Mr. Vance, the clerk, sat behind a frosted glass counter that had been installed during the Eisenhower administration. He was a small man with a plastic name badge pinned to his green wool cardigan, his fingers stained with blue ink from his stamp pad.
I stood at the counter for several moments before he looked up from his ledger.
“May I help you?” he asked, his voice dry and thin.
I rubbed my left wrist, my thumb tracing the bare skin where Daniel’s silver identification bracelet had once been.
“I am looking for the status of a military archive,” I said, keeping my voice low and precise. “The veteran’s name is Daniel. He was discharged in the winter of 1971.”
Mr. Vance adjusted his reading glasses and pulled a grey ledger toward him.
“Are you next of kin?” he asked.
“I am a close friend,” I said. “I have his service number if that helps. I wrote it in the back of my Bible on December 3, 1968.”
