A broken vow, a soldier's torment

A broken vow, a soldier's torment
Barbara Barrett, Washington Correspondent
AHOSKIE - Late at night, after the moon has settled into the swamps and cotton fields surrounding Army Sgt. 1st Class Chad Stephens' home, the soldier puts down his last drink.
He pulls himself off the sofa, leans over the television to snap quiet his latest war movie and lies in bed next to his wife of 12 years.

The dream never takes long to arrive. Stephens' platoon of Bradley fighting vehicles is somewhere in Iraq, pinned down by the enemy.

Grenades fly at them. Bullets ding off metal. His troops holler into their radios, and Stephens, the platoon leader, feels the danger.

On this night in his dream, like every night, Stephens will keep a promise -- to his soldiers and, in particular, to the mother of a blue-eyed gunner named Danny.

Nearly four years ago, in January 2004, the N.C. National Guard platoon sergeant stood in an Army classroom facing that mother and the families of the 40 men he was about to lead into war.

He stood 6-foot-4 and infantry-lean, and in the confident voice familiar to his men, he made a promise: I'll bring your sons home.

He had wanted it to be true.

Even then, Stephens knew he was lying.
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