Daniel looked at the treasures one by one, because the boy wanted that and because his hands needed something to do. A fossilized shark's tooth from Virginia Beach. A real arrowhead, or one Owen believed was real. A holographic Pokémon card in a plastic sleeve. A rubber band ball. Every letter Daniel had mailed from over there, rubber-banded together, the envelopes softened from handling. A tiny plastic soldier, green, the kind that came by the hundred in a bag, with the base of its rifle chewed.
At the bottom, under the letters, there were two more things.
One was a challenge coin. Daniel knew it before he picked it up: brushed bronze, the battalion crest on one side and on the other the outline of a cargo truck and the motto in raised letters around the rim. It was his own unit's coin. He had one in his duffel. Every soldier in the battalion had one. A soldier doesn't give his coin away lightly. It means something when he does.
The other was a photograph.