Shane Comes Home

by Rinker Buck

  Back in Wyoming, the Childerses knew that Shane was considering college, but he deliberately kept them in the dark about his plans until he knew for sure. When he visited home on leave from his embassy assignments, they could tell he was distracted now. Once, when talking with his sister in the kitchen, Shane had blurted out something that she could never forget.

  “God, Sandy, what am I going to do? I haven’t accomplished a single thing with my life yet.”

  Sandra laughed hysterically.

  “Oh God, Shane, that is just so you. Do you mind if I tell you about just one tiny little fact?”

  “No! No! I don’t mind. What’s the fact?”

  “Shane. Get a grip. You’re twenty-three years old.”

  Steve Whitten, the master sergeant who ran the marine detachment in Nairobi, mentored Shane quite a bit, but also relied on him as a supremely competent manager who could take over at the embassy when Whitten was on leave or detached assignments. Shane was personally close to the whole Whitten family. Robbin Whitten became one of many marine wives to join what they called the “Shane Childers Fan Club,” and the three Whitten daughters clapped with joy and defaulted to goof-off mode as soon as he arrived at their house, joking around with him and playing sports. They called him “Uncle Shane.”

  “Shane was always thinking ten steps ahead of where he was,” Whitten said. “We would talk endlessly into the night about that because he knew he had to get that college degree. I was the one who told him about the marine enlisted commission program, which would allow him to get his degree and jump to the officer class. He was instantly crazy about doing that.”

  The Marine Enlisted Commissioning Education Program, MECEP, was in fact quite a prestigious thing. Every year, about one hundred prior enlist marines of exceptional promise are selected to attend four-year colleges on a full military scholarship while collecting regular pay, after which they would be commissioned as officers. “Getting MECEP” was a huge deal in the marines not simply because the program was very competitive and the benefits lavish. It marked the future officer for life because it proved that he was socially and professionally capable of vaulting through the military’s rigid class structure of rank.

  Shane was under a lot of pressure now. The age limit for applying was twenty-five, and there weren’t a lot of people around who could give him sound advice about completing college applications, writing all those essays and finding a location overseas to take his SATs. But he went at it with maniacal energy and typical attention to detail. By the spring of 1998 he was hearing from schools. He’d been accepted at The Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina, his first choice, but also all the state universities he’d applied to—in Colorado, Virginia, and Florida.

  “Freakin’ A,” Shane exulted to his friends. “I can’t believe this. I got into all of my colleges.”

  Everyone was overjoyed for Shane. And, as he left Nairobi for a brief reassignment to Camp Pendleton in California and then a Western Pacific cruise before he enrolled at The Citadel, it was clear what the college milestone would mean. He was getting past the limits of family now, past his personal background. He had become that most interesting kind of person, the compelling and achieving late bloomer, finally addressing the development delayed back in Mississippi. Shane was keenly aware of all this and often spoke about it to friends. He was scared about the amount of academic work required by college, and he had chosen The Citadel because he felt more comfortable in the environment of a military college after rejecting the “hippie girl” culture of the other campuses he visited. And he knew that he couldn’t fuck up now, he had to perform. Everyone would be watching the first Childers to attend college.

  That summer, the Childerses had been in Wyoming for seven years and Joe had been privately dreaming about a college education himself. He had his navy pension now, picking up an extra job somewhere was always a snap, and he could attend college at night, or whenever. There was a good community college right there in Powell, a place called Northwest. Then Shane came home for his summer visit, he and Joe broke some horses together and laid irrigation pipe, and it was just great to see how excited Shane was about leaving for his MECEP prep course in California before he traveled east for The Citadel in the fall.

  “Well, you know, when Shane told me that he was going to college I just said to hell with my own plans for school,” Joe said. “Shane would be going to college for both of us. That was the feeling between us now, I just kind of sensed. Shane was accomplishing whole bunches of things that were dreams for us all.”

  On Wednesday morning, when the CACO team arrived at the Childerses, it took a few minutes for the initial awkwardness and tension to wear off. That was because they all knew that they were operating now with a deficit of information. Hutchison still couldn’t get a firm ship date for Shane’s body out of Quantico or the Dover mortuary, mostly because there had been a lot more casualties in Iraq and the field morgue shipments were coming back in unpredictable waves. The pressure on Hutchison was infuriating. Don’t screw up this CACO assignment, captain, is the funeral all planned yet? It’s getting there, sir, but I need the body. Sorry, we can’t help you on that yet. As soon as we hear from Germany or Dover, we’ll let you know.

  That was marine life, right there, all of it incredibly compressed by the agony of burying the first killed in Iraq. We don’t have the information you need, captain. Oh, and by the way, Hutch. Don’t fuck up.

  The Childerses were being pressured from a lot of different directions. Governor Dave Freudenthal had already announced that he would attend the funeral. Wyoming’s congressmen and state senators had all called, and there were all the local veterans’ groups, the media, and now family and friends converging from London and California. But when was the funeral? They all had to know. It was maddening to have given up your son in a war but then nobody in the military really knew when he’d be back.

  “Kevin, I think we should just say Tuesday and establish that as a firm date for the funeral,” Judy told Hutchison as they sat at the dining-room table. “We can always hold a big memorial service for everyone who’s here and then bury Shane privately when he’s back.”

  “Judy,” Hutchison said. “I promised to agree on a firm date, and Tuesday is fine. That just motivates me to work harder to get Shane back.”

  “Ah, listen here, Kevin,” Joe said. “We’re not blaming you, see? You do know that, right? We know that the thing is out of your control.”

  “Thanks, Joe,” Hutchison said. “I do know that. But let’s work toward Tuesday, and I’ll push hard for that.”

  There were a few more forms left to sign and they talked about the funeral and Laura Richardson’s suggestion that it be held in the gym at Northwest College in Powell. Hutchison explained that he and Sergeant Morgan would be making visits in town today to discuss all the arrangements with the funeral home and the police—they would even be speaking with the editor of the Powell Tribune to get the proper word out. He explained that Morgan would probably be spending the rest of the week in Billings, drilling his honor guard team at the armory, while Hutchison worked all the details from Powell. When they again declined lunch because they had an appointment in town at the police department, Judy insisted that they take some coffee and Girl Scout cookies.

  Before he left, Hutchison managed to maneuver Judy into the living room and talked to her alone. He’d been worried about her, and so was everyone else. She still wasn’t showing much emotion about Shane’s death, and he was concerned about her well-being, the emotional consequences of her holding so much in. But he wasn’t sure how to handle it so he had checked his thinking with his mother out in California the night before. And she had made a useful suggestion.

  “Kevin, make it a request for information, okay? Don’t tell her what to do, how she should feel. Just ask, all right?”

  That’s how Hutchison handled it. He told Judy that he was concerned about her, that she wasn’t expressing much emotion at all, and that he would j
ust like to know how she was feeling. Was there anything more he should be doing?

  “Oh, Kevin, please,” Judy said. “I’m fine, really. I’m so used to being the rock of this family after keeping everything together when Joe was traveling for the navy. Just give me time. I’ll be okay.”

  “All right, Judy,” Hutchison said. “You’re sure?”

  “Kevin? Kevin Hutchison? What did I just say?”

  “All right, Judy. All right. But I’m here. You just have to tell me.”

  Hutchison and Morgan left the house a few minutes later, heading for town. Hutchison still felt vaguely uncomfortable about how Judy was doing and made a mental note to ask his mother for more advice. But it was certainly possible, he thought, that he was being too sensitive about Judy, and that he should just relax about it.

  When they reached downtown Powell, Hutchison and Morgan began to sense that Shane Childers’ death, and the prospect of hosting the funeral of the first soldier killed in Iraq, was having quite an impact in the community. If they stopped somewhere for coffee or lunch, or just bought a paper, no one would take their money. They stood out in their dress blues, obviously the CACO team handling the Childers burial. Strangers would stop them on the street and ask if there was anything they could do to help.

  Over at the Skyline Café on East Coulter Avenue, Hutchison and Morgan overheard some farmers talking. They were all huddled together in a booth, finishing lunch, discussing the war in Iraq and the upcoming funeral. The farmers were expecting a lot of peace protestors and demonstrators from out of town. If the demonstrators acted up, the farmers were all planning on bashing heads and kicking some ass. They all laughed when one of them pointed out that this is why Wyoming farmers own too many tractors. You can always use one to make bail.

  When Hutchison and Morgan met with the deputy chief at the police station, he was also concerned about handling such a big event. The governor’s office, CNN, and veterans’ groups had all called about attending the funeral, and they all wanted to know if there was going to be a procession of the hearse through town. Many other residents of Powell had asked about it as well. Hutchison said that they were planning on a procession, which the deputy felt was going to create crowd control and security issues.

  But, really, the deputy was mainly concerned about something else: peace protestors. That was the big worry. For sure, a lot of them would be showing up in Powell to demonstrate at the funeral, and the police department was readying plans to recruit extra state troopers and set up partitions so that all the peace protestors could be conveniently herded out of harm’s way. They would be trying to turn this event into another Matthew Sheperd media spectacle, but the police didn’t want any trouble like that in Powell.

  Hutchison thought these concerns were exaggerated, but he didn’t want to say so directly and offend the local law. He made eye contact with Morgan, who was suppressing a smile, and then felt Morgan’s size eleven shoe applying pressure on top of his own. The meeting was beginning to remind Hutchison of his favorite cold war farce, a movie starring Carl Reiner and Alan Arkin called The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming, during which a small New England town reacts to the grounding of a harmless Soviet submarine. He was burying a marine in a Wyoming town so remote that there was roadkill elk a few blocks from city hall. But the Russians were coming now, the Russians were coming, and for sure there would be marauding peace protestors on the streets.

  Hutchison thought fast and replied, “Well deputy, we appreciate your thoroughness here. But I think that the military might have a position on this.”

  “Sure,” the deputy said. “What would that be?”

  “I can check with command,” Hutchison said. “But I think they’ll suggest that we keep any partitions or extra police officers out of sight, unless we really need them. We want the public to feel welcome. We want to show proper respect. I’m burying a fellow marine.”

  The deputy agreed but suggested that they just keep the problem of the protestors in mind. You never know.

  Hutchison and Morgan started roaring with laughter as soon as they got out to the Surburban and headed out of town, taking the Belfry cutoff north.

  “Oh Christ, sir,” Morgan said. “What bullshit. There isn’t a frickin’ peace protestor within three hundred miles of this town. The last hippie sighting was in 1968.”

  “The Russians are coming, Barry,” Hutchison said. “The Russians are coming.”

  Morgan was really roaring now, and Hutchison appreciated it, that they could get traction on some levity and get away from the pressures of the CACO work.

  “Fuck me,” Morgan said. “The Russians are coming. Hey. Do you think we should tell Joe? It’s so funny.”

  “Yeah, let’s tell Joe. He’s got a great sense of humor, don’t you think?”

  “Oh God, yes. Let’s tell him. Old Jedd Clampett back there will love it. The fucking Russians are coming to Powell.”

  It started getting dark once they were past the open range of the Two Dot ranch and then, in the gap between the Beartooths and the Pryors, the peaks blocked what remained of the sun. It was all just one vast blackness outside now, with two good marines in their car trying to stay loosened up as they drove north through the void. The Russians were coming, but in the Montana sky ahead the familiar lights of Laurel and Billings beckoned them safely home.

  THE CITADEL YEARS

  By the end of the week, Captain Hutchison was getting close to melting down and everyone around him saw it. The whole Billings command was affected by it. He wasn’t exercising in the morning, a violation of marine and personal doctrine, he wasn’t eating or sleeping well, and paperwork for the Childers CACO was strewn all around his desk. He worked late every night, CACO-obsessed. Hutchison had always liked to lead by example and loosely at that, and had never been sharp-tongued with his men. But he was now. Even the Mexicans working on his house noticed the change. Normally when he came in from his morning run, he’d make coffee and chatter away with them in Spanish for a while. But now they were just in the way, a nuisance waiting around for further instructions about shutters and paint. Hutchison was anxious to leave early for the armory to deal with the Childers CACO.

  One of his most trusted noncommissioned officers, Staff Sergeant Travis Ridgeway, stepped into Hutchison’s office on Friday afternoon and expressed the concerns of the other marines.

  “Sir,” the staff sergeant said. “You’re taking the Childers CACO way too seriously, way beyond the call of duty. Take some time off.”

  But Hutchison felt that he had no choice except to ignore that advice. One of the problems was that Joe and Judy Childers were more than willing to accept Hutchison’s many generous offers to assume responsibility for the paperwork that families often did themselves. He was mired down in completing insurance forms, closing bank accounts, and chasing down the location of Shane’s storage locker outside Camp Pendleton in suburban San Diego. Meanwhile he had to coordinate all the details of a funeral parade in Powell with the local police, monitor carefully that they weren’t overreacting to the threat of peace protestors, field calls from the national media, and deal with the flood of reply faxes from Virginia and Washington on Shane’s CACO case. Headquarters branch at Quantico had now concluded that the crush of media, dignitaries, and veterans groups could overwhelm tiny Powell, and they didn’t want to botch the PR during a very public funeral for the first soldier killed in Iraq. Quantico was sending out two additional Marine Public Affairs Officers to assist with the funeral, help that was welcome. But each new layer of contact required additional complexity—motel reservations, transportation, more reporting up to a distant command.

  And he still had no firm news for Joe and Judy about when Shane’s body would return. He did know at this point that Shane was at the national mortuary in Dover, Delaware, being prepared. Faxes had been exchanged about a proper medals rack for his burial uniform and the Childerses had selected a coffin. But it was nearly the weekend now, the Tuesday fune
ral and burial date loomed, and he still couldn’t provide specific information for funeral director Laura Richardson, the Powell police, or the family on when Shane would arrive. With casualties mounting in Iraq, Dover was backed up now and the mortuary couldn’t release a firm ship date. Thanks for your concern, captain, FYI, we’ll keep you up to date. It was the old military hurry up and wait routine. But this was positively maddening when the job at hand was burying a hero marine.

  Hutchison’s meticulous approach to the Childers CACO created tensions in his important relationship with First Sergeant Morgan as well. Morgan adored the Childerses—all Joe’s crazyass projects around the ranch, the way Judy was the quiet force that held the family together, the impressive son they had raised. The CACO manual required only that a local command make the next-of-kin notification, keep an appointment or two to familiarize the survivors with all the paperwork, and then provide an honor guard and assistance with the funeral if the family asked.

  Hutchison was going way beyond that and then not listening to his second in command, who was advising that the Billings marines might just consider reducing the CACO effort a bit. Morgan reached his limit when he heard about the photo albums. Hutchison had gone out to Staples and purchased fifty of them, so that every friend and family member who came to Wyoming for the service could have a fitting memento, replete with newspaper stories and pictures of Shane. It was a noble gesture, the sort of generosity that came effortlessly to Hutchison. It was just his way of living out the marine motto, Semper Fidelis—Always Faithful—for the Childers family. But the photocopying and the runs back and forth to Staples for color copies of Shane’s official marine portrait ate up a lot of time.