itd all happened so quicklythe phone call , the request for emergency leave , the flight home in a vast cargo bay with two dozen other silent soldiers ( all male ) and four tarped apache helicopters ( one with dried blood on its port-side landing skid ) , securing the rental car from the civilian side of the airbase , the long drive over dark and empty roads , the homecoming to a dark house that was no longer home , to sit beside the death bed of a man who was once her father but seemed now ( and looked ) a stranger .