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Show Anting Alone Page 304 Shannon put on her sour TV-actress voice. "I don't need no advisin. This is Today's Army. You know, like in 'Today's Army wants to join with you'? And they been providin me with all the conveniences of home. Like I got my own cute little personal captain-counselor that raps with me about what's been mess in my head up any time night and day. I don't need no mean auntie to put my affair straight, thank you very much the same." Shannon just realized that it wasn't only her big sister's ideas, but also the uniform she called her own that made her strong now. She was just in her sweaty old fatigues, but that was a heck lot more than what Spikey was in. Just a old Wembley shirt and hay-covered dungarees and Redwings with cowpie around the edges is all he had on him. Spikey seemed to suddenly get an idea that made him braver. He moved about a nosehair forward, into the green-gloomy light from between the slat-blinds . "You been payin attention to the news lately, woman?" Shannon got just a little touch of her old college-girl embarrassedness back. She never read the newspaper because, thanks to a lifetime of schoolteachers like mean old Sammy, it took forever for her to read the big words and also the small words, too. And Dan Rather was cute and dreamy and all, but bo-ring. No, she never paid attention to the news. Nobody here at the fort paid attention to the news, at least not the regular GI's and non-coms. All this new talking the president was doing about nuclear stuff depressed everybody here because it reminded them of how obsolete ground forces will be in a all-out war-type situation, or so her cute captain-counselor said when he explained to her howcome everybody was so down around |