The waiters dropped their trays and ran. I reached for where my sword would be. A pack of them was closing on one table in the corner, clapping in rhythm, moving as one. Years of war read it at once: a coordinated strike. A man sat at the center. They had come for him. I rose to defend a stranger. Then they began to chant. “Happy... birthday... to... you.” A war hymn. Slow, deliberate, sung straight into the face of the marked man — who, to his great credit, did not run. He sat. He let them come. A warrior’s death. (I will admit it. My eyes stung. I did not know his name. I saluted him anyway.) I joined the line. I clapped. I do not abandon a man in his final hour. I clapped harder than anyone. When they reached the part where the whole house must sing the name, I sang it loudest, though I had only just learned it was “Greg.” I sang GREG like it was the last word I would ever speak. A waiter leaned toward me. “Sir, do you... know Greg?” “I do now,” I said. “We have stood together.” They brought out fire. A single candle, on a small cake, carried like a sacred flame. So it was true. The end had come. I bowed my head. Greg blew it out himself. Calm. Unflinching. He put out his own pyre with one breath, and the whole house cheered his courage. I have never respected a man more. I stood and applauded until my hands hurt. I would have carried him out on my shoulders. A waitress had to gently explain that Greg was, in fact, turning thirty-one, and was going home after this. Alive. A man should be honored as if every year were his last. That is the only way to deserve the next one. They have asked me not to sing at the other tables. So tell me, America — when the drums come for a man and he does not run, what do you call that, if not the bravest thing in the room?