Only a Game?

I STARED DOWN AT THE GOLF BALL atop its tee. My hands tightened around the grip of my club. I tried to recall the coach’s advice on how to actually hit this thing.

I swung my arms downward as fast as I dared. Thud! The club bit into the grass just shy of the tee. A total miss. I could feel the eyes of the seven other female veterans on me. “What am I doing here?” I muttered.

It was the same thought I’d had 20 years earlier, when my unit landed in Saudi Arabia.

I’d joined the Army Reserve on a whim, looking to inject a little excitement into my life. The training exercises were one weekend a month. I was 35. Single. A phlebotomist at a hospital. I knew Reserve forces were the first to get the call if the U.S. were ever in a full-on war. But what was the chance of that? It was