That was the last thing Thomas remembered before waking in the military hospital.
Colonel Harwood visited him three days later.
The commander closed the curtain around Thomas’s bed and spoke quietly.
The operation could not be recorded accurately yet.
Geography, command decisions, and intelligence activity made the truth politically dangerous.
Thomas’s injuries would temporarily be listed as resulting from an equipment explosion during training.
“Temporarily?” Thomas asked.
“That is what I have been assured.”
“What about the men who died?”
“Their families will be notified.”
“Not where they died.”
“No.”
Harwood saw the anger in Thomas’s face.
The colonel pulled a chair closer.
“I cannot change the classification today. But I can make sure you are protected.”
He dictated the letter that afternoon.
Thomas watched him sign it.
A Defense Department liaison added his signature and claim number.
Harwood placed the casualty card inside the envelope.
“Keep this until the records are released,” he told Thomas.
“How long?”
“A few years, perhaps.”
Thomas had believed him.
That was the part he found hardest to explain fifty-six years later.
He had not been foolish.
He had simply been young enough to believe that a signed promise made by one part of the government would be honored by another.
Thomas returned home in 1969.