He looked back at the room.
“And he said, Look at me. You’re going to be fine. I’ve got you.”
Somebody in the room made a sound. A small, choked sound.
“He put his hands over my hands on that steering wheel,” the admiral said. “And he drove me out of that fire. And that night, when I was sitting on my bunk shaking, he sat down next to me and told me something I’ve carried for fifty-three years.”
He looked down at Caleb.
“He said that courage is moving when somebody’s got their hand on your shoulder,” he said. “And that someday I’d be the one putting my hand on somebody else’s shoulder.”
He squeezed Caleb’s shoulder.
“I spent thirty-eight years in the Navy,” the admiral said. “I commanded aircraft carriers. I led fifty thousand sailors. And every single time a young sailor froze, every single time somebody was scared out of their mind, I climbed up on that tractor with them.”
