"Morning, Daddy," she whispered. "They gave me another star."
A breeze moved across the square. Grace smiled faintly, imagining his practical response and the way he would pretend not to be impressed until she turned away. She told him she was trying to do the work properly, that the scholarship was helping young people, and that there were still things she wished she had asked him before he died. The words were private, meant for a daughter and a memory rather than anyone holding a camera.
When she turned, Maya Soto was waiting a respectful distance away with the color guard. The teenager looked older than she had a year before, and her uniform was fitted more carefully. Grace walked toward her and offered her hand. Maya shook it firmly, then admitted she had been nervous all morning about saying something foolish.
"You've already said something important," Grace told her. "You wrote me a thoughtful letter. How is the engineering club?"
Maya's face brightened. She told the general about a bridge-building competition, a design that failed during testing, and the embarrassment of admitting she had miscalculated the load. Grace asked what she had done afterward. Maya said she went back to the measurements, found the mistake, and built a stronger version.
"That's engineering," Grace said. "And it's leadership, too. A mistake is information if you let it teach you something."
Walter Sykes approached with his cap in his hands. He greeted Grace respectfully and asked whether she remembered the promise she had made about returning. She told him she did. He said the town had been through a difficult year, but the committee had worked hard to make the ceremony a good one. Grace thanked him for being there the previous year and for everything he had done afterward.
"I wish I could say I was brave," Walter replied. "I was angry enough to speak. It took me a while to understand those weren't quite the same thing."
Grace shook his hand. "Speaking mattered. What you did with that anger afterward mattered, too."
Nora called the volunteers into position, and the color guard began its procession. Grace took her place beside the stage without anyone questioning her identity or her right to be there. She watched families settle into chairs and the flags moving in the morning wind. The moment felt ordinary in a way she had not expected to find comforting.
When Nora introduced Lieutenant General Grace Monroe, the audience stood. Grace walked to the microphone, waited for the applause to subside, and began speaking about the responsibility to remember those who served even when their names were not familiar. She did not turn the previous year's assault into the subject of her address. She mentioned that a community's promises are measured by what its people do on the difficult days, then returned to the lives of the veterans and families gathered before her.