Fort Dix: The Man Above Me, Thad L. Overturf (June 2026)

 

Fort Dix: The Man Above Me

They tell me I was on the bottom bunk.
They tell me I found him.
They tell me I called for help
and that he lived.
 
I have no argument with any of this.
 
The man above me
has no face.
No name I kept.
Just a life I’m told
continued
because of me.
 
That first week took two others.
 
I know this the way you know
something from a briefing,
not from the ground.
 
One by hanging.
The other
no one ever said,
or I have no place
to put it.
 
 They changed the cadre after that.
New voices.
New rotations.
Every two weeks
everything reset
as if that might keep it
from happening again.
 
Then came the stripes.
  
E1 to E3
by the end of basic.
Brass teeth
biting into a sleeve
I hadn’t filled.
 
They pinned it on anyway.
 
A promotion
for a man
who isn’t here.
 
I wear it.
 
 It fits
like something issued
to the wrong body,
kept out of habit,
out of respect
for the one who earned it.
 
I think about him sometimes,
the man above me,
somewhere in a life
that kept going.
 
And me,
taking it on faith
that I was there.
 
That I reached.
That I held.
That it counts.