Training Took Over
Military training doesn’t turn people into machines.
You still feel fear.
You still feel pain.
You just learn that panic doesn’t get to make your decisions for you.
So I ran through the same mental process I’d used countless times in my career.
Assess the child.
Assess the environment.
Identify immediate risks.
Find communication.
Find shelter.
Preserve evidence.
Noah had bumped his forehead when the SUV stopped, so I checked him first.
A small red mark, but he was alert, talking normally, walking fine.
Next, the cold.
I took off my coat and wrapped it around him.
“Aren’t you cold?” he asked.
“I’m fine.”
Not entirely true.
But he needed the coat more than I did.
I moved us farther from the traffic lane and put Noah on the safest part of the shoulder.
Then I started looking around.
That’s when I saw it.
About sixty yards behind us stood a tall metal pole.
At the top, a highway traffic camera.
I stared at it for several seconds.
My parents had picked a dark road believing darkness meant privacy.
But the camera had been positioned perfectly.
If it was running, it could have caught their vehicle stopping.
It could have caught my father unloading our things.
It could have caught Noah and me being left on the shoulder.
For the first time that night, I felt something other than disbelief.
Hope.
