Chapter 10 - THE FINAL SALUTELater that afternoon, Emily and I drove out to the Cedar Creek cemetery.
We walked up the quiet grassy hill where my father’s headstone stood polished and gleaming in the winter sun. Engraved across the gray granite were the words he had lived by:
Colonel James Mitchell. Husband, Father, Soldier. Duty, Honor, Family.
I knelt down, brushing a stray autumn leaf off the stone, and placed a small, polished brass military challenge coin right in the center of the granite base—the private sign-off we used to share whenever one of us completed a difficult mission.
Emily knelt beside me, placing a single white rose next to the coin.
"We're going to be okay, Dad," Emily whispered, her voice steady and clear.
I looked out over the rolling Tennessee hills, feeling the cold wind brush against my face.
Some people spend their entire lives trying to build their worlds on a foundation of deceit, manipulation, and the false belief that control equals power. They try to silence the truth, lock away justice, and erase the sacrifices of those who stand in their way.
But they forget a fundamental truth of life and war:
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The truth cannot be buried forever. And when a father asks his daughter to wear her uniform with pride, no power on earth can keep her from standing tall.
I stood up, squared my shoulders, raised my hand in one final, crisp salute to the man who had taught me everything I knew, and turned toward the road—ready for whatever war, or peace, came next.
