My Father Told Me To Sit Down And Stop Pretending — Then The Colonel Said, “Call Sign?” And I Answered, “Ghost-Thirteen.”
Ghost 13 The air in the strategic briefing room at MacDill Air Force Base always smelled the same: burnt coffee, industrial floor wax, and the metallic tang of aggressive air conditioning. It was a cold, sterile scent—the olfactory signature of bureaucracy and unyielded power. I sat in the back row, seat Z-14. My spine was…