Shane Comes Home

by Rinker Buck

  Red-faced and cheery in his cowboy hat, his eyes glistening from the prairie wind, Shane was just pulling in with the team when his father returned from work. Together they unhitched the team and left the sleigh there beside the house, and then Shane drove Amigo and April back to the barn.

  Joe joined his son in the barn a few minutes later. This was Joe’s favorite time of the day, doing his barn chores before he returned to the house for dinner, and he considered it a rare treat to share some time there with Shane while he was home on vacation. The smells and sounds of the barn—the briny harness coming off the team, decaying manure, the other horses whinnying as they came in to feed—reminded Joe of their old times together back in Mississippi, when Shane was still a teenager. The snowy Polecat Bench was sunset pink out through the open barn door and the steam rising off the backs of the Belgians clouded up at the low rafters, obscuring the light of the single electric bulb.

  Being a military man himself, and impressed with Shane’s marine credentials, Joe knew that this was no time to deliver the standard fatherly lecture: Son, don’t be a hero over there, don’t try to win the war yourself. The conversation just naturally took a different turn. Shane was ebullient that week, better than Joe had ever seen him. He’d taken over his unit, Alpha Company of the Second Platoon, from a freaking Harvard graduate no less, trained the men hard, even moving several soldiers around to new positions and responsibilities to better reflect their abilities. At both Pendleton and Twentynine Palms, Alpha Company had received top performance reviews, one reason that Shane suspected that they’d be assigned very near the front. He liked his commanding officer and was confident that those feelings were reciprocated. Shane was upbeat about deploying for Kuwait, which would probably be in early February, and was both excited and quietly confident about leading a company in combat once they were sent into Iraq.

  Shane seemed to be changing, or at least considering change, in other ways. One day he would insist that he’d remain in the marines for another eight years and climb up to captain or colonel or whatever rank he’d achieve, and then be in a position to collect a full twenty-year military pension. The next day he’d jump to pure Childers-quality dreams—as soon as Iraq was over, he was coming back to Wyoming to buy a farm. At The Citadel Shane had majored in French and become fluent, and now he also talked a lot about going back to graduate school and becoming a United Nations interpreter, or a State Department employee. “Oh, hell, Dad, maybe I’ll just do both—teach French somewhere and buy a farm.” Shane was the first member of the family to graduate from college, and Joe wasn’t sure what all this meant, but it was probably a good sign that his son was considering so many possibilities about his future. Part of it was just a consequence of his frantic schedule. After The Citadel, Shane had chased all over the country for the marines—first basic school for officers, then infantry tactics school, then Pendleton and Twentynine Palms. Now he had a war to fight. There hadn’t been much time for him to figure out a clear plan.

  As he drove back across Texas toward Fort Hood that Friday, Joe’s thoughts returned to that conversation. Shane had seemed so confident and well when he was home for Christmas. He had trained very hard and obviously had gained the respect of his commanders. Nobody could devote that much time and energy to becoming a good soldier just to get killed on the first day of a war. He just wasn’t worried about it as he drove along the interstate toward Waco and then Killeen.

  Besides, he and Shane had a pact. Shane and his younger brother, Sam, had not had much opportunity to spend time together since they’d left home. While Shane was globe-trotting with the marines, Sam was in the navy for eight years and then had settled in Illinois. But now Sam had a son, Aksel, who was very bright and doing well in school, and he loved horses and the outdoors. Joe dreamed of getting the three generations together for a packing trip up into the mountains, and had spoken about it with Shane that night in the barn.

  “Say, Shane, I’ve kind of been thinking about taking that sorrel mule there and training it for pack work, you know? And the foxtrotter filly is ready to break, too. How ’bout next summer, as soon as you’re back from Iraq, you, me, Sam, and Aksel will go packing? We’ll do Jack Creek again.”

  Jack Creek, in the high, timber-spruce country, down near the Shoshone National Forest in northern Wyoming, was a favorite spot where Joe and Shane had packed in with mules during earlier summers.

  “Hey, Dad, Jack Creek. It’s a great plan. We’ll get little Aksel up there.”

  Shane was excited about the trip and mentioned it several more times during his Christmas visit. One day just before Shane left for Oregon, he and Joe drove into Cody to pick out a new buckstitch-canvas tent at an outfitters’ store.

  “Hey, Dad,” Shane said as they stepped back into their pickup in the parking lot. “As soon as I get back from Iraq? That buckstitch is headed for Jack Creek.”

  So it was settled. When Shane got back from the war, the men of the family would be saddling up and then packing in to Jack Creek.

  When they arrived back at Ford Hood, the marine officer who had been killed at Rumaila was still not identified, but they were all too busy to focus on that. Sandy had to get her children settled in the house, Judy was planning to run up to the base to cash traveler’s checks, and Richard was running in and out, deranged by last-minute deployment chores for his unit. Before dinner, his first sergeant had called and asked Richard if he had time to run over to the Fort Hood hospital, where a member of the 297th who was off on maternity leave had just delivered her baby. Her husband had deployed with another unit and everyone thought it was a good idea to visit to make sure that she was all right. Joe volunteered to make the hospital run with his son-in-law as soon as they finished dinner.

  At dinner, Richard seemed distracted and was acting somewhat strangely. He kept getting cell phone calls, ducking out of the room to talk with someone, and then he would log on to his computer to send e-mails, returning to the table looking upset. But the rest of the family barely noticed. Richard was appreciated in his unit for being generous with his time, and the first sergeant often called during dinner to assign him extra errands or evening work. In the craziness of a major army base deploying for war, it wasn’t unusual for a departing soldier to have a bad case of the jitters.

  Back in Wyoming, the rest of the day was hell for Captain Hutchison, an afternoon that contributed new meaning the old military acronym, snafu, situation normal all fucked up. From Deb Van Valin, he was able to obtain the phone number but not the address of Richard and Sandy Brown at Fort Hood, but this information was virtually worthless because the CACO rules explicitly required that a next-of-kin notification be made by a personal visit by at least two marine officers. Obviously, Quantico would have to reassign the initial CACO call to a detail from central Texas—assuming that one could be quickly assembled—and then Hutchison would take over once the Childers family returned to Wyoming. Before he called Marine Corps headquarters in Virginia to relay this news, Hutchison made several cell phone calls to track down the Browns’ address. When this was passed to Quantico, he was told to stand by and remain within cell phone range in Powell, because the family might need him for something there once they were notified of their son’s death.

  Marines thrive on action, organization, a certainty of purpose—placing a call, moving a platoon around, or reorganizing a training program, relying on the comforting and usually reliable equation that a specific input applied to a problem makes something specific happen. But nothing was happening now. There weren’t any good inputs to expend. Hutchison didn’t dare dial Sandy Brown’s number at Fort Hood because that would violate the CACO rules about personal notification, and might run the risk of inadvertently tipping off the family or a friend before a marine detail arrived for the Childerses. Casualty Assistance at Quantico required at least two or three hours to assemble a call team from Texas. From far-off Wyoming, and an increasingly frantic headquarters in Virginia, the United States Marine Corps
was now conducting a national wild goose chase for the parents of the first killed-in-action in Iraq, but no one in charge had any way of knowing that they were somewhere on the interstate highway system between Lubbock and Killeen.

  Frustrated and glum, Hutchison and Morgan drove into Powell to see if they could find a place still open for lunch. Their opportunities for relieving the tension of the day with humor—Morgan deriding his captain for reading too many books, Hutchison chiding his first sergeant for owning too many guns—seemed exhausted, and so they rode in silence past sugar-beet and barley fields spotted with mud where the last of the winter snow was melting. In town, they chose a Mexican restaurant across the street from the post office because its location seemed to offer the best cell phone reception.

  The next-of-kin notification of the Childers family was now being supervised by a full colonel out of Quantico, a development that made Hutchison feel uneasy because the duty he had not been able to perform on the ground in Wyoming was now being assumed by a higher chain of command. Every forty-five minutes, if Quantico didn’t call him to update events, he called there. From these increasingly tense exchanges, Hutchison was able to learn that the marines were experiencing difficulties assembling a CACO detail in Texas. National newspapers and the television networks were still clambering for an identity on the first killed in action, which they desperately wanted before their evening news deadlines, and many reporters were beginning to voice suspicion that the marines were deliberately withholding information. During one of his calls to Quantico, Hutchison confessed his frustrations to the colonel and said that he felt personally responsible for the delay in notifying the Childerses.

  “Nonsense, captain, and I want you to keep your morale up out there,” the colonel replied. “You continue to have the full support, and all of the resources, of headquarters staff and the Fifth Division.”

  Translation?

  “Ah, shit, Barry,” Hutchison said, flipping shut his cell phone after the call. “We’ve fucked up. It’s a CACO meltdown. I just feel terrible for this family.”

  Morgan felt bad about it as well, but he thought that Hutchison was placing too much blame on himself.

  “Oh Christ, captain,” Morgan said. “Here we go now. This isn’t your fault! Okay? Jedd Clampett back there at the ranch decided to go to Texas this week and wasn’t around when we made the CACO call. That doesn’t make it your fault.”

  “Yeah, but I feel that it’s my fault. I feel terrible for the family.”

  “Well fuck your freaking feelings then, godamnit, sir,” Morgan said. “Fuck your fault. You’re just acting like a commissioned asshole here and blaming yourself for something that couldn’t be prevented.”

  It didn’t get much worse than this, an officer and his first sergeant exchanging expletives over a CACO snafu, but then it really did get much worse. After returning to the ranch country west of Powell and positioning themselves on a rise near the Childers place where cell phone reception was good, Hutchison received an unexpected, frantic call from Texas.

  It was Richard Brown, calling from outside his house at Fort Hood. He had just heard the news from his mother, who had provided Hutchison’s cell phone number because the captain had left it with her in case she needed to call.

  Sobbing convulsively, Brown identified himself as First Lieutenant Shane Childers’ brother-in-law and said he knew that Shane was dead. The news that a marine CACO detail was in town had spread like wildfire around Powell, Richard told them, and the traffic going by the Childers ranch had led the local rumor mill to conclude that the marine killed at Rumaila was Shane.

  Between crying jags, Richard assured them that he understood and would respect the CACO rules. He would just have to wait until the marine detail from Texas arrived, but what was he going to do? He was so upset. Joe and Judy Childers had just returned from Lubbock and were sitting inside right now, waiting for dinner, but Richard was in agony imagining how they were going to react to the news about Shane. And there were so many other worries and complications for the family.

  “I mean, captain…what am I supposed to do here?” Richard said. “I feel so torn. My unit is literally deploying for Kuwait any hour now and I can’t abandon them. But what about Shane? Shouldn’t I be at his funeral? Support my family? Captain, I am just so torn. What do I do now?”

  Rallying the resolve to say the right thing to Richard was difficult for Hutchison. He sympathized deeply with Brown’s anguish. Technically, because they worked in different services, Hutchison couldn’t issue any orders to Brown. But by unofficial tradition, just between two military men, Hutchison outranked Brown. And, from the scowl he could see on Morgan’s face across the front seat of the Suburban, he wasn’t looking forward to his reaction either once this phone call was over.

  “All right, sergeant,” Hutchison began. “First of all, we completely understand what you’re going through. It sounds like First Lieutenant Childers was a hell of a guy. But…”

  “Okay, sir, I know, I know…. It’s Shane though. I mean, Christ, Shane. You don’t know what he meant to people, so many people.”

  “Sergeant, now look. I can’t give you an order.”

  “Sir, thanks. I know that. But…what am I supposed to do?”

  “Sergeant! You’ve got to get a grip now, you’ve got to remember your obligations to the service and your family. You can’t let anyone know until there’s been a proper CACO notification. After that, we’re all going to need your help. Understand?”

  “Sir, yes. But it’s Shane. He’s dead. God. It’s Shane.”

  When Hutchison suggested that Brown contact his unit chaplain and his first sergeant, Brown said that he had already done that. They were telling him the same thing. Get a grip, wait for the CACO detail, and they’d all worry tomorrow or the next day about whether he should ship with his unit or obtain emergency leave to attend the funeral in Wyoming. (A few days later, Brown would receive permission from his commanding officer to attend the funeral.) Just when Hutchison thought he had Brown calmed down, the sergeant wanted to say one more thing.

  “Okay, sir, I just want you to know this. I didn’t see Shane at all after he finished up at The Citadel and got commissioned. We’ve both been too busy getting ready for Iraq. But it was a big deal for this family, a real big deal, Shane getting his college degree and then getting his commission. So, we had a pact. The whole family was in on it. The next time I saw Shane? Me, the noncommissioned officer, would salute him, the first commissioned officer in the family. I was really looking forward to it, giving Shane my first salute, you know? Now what do I do? Is this all that’s left? I get to salute Shane in his coffin? Oh God. Shane. I get to salute him in his coffin.”

  By now, Hutchison felt drugged, but strangely calm inside, as if the adrenaline flow of the afternoon had acted as a narcotic dispensing inner confidence and peace. Whatever came first to his mind now, he felt, whatever he said, would probably be right.

  “Sergeant, I want to work with you on this,” Hutchison said. “I promise to remain in touch, all right? But maybe giving that first salute to Lieutenant Childers would be the highest honor you could bestow.”

  “Yeah, yeah, captain. I’m going to salute Shane.”

  Richard Brown finally seemed to calm down and then hung up. Hutchison was obligated to call Quantico and tell Casualty Assistance that a family member now knew that Lieutenant Childers was dead, which caused a lot of concern because they all realized that the news could leak to the press before Joe and Judy Childers had been notified in person. And Richard Brown called several times, sometimes in control, sometimes in a panic, which required a lot of grief management via cell phone. By the late afternoon, Hutchison was able to reassure him that a new detail had been assembled and was on the road from Waco. When the replacement CACO team hadn’t arrived by dinnertime, Richard called again, this time volunteering to search the base at Fort Hood, just in case the marines were lost. Once more Hutchison mustered his negotiating skills and t
alked Brown out of that.

  First Sergeant Morgan, listening to the cell phone traffic from his side of the Surburban, was a model of charity about all this.

  “Oh Christ. What a mess. Sir, just tell that army guy down there to get back into the house, and shut the fuck up until the marines arrive.”

  “Barry. I am doing my best here, all right? I’m doing my best.”

  “Sir, I’m not mad at you.”

  “You’re mad at him.”

  “Exactly! Army. They always fuck it up for the marines.”

  As Hutchison and Morgan waited on the rise for new orders, their legs propped up on the dashboard, the sun became a pale half-disk against the Beartooths and then fell away.

  Hutchison didn’t learn that the CACO call had begun in Texas until nearly 8 P.M. that night, and by that time he and Morgan had been released by Quantico and made the drive back to Billings over the black-on-black Pryors. Reaching home, he felt jittery and exhausted. Quantico didn’t know whether the Childerses would return immediately to Wyoming or wait a few days in Texas, which kept him in limbo for the weekend while he waited to pick up the normal CACO routine of caring for the family. And, given the unsatisfactory turn of the day’s events, he felt even more nervous than before about meeting the Childerses.

  It was just about the lowest point in his marine career, in fact; a sad denouement to the depression he’d felt all year about being left behind during the combat in Iraq. His house felt empty and lonely. He had not moved in a stick of furniture during the renovations, and a filmy coat of sawdust left behind by the floor sanders covered the stacks of books and paintings leaning against the walls, offending his sense of orderliness. He missed his old girlfriend from Peru—at this point, any girlfriend would do—and he had few friends outside the marines in Billings. To top it all off, Richard Brown called one last time from Texas, a real mess this time, and he had to devote another twenty minutes to grief counseling with him.