypocrite hiding behind his beard? 

He quickly broke the awkwardness, dropping his head, pulling the brim of his cap low over his eyes, and stroking the macho safety blanket covering his face. The move was self-conscious—self-soothing—but through experience, he knew it appeared thoughtful.

Veteran events always reminded him of the anger, resentment, and injury he’d brought home from the war. He’d spent too long suppressing his pain—self-loathing, disillusionment, disability—the forensic residue of a life you can never fully abort.

His daughter reached and patted his hand, one eyebrow raised just higher than the other as she tried to look at him without seeming to. Both nervous and loving. A look that said, I’m here for you, but you don’t need help. Her hand covered his fist, wrapped tightly around the crook of his cane—a butterfly perched on granite. Her touch warmed him until his knuckles cooled into relaxation. She trusted him and seeing that trust softened his body a bit into the wall. She reached and adjusted his ball cap.

He hoped his tight smile reached his eyes. He’d never let her see the persistent and conflicting emotions he felt. He’d protected her from them. 

The home his daughter had grown up in, the one he provided, valued baseball the way other families valued patriotism. Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig were founding fathers. Derek Jeter more respected than any modern president. He remained grateful for his country and its money, which he tried to believe was a sort of love. Uncle Sam had paid for his education, and the disability pay had seen them through difficult financial times. People said the benefits were earned, that he was entitled to them. He wasn’t sure he believed that but he could still feel grateful. 

Until today, he’d avoided wearing one of these black ball caps with yellow block script proclaiming US Army Veteran above colorful, generic service ribbons. Not that he blamed other guys for wearing them. In many ways, he envied their pride. He felt uneasy with other vets. How had they escaped losing their patriotism? Or had they found ways to reassemble their fragmented faith? He still stood for the National Anthem, hand over his heart, but it had taken years to stop himself from keeping his heels together, toes spread at forty-five-degree angles, knees bent slightly to avoid passing out. He wore the cap now. It had come with the package.

His daughter had made a special trip home on Father’s Day. She had barely hugged him before pushing a large white box with a thick blue ribbon into his hands. Sitting beside him on the couch, she bent over her bouncing knees, rubbing her hands together. He opened the gift, saw the black hat, and tilted his head to hide aversion behind a veil of confusion. He did not look at her and she remained silent as he reached for the thick envelope lying atop a crisp New York Yankees jersey. He’d opened the envelope, containing a heavy, expensive-feeling invitation. The white card with its metallic, looping blue script invited him—veteran and lifelong fan—to be the Honored Military Guest at Yankee Stadium. 

He heard an umpire’s grunting call, the signature whistle from the stadium speakers declaring a strikeout, and more uproarious cheering. He glanced out through the tunnel and saw players hustling toward the dugout. The cameraman adjusted his equipment on his shoulder. A man in a Yankees polo spoke into a walkie-talkie that squawked a staticky reply. 

White noise pulled him deep into his mind. He pinched his eyes closed as his head spun—No, no, no. 

“Where are they?” 

“I don’t know. Can’t see them.” 

“Contact right!” 

Pop—pop—pop—pop

He shook his head as the long-ago gunfire blended with the clapping from around the stadium. He pressed the memory back into its box, dusty with inattention. 

“Are you ready?” the man asked. It was a polite command, not a question. Mister walkie-talkie extended his arm toward them as he walked backward, urging them forward. 

He stepped off, leading with the left foot the way his Drill Sergeant had taught him. Some things never leave. He left the tunnel, limping up the camera well’s concrete stairs, placing both feet on each step. His daughter steadied him as his cane sank just enough into the grass behind home plate. It dizzied him to realize that this was how Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle had lived.

Walkie-talkie pointed to a spot on the grass. His daughter guided him and he focused on his steps, avoiding the camera lens two feet from his face. 

The organist played the US Army Song. 

How many times had he heard that tune? At least once every year during Veteran’s Day programs at his daughter’s schools. Reluctantly standing in the crowd as the service hymns played. Vets sheepishly glancing at each other as if asking, I don’t have to do this alone, right? A nod of acknowledgment behind private and derisive envy for the one guy who showed up in uniform. Perhaps he’ll get out unjaded. Probably not. 

Cheering fell from the sky like God’s wrath. For the first time, he wondered whether stadiums were built to funnel decibels toward the field. From the safety of his seat in section 215, he’d watched other veterans do this many times. Now he was grateful all he had to do was stand and wave. Nobody would ask questions provoking the rote answer, “You do it for the brothers and sisters over there with you.” 

He had never told anyone that war is a drug. How do you tell people that the time of your life had been in a war zone? Every living, breathing, pulsing part of you is alive, even at rest. In the years since he’d been home, he’d missed sleep that felt stolen and breath that felt borrowed. Better to ignore that truth, halting the brightness of then from illuminating the lesser now. 

The speakers reverberated from all angles: “Ladies and gentlemen, will you please rise and remove your caps. And please direct your attention to the area behind home plate, as the New York Yankees welcome an honored military guest, who is joined by his daughter. United States Army…” 

The disembodied voice faded into the background of his awareness behind the applause. Avoiding the camera, he looked up. As people stood, the stadium moved outward in a roiling heat wave, upward from the field toward the iconic, white frieze of the upper deck.

He saw himself projected onto the Jumbotron in left-center field. Someone had gotten ahold of his service photo. The once innocent, patriotic him. The gleam of the boy who only wanted to be a soldier still visible in the eyes of that long-dead young man. 

The echoing public address forced itself back in, “...who served in Operation Enduring Freedom…” 

What freedom? he thought. Enduring where? Here, in America? The land of the free-to-pull-out of Afghanistan? To abandon the people who trusted us? Who listened to the promises we’d made? That he’d made. 

“We are here to train, advise, and assist.” 

“For how long?” 

“As long as it takes.” 

“Thank you.” 

He remembered seeing hordes of civilians rushing the airfield in Kabul. The threats shouted at yesterday’s friends to stay back. Muzzles pointing at the lies. Bodies falling from aircraft after takeoff. Their hearts no longer beating. Their minds opened by zealously flung stones in roughly dug desert holes. The stockpiles of weapons left to reinforce a reinvigorated Taliban. 

Again, the speakers sounded, “...the Yankees say thank you for your sacrifice and service to our nation.” 

Coming home alive was no sacrifice, by comparison. But he had sacrificed, if not his life, certainly a portion of it. Hadn’t his injuries jeopardized his quality of life? How many times could he not help coach his daughter’s teams because running or reaching for a ball were out of the question? Each step against his cane, each spasm of pain scorching a path from his lower back to his toes. How many career prospects had been immediately negated? How many times had he drifted off, assaulted by unprovoked fear or rage or, simply, absence? What had he missed? 

When the overlay faded from the huge screen, he saw himself in the moment. Tattoos flowed down his arms, extending rebelliously from beneath the crisp, white pinstriped jersey. Each permanently inked line attempting to answer questions only he needed answered. The needling self-expression burying his pain beneath symbol. The runes of emotion too painful to name. 

The screen showed him listing slightly to the left, beside his daughter. Her toothy smile competed with the glow of the stadium lights. 

Turning away from his image, he focused on his daughter. She wore the hat he’d bought her years ago. Her nose crinkled with joy, smiling, with her arm wrapped around his. Seeing her this happy, though—and the love behind her gesture—reminded him how fortunate he was. 

“Now, ladies and gentlemen, please join in Robert Merrill’s rendition of 'God Bless America.’” 

Removing his cap, he watched a pair of fans in the bleachers clutching the four corners of the stars and stripes. Two people did this same thing in the seventh inning as “God Bless America” played, every home game for as long as he could remember. Maybe not the same two fans, but someone was always there. The dignity of their pride was as deafening as the cheering. 

He stood behind home plate, leaning into his daughter’s unwavering pride in him, hearing the crowd applaud a version of himself he feared, seeing the flag nobly held, all in the name of the country he’d risked everything for. He asked himself the question he’d been asking for years: Why can’t I feel that way anymore? 

BRIG BERTHOLD is a US Army Veteran whose work has appeared in The Good Men Project and Military Experience & The Arts. Brig is co-host of the Baseball Together podcast and a member of the IBWAA. He lives in Spartanburg, South Carolina.