The front doors were locked. There was a dampening silence that had settled in, finding its place on the back of the muffled grind of passing cars. The Armory that had been home to B SPECFOR was now given to a somber sleep. As I walked to the side of the building, a memory of men and voices seemed to drift softy on the breeze. They were gone; their memories entombed like echos in a canyon of dreams.

The side door had been left ajar. The polished floors extended before me. Runways to another day when soldiers readied themselves for their mission and duty. Even the boot marks had been removed. A testimony to the handing off... the building now in the care of the silent guard, who readied this place for a coming home. A day for which they now stand in silence and wait; hopeful that all of the faces that left will stand tall once again.

Through the corridors drifted a sound. The whirl and grind of papers being shredded. Documents that were no longer of need, tended to by SFC Bailiff. With a somber face he greeted me, hands busy feeding papers into the machine. "I haven't heard anything from the guys yet." His eyes softened with the sadness of having said 'Good-bye.'

"I had a talk with my wife the other night. She was a big help. She reminded me that I had a daughter here that needs me as much as the soldiers." As he filed more papers in for destruction, he seemed less convinced of his own words. "I worry about every one of them... It doesn't make me feel any better knowing that I'm here with my daughter and those guys aren't."

SFC Bailiff has already served a tour in Iraq. Some of the men that deployed on this mission were his comrades on that tour. As we talked it was clear that these men were like his brothers. It wasn't his choice not to deploy; orders from the Sergeant Major. Orders, I should add, that SFC Bailiff respected. "I understand why the Sergeant Major had me stay. It doesn't make it any easier."

As we walked down the hall to his office, we talked of his friends. Stories from Iraq, memories of another time. We passed the empty lockers arriving at his door. A pair of boots sat in silence on the bench. "Someone is going to miss those." As SFC Bailiff busied himself, preparing to go home, I noticed a knife on his desk. A gift to him from the men of B SPECFOR. I asked him about it. "That's when I realized that there was no chance of me joining them." Like the boots, someone is going to miss him as well.

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Copyright, Scott Kesterson- 2006

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