The phone buzzed during a briefing that’s usually untouchable—phones stay silent in those rooms. Rank, protocol, responsibility. But I have one rule: if Leo calls three times in a row, I answer. Three sharp buzzes. I stepped into the hallway without hesitation.
The moment I heard his voice, everything else—Pentagon walls, brass strategizing, medals on my chest—disappeared. Ten years old. Usually steady. Now whispering from a bathroom stall, barely audible.
“Dad… she said I was lying.”
Piece by piece, he told me what happened. He’d proudly shown his class a photo from my promotion ceremony. His teacher didn’t believe him. She said it was “just a costume,” corrected him in front of everyone, and sent him to the principal for being “disruptive.”
He wasn’t hurt—he was humiliated. And hearing him try to hold it together broke me harder than anything I’d faced in my career. Kids recover from scraped knees. Not from being called a liar for telling the truth.
“Wash your face,” I said. “Sit tight. I’m coming.”
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