The Death of Santini: The Story of a Father and His Son

by Pat Conroy

  “You are, O Great Santini, you are.”

  “Who knows all, sees all, and hears all?”

  “You do, O Great Santini, you do.”

  We were not in the middle of a normal childhood, yet none of us were sure, since it was the only childhood we would ever have.

  For all we knew other men were coming home and shouting to their families “Stand by for a pharmacist” or “Stand by for a chiropractor.”

  In the odd, bewildered world of children we knew we were in the presence of a fabulous, overwhelming personality, but had no idea we were being raised by a genius of his own mythmaking.

  My mother always told me that my father had reminded her of Rhett Butler on the day they met, and everyone who ever knew our mother conjured up the lovely, coquettish image of Scarlett O’Hara.

  Let me give you my father the warrior in full battle array. The Great Santini is catapulted off the deck of the aircraft carrier Sicily. His Black Sheep Squadron is the first to reach the Korean Theater, and American ground troops had been getting torn up by North Korean regulars.

  Let me do it in his voice: “We didn’t even have a map of Korea. Not zip. We just headed toward the sound of artillery firing along the Naktong River. They told us to keep the North Koreans on their side of the Naktong. Airpower hadn’t been a factor until we got there that day. I radioed to Bill Lundin—I was his wingman—‘There they are. Let’s go get ’em.’ So we did.”

  I was interviewing Dad, so I asked, “How do you know you got them?”

  “Easy,” the Great Santini said. “They were running—it’s a good sign when you see the enemy running. There was another good sign.”

  “What was that, Dad?”

  “They were on fire.”

  This is the world in which my father lived deeply. I had no knowledge of it as a child.

  When I was writing the book The Great Santini, they told me at Headquarters Marines that Don Conroy was at one time one of the most decorated aviators in the Marine Corps. I did not know he had won a single medal. When his children gathered together to write his obituary, not one of us knew of any medal he had won, but he had won a slew of them.

  When he flew back toward the carrier that day, he received a call from an army colonel on the ground who had witnessed the march of the North Koreans across the river. “Could you go pass over the troops fifty miles south of here? They’ve been catching hell for a week or more. It’d do them good to know you flyboys are around.”

  He flew those fifty miles and came over a mountain and saw twenty thousand troops hunkered down in foxholes. He and Bill Lundin went in low so these troops could read the insignias and know the American aviators had entered the fray.

  My father said, “Thousands of guys came screaming out of their foxholes, son. It sounded like a World Series game. I got goose pimples in the cockpit. Get goose pimples telling it forty-eight years later. I dipped my wings, waved to the guys. The roar they let out. I hear it now. I hear it now.”

  During the Cuban Missile Crisis, my mother took me out to the air station, where we watched Dad’s squadron scramble on the runway on their bases at Roosevelt Road and Guantánamo.

  In the car as we watched the A-4s take off, my mother began to say the rosary.

  “You praying for Dad and his men, Mom?” I asked her.

  “No, son. I’m praying for the repose of the souls of the Cuban pilots they’re going to kill.”

  Later I would ask my father what his squadron’s mission was during the Missile Crisis.

  “To clear the air of MiGs over Cuba,” he said.

  “You think you could’ve done it?”

  The Great Santini answered, “There wouldn’t have been a bluebird flying over that island, son.”

  Now let us turn to the literary career of the Great Santini.

  Some of you may have heard that I had some serious reservations about my father’s child-rearing practices. When The Great Santini came out, the book roared through my family like a nuclear device. My father hated it; my grandparents hated it; my aunts and uncles hated it; my cousins who adore my father thought I was a psychopath for writing it; and rumor has it that my mother gave it to the judge in her divorce case and said, “It’s all there. Everything you need to know.”

  What changed my father’s mind was when Hollywood entered the picture and wanted to make a movie of it. This is when my father said, “What a shame John Wayne is dead. Now, there was a man. Only he could’ve gotten my incredible virility across to the American people.”

  Orion Pictures did me a favor and sent my father a telegram: “Dear Colonel Conroy: We have selected the actor to play you in the coming film. He wants to come to Atlanta to interview you. His name is Truman Capote.”

  But my father took well to Hollywood and its byzantine, unspeakable ways. When his movie came out, he began reading Variety on a daily basis. He called the movie a classic the first month of its existence. He claimed that he had a place in the history of film. In February of the following year, he burst into my apartment in Atlanta, as excited as I have ever seen him, and screamed, “Son, you and I were nominated for Academy Awards last night. Your mother didn’t get squat.”

  Ladies and gentlemen—you are attending the funeral of the most famous Marine that ever lived. Dad’s life had grandeur, majesty, and sweep. We were all caught in the middle of living lives much paler and less daring than the Great Santini’s. His was a high-stepping, damn-the-torpedoes kind of life, and the stick was always set at high throttle. There is not another Marine alive who has not heard of the Great Santini. There’s not a fighter pilot alive who does not lift his glass whenever Don Conroy’s name is mentioned and give the fighter pilot toast: “Hurrah for the next man to die.”

  One day last summer, my father asked me to drive him over to Beaufort National Cemetery. He wanted to make sure there were no administrative foul-ups about his plot. I could think of more pleasurable ways to spend the afternoon, but Dad brought new eloquence to the word “stubborn.” We went into the office and a pretty black woman said that everything was squared away.

  My father said, “It’ll be the second time I’ve been buried in this cemetery.” The woman and I both looked strangely at Dad. Then he explained: “You ever catch the flick The Great Santini? That was me they planted at the end of the movie.”

  All of you will be part of a very special event today. You will be witnessing the actual burial that has already been filmed in the actual setting. This has never happened in world history. You will be present in a scene that was acted out in film in 1979. You will be in the same town and the same cemetery. Only the Great Santini himself will be different.

  In his last weeks my father told me, “I was always your best subject, son. Your career took a nosedive after The Great Santini came out.” He had become so media savvy that during his last illness he told me not to schedule his funeral on the same day as the Seinfeld farewell. The colonel thought it would hold down the crowd. The colonel’s death was front-page news across the country. CNN announced his passing on the evening news all around the world.

  Don Conroy was a simple man and an American hero. His wit was remarkable, his intelligence frightening, and his sophistication nonexistent. He was a man’s man, and I would bet he hadn’t spent a thousand dollars in his whole life on his wardrobe. He lived out his whole retirement in a two-room efficiency in the Darlington apartments in Atlanta. He claimed he never spent more than a dollar on any piece of furniture he owned. You would believe him if you saw the furniture. Dad bought a season ticket for himself to Six Flags Over Georgia and would often go there alone to enjoy the rides and hear the children squeal with pleasure. He was a beer drinker who thought wine was for Frenchmen or effete social climbers like his children.

  Ah! His children. Here is how God gets a Marine Corps fighter pilot. He sends him seven squirrelly, mealymouthed children who march in peace demonstrations, wear Birkenstocks, flirt with vegetarianism, invite cross-dressers to dinner, and
vote for candidates whom Dad would line up and shoot. If my father knew how many tears his children had shed since his death, he would be mortally ashamed of us all and begin yelling that he should’ve been tougher on us all, knocked us into better shape—that he certainly didn’t mean to raise a passel of kids so weak and tacky they would cry at his death. Don Conroy was the best uncle I ever saw, the best brother, the best grandfather, the best friend—and my God, what a father. After my mother divorced him and The Great Santini was published, Don Conroy had the best second act I ever saw. He never was simply a father. This was the Great Santini.

  It is time to leave you, Dad. From Carol Ann and Mike and Kathy and Jim and Tim and especially from Tom. Your kids wanted to thank Kathy and Bobby and Willie Harvey, who cared for you heroically. Let us leave you and say good-bye, Dad, with the passwords that bind all Marines and their wives and their children forever. The corps was always the most important thing.

  Semper Fi, Dad.

  Semper Fi, O Great Santini.

  Acknowledgments

  To my great wife, Cassandra King. It’s a high honor to write books in the same house with you. You have brought loveliness, order, a sense of calm, and joy into my life, and I can’t thank you enough for your ceaseless love.

  The long-distance runners: Nan Talese, my editor for thirty years, winner of the first Maxwell Perkins Award for lifetime achievement in editing, who has brought my books under control. Nan, I thank you with my heart; and to my agents Marly Rusoff and Mihai Radulescu.

  To my first readers and editors: Maggie Schein and Jonathan Hannah; Janis and Wendell Owens and the beautiful Owens daughters; Judy and Henry Goldman; with special thanks to Katherine Clark.

  To the families, Jessica, Melissa, Megan Conroy; Jim, Jason, Jacob Ray. And the Grands: Elise, Stella, Lila, Wester, Molly Jean, Jack, Katie (mine); Alessandra, Alina, Tyler, Michael, Sophia, Henry, Anna Jane, Amelia, Lucas, Harper (Cassandra’s).

  And to my lost daughter Susannah Conroy, the door is always open and so is my heart. You have a whole Conroy family ready to love you.

  In memory of Nancy Jane King, Elton King, Milbry Gnann, Julia Randel, Kate Bockman, Hammond Smith, Sarah Ellen Harper, Jane Lefco, Nugent “The Boo” Courvoisie, Julian Bach, Emily Sickternam, Ria D. Hughs, Jay Harbeck.

  As always, Gay Talese; Bernie and Martha Schein; Scott and Susan Graber; John and Barbara Warley; Cliff and Cynthia Graubart; Ann and Heyward Siddons; Terry and Tommie Kay; Ann Torrago; Hope Bach; Wendy Weil; Carolyn Krupp; Todd Doughty; Eddie Birnbrey; Rachel Perling; Tricia Shannon; Ron and Ann Rash; Jim Landon; Tim Belk; Gregg and Mary Wilson Smith; Dot and Walt Gnann Jr.; Wilson McIntosh; Beckie, Reggie, and the Schuler boys; Will Hare; Barbara Conroy; the Harper boys; Willie Harvey; Rachel and Michael Conroy; Jonathan Haupt; Alex and Zoe Sanders; Zoe Caroline and the boys; Theresa Miller; Sallie Robinson; Jo Anne Smith; Ricardo and Laura Bonino; Liz and Christian Sherbert; Lucius and Daryl Laffitte; Mike and Pat Roberts; Wendell and Florence Minor; Melinda and Jackson Marlette.

  The Great Santini

  Chapter 1

  In the Cordova Hotel, near the docks of Barcelona, fourteen Marine Corps fighter pilots from the aircraft carrier Forrestal were throwing an obstreperously spirited going away party for Lieutenant Colonel Bull Meecham, the executive officer of their carrier based squadron. The pilots had been drinking most of the day and the party was taking a swift descent toward mayhem. It was a sign to Bull Meecham that he was about to have a fine and memorable turbulent time. The commanding officer of the squadron, Ty Mullinax, had passed out in the early part of the afternoon and was resting in a beatific position on the table in the center of the room, his hands folded across his chest and a bouquet of lilies carefully placed in his zipper, rising out of his groin.

  The noise from the party had risen in geometrically spiraling quantities in irregular intervals since the affair had begun shortly after noon. In the beginning it had been a sensible, often moving affair, a coming together of soldiers and gentlemen to toast and praise a warrior departing their ranks. But slowly, the alcohol established its primacy over the last half of the party and as darkness approached and the outline of warships along the harbor became accented with light, the maitre d’ of the Cordova Hotel walked into the room to put an end to the going away party that had begun to have the sound effects of a small war. He would like to have had the Marines thrown out by calling the Guardia Civil but too much of his business depended on the American officers who had made his hotel and restaurant their headquarters whenever the fleet came to Barcelona. The guests in his restaurant had begun to complain vigorously about the noise and obscenity coming from the room that was directly off the restaurant. Even the music of a flamenco band did not overpower or even cancel out the clamor and tumult that spilled out of the room. The maitre d’ was waiting for Captain Weber, a naval captain who commanded a cruiser attached to the fleet, to bring his lady in for dinner, but his reservation was not until nine o’clock. He took a deep breath, opened the door, and walked toward the man who looked as if he was in charge.

  “Hey, Pedro, what can I do for you?” Bull Meecham asked.

  The maitre d’ was a small, elegant man who looked up toward a massive, red-faced man who stood six feet four inches tall and weighed over two hundred and twenty pounds.

  Before the maitre d’ could speak he noticed the prone body of Colonel Mullinax lying on the long dining table in the center of the room.

  “What is wrong with this man?” the maitre d’ demanded.

  “He’s dead, Pedro,” Bull answered.

  “You joke with me, no.”

  “No, Pedro.”

  “He still breathe.”

  “Muscle spasms. Involuntary,” Bull said as the other pilots whooped and laughed behind him. “He’s dead all right and we got to leave him here, Pedro. The fleet’s pulling out anytime now and we won’t have time for a funeral. But we’ll be back to pick him up in about six months. And that’s a promise. I just don’t want you to move him from this table.”

  “No, señor,” the maitre d’ said, staring with rising discomfort at the unconscious aviator, “you joke with me. I no mind the joke. I come to ask you to keep down the noise and please not break up any more furniture or throw your glasses. Some naval officers have complained very much.”

  “Oh, dearie me,” said Bull. “You mean the naval officers don’t like to hear us throwing glasses?”

  “No, señor.”

  Bull turned toward the far wall and, giving a signal to the other pilots in the room, all thirteen of them hurled their glasses into the fireplace already littered with bright shards of glass.

  “It will be charged to your bill, señor,” the maitre d’ said.

  “Beat it, Pedro,” Bull said. “When I want a tortilla I’ll give you a call.”

  “But, señor, I have other guests. Many of the officers in the Navy and their ladies. They ask me what the noise is. What am I to do?”

  “I’ll handle them, Pedro,” Bull said. “You run along now and chew on a couple of tacos while the boys and I finish up here. We should be done partying about a week from now.”

  “No, señor. Please, señor. My other guests.”

  When the maitre d’ closed the door behind him, Bull walked over and made himself another drink. The other pilots crowded around him and did likewise.

  With a strong Texas accent, Major Sammy Funderburk said, “I did a little recon job early this here morning here. And I saw me some strange and willing nookie walking around the lobby of this here hotel here.”

  “You know me better than that,” Bull said. “I’m saving my body for my wife.”

  “Since when, Colonel?” one of the young lieutenants shouted over the laughter.

  “Since very early this morning,” Bull replied.

  “This here squadron here is the toughest bunch of Marine aviators ever assembled on this here God’s green earth here,” Sammy bellowed.

  “Hear ye! Hear ye!” the others agreed.r />
  “I’d like to offer a toast,” Bull shouted above the din, and the room quieted. “I’d like to toast the greatest Marine fighter pilot that ever shit between two shoes.” He lifted his drink high in the air and continued his toast as the other pilots elevated their glasses. “This man has lived without fear, has done things with an airplane that other men have never done, has spit in death’s eye a thousand times, and despite all this has managed to retain his Christ-like humility. Gentlemen, I ask you to lift your glasses and join me in toasting Colonel Bull Meecham.”

  Amid the hisses and jeers that followed this toast, Captain Ronald Bookout whispered to Bull, “Sir, I think we might get into a little trouble if we don’t hold it down a little. I just peeked out toward the restaurant and there are a lot of Navy types in there. I’d hate for you to get in trouble on your last night in Europe.”

  “Captain,” Bull said loudly so the other Marines would hear his reply, “there’s something you don’t understand about the Navy. The Navy expects us to be wild. That’s so they can feel superior to us. They think we’re something out of the ice age and it is entirely fittin’ that we maintain this image. They expect us to be primitive, son, and it is a sin, a mortal sin, for a Marine ever to let a goddam squid think we are related to them in any way. Hell, if I found out that Naval Academy grads liked to screw women, I’d give serious consideration to becoming a pansy. As a Marine, and especially as a Marine fighter pilot, you’ve got to constantly keep ‘em on their toes. I can see them out there now mincing around like they’ve got icicles stuck up their butts. They think the Corps is some kind of anal fungus they got to put up with.”

  “Hell, I’d rather go to war against the Navy than the Russians,” Ace Norbett declared.

  “Ace, that’s always been one of my dreams that the Navy and the Marine Corps go to war. I figure it would take at least fifteen minutes for Marine aviators to make Navy aviators an extinct form of animal life,” Bull said.

  “They’d have supremacy on the sea, though,” Captain Bookout said.