Better, but still…
Alright. “We, the undersigned citizens demand that the overall mission of the U.S. Armed Forces be returned exclusively to the original purpose of common defense of the national population inside the U.S. and protecting the boundaries and chattels of the country. Period.”
“Voila, or close enough for now!” Rhymes, reasons, and related aspects can be listed outside the wording of the petition itself,” he informed himself, “or added, after the fashion of…” –
“Resolved that, (blah, blah, blah..).” Not such an easy task. Simple-sounding concept… Not.
XLVIII
So, What Is the Purpose Again?
“So, is this a dream, too, or the fruit of a dream?” He wasn’t sure. He was a man of action, for Pete’s sake. He wasn’t cut out for this!
“Resolved that the hand of the U.S. government in creating and conjuring its own foreign enemies has been exposed,” he wrote, “and there being little or no other known clear reason for hostile active deployment, we, the undersigned, demand that the mission of the U.S. armed forces shall henceforth be restricted to defense of the U.S. national territory and the American population within that territory.”
Could he “sell” and could he effectively enough document, justify, and validate the message of such a petition? The radio talks offered a clue. But it still seemed a stretch – even more than a stretch – given the surprisingly sparse amount of current thinking and knowledge of clear evidence in that direction. But given the fact that the condition cited was indisputably true and ascertainable, he judged it doable. If barely. Americans remained an enigmatic breed.
And yet, he judged he, almost uniquely, could begin the effective spearheading of such a venture to portions of the American public – depending on when he was brought up short. As he was sure he would be. His hope being that, by that time, the genie would be out of the bottle.
Yet even if his mission was quickly aborted, he reflected, not altogether originally, “What is the purpose for a man’s gift of life except he lay down his life for his friends?” He thought about that, but without much enthusiasm for laying down his life. His best attribute, he reflected, was probably stubbornness. Love followed that, and originality followed that. Then – as was both inevitable and proper – he stopped to wonder how Felicia was doing, since he hadn’t heard from her in more than a week, a circumstance always in the back of his mind. And frankly, he felt like a heel.
Poor Felicia! She didn’t deserve any of this! He knew how she felt when he married her! But, as least, she wasn’t here to be, by turns, terrified and enraged by the elusive vandals, and by him!
He had started thinking in the back of his mind that he might have been a little harsh, and somehow, there might be a way for him to do right by her, in case she would still be interested.
It would require some sort of agreement to be worked out together, which might be even harder than getting the citizenry of the U.S. to force a scaling back of its country’s military presence to, as was proper, an emphasis on protecting its own borders and citizens. As for him, he knew the die was cast. He would not surrender or turn his back. Come what may.
* * *
But, then again, the whole world didn’t stand against him. A few call-in listeners to his radio interviews praised his message and wanted to help – mostly “radical” peaceniks and aggrieved ex-military types, who lapped up and savored every word. But some down-to-earth, regular people, too. And not a few letters and notes arrived at his physical address and email inbox, many expressing support and agreement and offering assistance, along with the frequent vitriol, usually from people who, he adjudged, “didn’t get it." Included was a supportive note from Dr. R.A. (Rory) Bombard, Professor of Sociology, Florida State University, encouraging him to continue and vaguely mentioning peace activist conferences to which he might be invited as a presenter.
And then, on the third night after Tom Posey had departed, he dreamed once again, strangely, that an alien race from somewhere out in the Pleiades had resided all but undetected in tiny colonies of nearly-microscopic individuals somewhere on the surface of the earth – he thought in southern France – for numerous centuries. And that these unimaginably advanced, super-intelligent in a collective sense, denizens – who had first arrived by starship in 742 A.D., were each but a fraction the size of the smallest insects on earth, and battled perennially against their insect neighbors who, to them, were not unlike fierce, unimaginably dull-witted bands of dinosaurs would be to us. Humans, with their immense slave animals and companions, while dominant on a totally different scale, thus barely showed up in these true resident aliens’ purview, or worldview.
“Weird dream!” he told himself on awakening. “Imagine science having to explain fourteen centuries of overlook!” How truly presumptuous the vanities and affairs of man – and woman. Child made more sense!
IL
Twilight’s Last Gleaming
Before and after his morning coffee, Colonel Alva reasoned on the prospect and problem of somehow, anyhow, reuniting with his wife, and reached no epiphany.
And then, the postman arrived, bringing tidings that sang like the crack of a rifle to his door. BAM! BAM! BAM! In Capital Letters, the order he pulled from the Defense Department’s special-d envelope pulled no punches:
“COLONEL ALVA ABELARD CRYSTAL, USAF (ret.): YOU ARE ORDERED TO REPORT FOR EXAMINATION, TO THE PSYCHOLOGICAL SERVICES UNIT, TYNDALE AIR FORCE BASE, PANAMA CITY, FL, PRIOR TO INQUIRY IN PERSON AT TYNDALE AFB OPERATIONAL SAME DATE REGARDING CONTINUANCE OF YOUR CURRENT U.S. AIR FORCE PENSION BENEFITS. YOU ARE TO ARRIVE AT 8:00 A.M., EDT, 12 JULY, 2017. THIS ACTION BEING OF THE NATURE OF AN INQUIRY, YOU ARE NOT AUTHORIZED TO BRING AN ATTORNEY AT LAW OR COUNSEL. EXPECT A ROUTINE CONFIRMATION CALL 2 TO 3 DAYS PRIOR TO SAID SCHEDULED APPOINTMENT. (Signed) LIEUT-MAJ ARTHUR E. FEIN, ADJUTANT CLERK, OFFICE OF THE COMMANDANT, USAF.”
After thanking the messenger, who’d stood dutifully alongside him until he had read it to the end and then departed, Colonel Alva began pacing. “So, Tom’s concern wasn’t misplaced. Hope to hell they don’t find out he was here.”
Next, he thought, “That’s four weeks from tomorrow. So, now I won’t be able to try to bring Felicia back, no matter what. And, with General Frank Montmoracy acting strange and scarcely supportive, there is precisely no one sympathetic to turn to.”
And then, “Supposing I lose my pension, I will have precisely no income whatsoever. And, because my guaranteed pension has been sufficient to cover my needs day-to-day, but precious little beyond that, I have no personal savings. And so, I will no longer be able to make my monthly mortgage payments, or other smaller monthly obligations, and so [though it had occurred to him once that he was still able-bodied and could perhaps find employment], if my pension is withdrawn, I’ll lose my house and be effectively homeless – in sad company with many thousands of other Iraq, Afghanistan, Gulf War, and Vietnam veterans.”
He sat down, deciding that that was all the prognostication he could stand at the moment, and subsequently took to the dark closet of his bedroom to appeal to his Benefactor, who had never let him down.
* * *
And two hours later, when he finally drifted off to sleep, he was gifted with a dream that lent him a modicum of hope.
He dreamed that he had come through the portal into the observatory where he worked in tandem with his enigmatic workmate, Harold, who was already there. And again, as always, he saw, so large and imminent as to take up his whole view through the giant telescope, the now enormous round object, coming up terrifyingly fast. In fact, the looming rocky sphere by now filled the entire telescope’s purview to the extent that networks of ridges and canyons and large rocks could be viewed in minutest detail studding the dun surface of it, appeared, in shadow. And no one else he knew of anywhere had confessed to seeing it at all – definitely, not Harold.
And next, truly miraculously, there came a sort of indescribable blink of darkest shadow and light
, and reports started coming in at once on the computer screen and by telephone from Shanghai, Fiji, and Sydney, in different languages and patterns of speech, that the unimaginably enormous thing, suddenly appearing to take up the whole sky, horizon to horizon, was rapidly moving away from earth and off into the nighttime firmament.
The End he so feared thus vanished by a species of magic, and the ex-Colonel slept in peace for the first time in three weeks.
L
Way of Reckoning
He tried to escape into his expansive reading and studies for the following fortnight, delving deeply into forgotten expeditions to unknown islands in the Southern Ocean, Roman Empire political economy, Ouspensky’s form of mystical realism, the heroic Bogomils, and, nearing the end of that time-out period, briefly, the cosmology of the opposite side of death’s door. But all of it was in vain, in that he failed to extricate either his dearest, circumstantially-estranged wife or his worse-than-nightmare personal fate from his mind.
But his Benefactor (he still had no more fitting name for that mysterious intimate entity) did speak to him at times clearly enough, bringing a goodly measure of reassurance when he found himself of a disposition to receive it. And the other times, his own recurrent, now baleful lust for military recasting had become an exhaustive burden and foe.
Then, he feverishly wrote articles, whole series of articles, being his own amanuensis, his own confidant for want of another, defiantly laying out his whole misspent life and open veins to whatever public might be out there waiting to respond.
He almost inevitably began to equate the pouring out of his own thoughts – that had become his passion – to the composition of a series of justly-prized prison letters penned by a legendary circle of worldly heroes who had bucked the system. And he even dared to imagine that someone, somewhere might someday regard his renderings as such and lionize at least his cause and unflinching, iron-clad reasoning in that way.
But that was it – that was all he could bring himself to do. And so, after all of it, he rested from his labors, and waited like an animal, head stuck in his den door. Slowly, through the first sweltering days of June, followed by the celebratory days and nights of fireworks and barbeque smoke, likewise he sensed blankly the dog-days stillness that followed.
Then, come the 11th of July, a luminous blue-sky day, he arose and drove up Alternate 27 into the Panhandle. After spending the night at a motel across from the base, he drove in the early light, apprehensively, through the heavy gates at the entrance of Tyndale AFB Psychological Services Unit.
In street clothes, patterned silk shirt, tie, and slacks, he checked in and shuffled down a not-so-long corridor to the unadorned cubicle of Dr. Theodore Kiffin. Though this psychiatrist practitioner was notably older than most Air Force personnel he remembered, there was no other indication as to whether he was an enlistee or a civilian under contract.
Dr. Kiffin, in a standard medical white coat, bade him sit on the end of an examining bed and took him through the usual battery of blood pressure, temperature-taking, inhale-exhale, and knee-knock testing. He then posed a long series of seemingly random questions, dutifully recording his charge’s responses.
“Pets as a child? How did you take your parents’ deaths? What do you think about the types of conscription used to meet past national emergencies? Your feelings toward immigrants and foreign tourists? Fevers or nauseas in the past six months? When was the last time you felt embarrassment? Disappointment? Chagrin? What were the circumstances?
“What unaccomplished goals do you still have?” “Your views on UFO’s?” ”Gays in the service?” “The draft?” “Universal mandatory service?” “Mandatory voting?” “The Bill of Rights?” “The gender gap?” Colonel Alva’s answers were almost inaudible.
Then, suddenly, Dr. Kiffin’s curiosity got the better of him. “Isolationism?” he ad-libbed.
Ex-Colonel Alva tried not to smile. “No!” he answered. “Positive engagement, good neighbor policy. Lead through good example. As Mr. Jefferson, I believe, said best, ‘All (nowadays, it’s customary to say persons) are created equal.’”
Dr. Kiffin required him to exercise strenuously on a stationary bike for ten solid minutes, took his pulse immediately afterward, then as many chin-ups as he could manage, with one hand on a suspended bar, then repeat both. After which he sent him packing somewhat abruptly, still in a medical gown, across an enclosed courtyard to what he specifically called a “Radiation Unit” – not even an “X-ray Unit," but a “Radiation Unit."
And Colonel Crystal, more than a bit apprehensive and seeing no relevance any x-rays would have for the purpose at hand, bolted instinctively through a break in the courtyard’s faux-brick wall to reclaim his baby-blue-and-white Dodge Caravan and direct it back down the road toward home, figuring he could at least negotiate via cell phone regarding the pertinence of such a request and re-schedule, if necessary, claiming a domestic emergency.
His rank and entitlement still ought to buy some privileges, he thought to himself. And, of course, whatever happens, happens. After all, there must have been some mistake to sequester and summon him like that, years into retirement.
LI
Correction
When he got back, having not been impeded, he was surprised and dismayed to find his nephew Colby’s red late-model Buick parked in his driveway, with a clearly-marked Tyndale AFB Psychological Services Unit van turning off the street and pulling in behind. For an instant, he was delighted and buoyed to realize that his hoped-for flesh-and-blood protégé had returned; but then, seconds later, Colonel Crystal turned around quickly and gunned his engine, steering his Dodge into the narrow, dead-end drive behind the compound. He parked it in the grass in a tight space between mangroves and low-sweeping magnolias. Lurching to a rocking stop, he wriggled out and scooted through loose sand down the slope to his boat, tied up on shore a dozen more giant steps down the embankment at water’s edge. Pushing off and rowing as fast as he could manage out through the sand reefs and maneuvering between rocks, he glided rapidly ahead, straining his muscles and lungs to the breaking point to reach his sunny isle and disappear quickly into its leafy recesses.
Within two or three minutes, a helicopter that must have been equipped with a heat-seeking device cut in through a break in the trees and landed in a jumble of tall weeds and grass. Three airmen clambered down the steps to surround him, still clad partly in his hospital gown, their guns drawn and ready. Together, they tossed him a foot or two up the lowered steps into the opened passenger bay, and were off.
He was later informed by a neighbor that national news had spotlighted his re-capture and ran a story featuring him as an escaped defiant rogue, a disgruntled retired officer being held as a secrecy-oath violator and hardened traitor, now also charged with obstruction of justice and resisting arrest after being returned to preventive custody.
Once on the ground back at Tyndale, he was taken straight to the radiation unit and strapped down. Afterward, he was thrown in a dark holding cell awaiting further processing.
An hour or two later into the evening, after he was fed a spare box lunch, a tall young junior officer of grave demeanor came in without a word and, switching a light on, shuffled through some papers, dropping and picking up one document, re-attaching all of them to his clipboard. He then reached into his coat pocket and retrieved a pair of big, round-lens glasses and put them on. Turning toward the ex-Colonel, he fixed him in a severe gaze. The ex-Colonel regarded him in kind.
“Mr. Crystal,” he then began in a dry, high-pitched nasal, “you in a heap o’ tubble, boy.” It was all Colonel Alva could do to avoid cracking up at such an unexpected, trite manner of speech.
“Are you some kind of red-neck clown,” he intoned. His mirth was not shared. “Tell me, Mr. Alva Crystal,” what exactly is the point you have been trying to make?”
Colonel Crystal couldn’t decide whether the odd, semi-stilted tone was a put-on, or his normal means of expression. “Well, Sir, it has t
o do with the motive and purpose for deployment of the U.S. military,” he carefully launched forth.
“Originally authorized as a defensive force to protect the United States and its people, it is employed now instead offensively to cow and attack mostly innocent people as well as chosen and designated so-called enemy groups on their own ground, to force them into compliance and, often as not, appropriate their territory to be ruled by our appointed satraps and U.S.-trained native representatives, as well as, selectively, the resources belonging thereto. And the astronomical cost for all that has to be borne by U.S. taxpayers.” He paused. “I don’t criticize the desire of our enlistees to serve their country for a minute. No, Sir.”
“So, what was it that made you the expert on all of that?”
“It was the guidance and tutelage of a senior officer above me, charged with carrying out the policy I’m now protesting in the field, in both of perhaps two of its most extreme recent venues, Afghanistan and Iraq. “I know from research that a certain, infamous Doolittle Report issued in 1954, during the deliberately-engineered renewed Red Scare, decreed that U.S. foreign policy and its execution had to be, covertly, the moral and actual scourge of the earth, the dregs, undermining, devastating, suppressing shamelessly all rivals and successful upstarts, and in effect, pillaging our own income production to do that. Not objectives to take pride in. “So, you think you would know better about these matters than the Council on Foreign Relations and others and the State Department they advise?”
“Well, Sir, let me put it this way. How many in the leadership, the Executive Committee or whatever, of the CFR have on-site field experience consisting of the carrying out of their more aggressive world policy? For that matter, how many of them have trouble making ends meet at the end of the month, as is the case with average citizens? I suspect, none.”
Colonel Crystal's Parallel Universe Page 16
