“Mail, Sergeant Major.

I look over to see the corporal holding a letter in his hand, and I’m confused as to why he’s giving me mail. “Check that address, Riggs. I think you’re mistaken.”

“Begging your pardon, sir. I’ve double-checked and it’s for you. Sergeant Major.”

The young corporal is nervous as most of the guys are around me. I’m an almost forty-year-old Sergeant Major with five tours under my belt, so I can see how he might be afraid to tell me I’m wrong.

The sad part is, I know I’m right. Three years away from the big 4-0 and I don’t have any family back home who would send me anything. All my friends are the guys I’ve served in combat with, and we don’t really do the whole letter thing.

“Alright. Leave it with me.” I’ll just have to make sure it gets to the correct person since it must have been labeled incorrectly. “Dismissed, Riggs.”

“Yes, Sergeant Major.”

I walk over to my desk, turning the letter over in my hands.

I’m on my last tour before retirement, deployed in Yemen with a group of about eighteen men. I’m in charge of all of them, and my job is to get everyone home safe. It’s not something I take lightly, and as soon as this is finished, I’m looking forward to hanging up my boots. I’ve been enlisted and working up the ranks since the day I turned eighteen and could enlist in the Corps. I was raised in an orphanage in the Midwest, and when the high-school recruiter came by telling me I had a way out, I was all too eager to jump at the chance. Now, twenty years later, my time is up, and I’m ready to do what I want to do.

I take a seat in one of the chairs next to a makeshift desk and look over the envelope and see my name perfectly spelled out in beautiful handwritten script.

Thinking it might still be a mistake, I open it up and read the letter. I feel my face start to ache from the smile plastered on it as I read the words intended just for me.

I remember that our platoon is registered as pen-pal responsive. Our names were put on a list through the Marine services, so if people wanted to send care packages or write, we would receive such items.

I don’t care that she did this out of some obligation or class project. Or that it was sent to us for any reason in particular. She’s utterly adorable, and I can’t describe ho