One September Morning

by Rosalind Noonan

  Chapter 13

  Camp Desert Mission, Iraq

  The ritual of sending off a fallen soldier can bring tears to any man’s eyes, but today is special. As if the hands of God descended to the earth to shield this region of Iraq from the desperate winds that blew through the night, a stillness looms over the desert now. A sudden break from the vicious Sharqi winds.

  A miracle, just in time to allow the pomp and circumstance of a hero’s farewell, John Stanton’s final departure from Camp Desert Mission.

  He straps his rifle on—the stealthy cause of death, no doubt—and joins the other soldiers, the sea of desert khaki. Marching at parade rest alongside the stretcher, he feels a frisson of excitement, a tingling awareness that he is observing history. John’s send-off is unlike any event that has ever transpired on this Forward Operating Base.

  Not that they haven’t sent scores of bodies home on Hero Flights. This unit has seen mass casualties. During bad times they’ve had days with twenty or thirty people dead, and each body got a send-off, a guided procession to the helicopter that bore it off to Kuwait. Yes, the soldiers of Bravo Company have sent plenty of fallen soldiers home to their final resting place.

  But none of the previous casualties came close to John Stanton’s status as a celebrity, a star, a hero. And true to his legendary status, he is getting a hero’s exit, complete with an opening in the heavens that allows pink and gold sunlight to emanate over the pale horizon like a photo on a goddamned greeting card.

  A picture-perfect moment, and a huge turnout. Many final ceremonies attract fifty men, maybe a hundred, but today it looks like every soldier from Camp Despair and neighboring outposts turned out to honor John.

  The sight of so many somber, silent men is quite the spectacle—further proof of the king’s stature. A person could easily feel a twinge of jealousy. Except, of course, for the obvious fact that Stanton is dead, no longer able to suck up the adulation.

  All the king’s men are in attendance: dutiful brother, loyal friends, fellow soldiers, surly superior officers. Hell, even a handful of reporters got here for the early-morning service, sandstorm and all. That’s fame for you. The guys from the media stand among the nearly three hundred men who line the path to the ambulance when the litter bearing John Stanton’s body emerges from the temporary morgue, carried by John’s favorites.

  Everyone knows who the king’s favorites were.

  But no one realizes that one of them betrayed him.

  John’s death will go down in history as a combat casualty.

  And it’s all rather beautiful. The snow-white litter bearing the body. The crimson, white, and navy of the flag draped squarely over his body. The hard-jawed, somber male soldiers standing in a line so long their desert fatigues form a ribbon of muddy brown that ripples against the stone color of the sand flats.

  The beauty of the ceremonial send-off on a Hero Flight has eluded him until this day when the body of a fallen hero is borne by his buddies down the path of soldiers.

  An American flag with a light shines on the hero, a fallen man, yet his light shines on.

  The pallbearers pause at the ambulance as a soldier wearing a purple vestment around his neck says a prayer. “Lord, we pray that this soldier’s life was not in vain, that his hard work on earth furthered your cause of peace and justice. Heavenly Father, into your hands we commend the spirit of John Laurence Stanton…”

  Words, words. They buzz in his head, often too loud and distorted to decipher. He wishes the chaplain would finish so that the hero’s grand ceremony could continue, the king’s litter progressing down the line so that every mourning soldier could bear witness to his fallen power.

  The greatness that once reigned.

  The power and light that passed into me the moment I took his life.

  “Amen.” The soldiers’ voices are a thunderclap as the chaplain closes his prayer book. The litter is loaded into an ambulance and the mourners march on in silence, forward to the helicopter pad.

  No one flinches when the winds kick up dust and grit.

  No one misses a step in the hero’s last march.

  At the helicopter pad, the ambulance rolls to a stop. Two men from Stanton’s platoon open the vehicle’s rear doors, and the priest steps forward to lead another prayer. This time the chaplain dashes holy water over the body, then over the crowd.

  A clot of thick holy water lands in the new hero’s hair, and he imagines it seeping into his scalp, into the follicles, his pores soaking it up in the same way he has soaked up John Stanton’s soul.

  “Remember, man, that you are dust,” the chaplain says, “and unto dust you shall return.”

  A soldier steps forward, lifts a bugle to his lips, and blows taps as John’s boys lift the litter from the ambulance and carry it to the helipad. With gravity and reverence the snow-white litter is lifted into the helicopter, like some ancient emperor who has been granted the gift of flight. The men duck low and scurry away as the chopper blades begin to rotate.

  And then the soldiers stand at attention and salute their fallen hero.

  The final salute.

  The king has fallen. The survivors will battle on.

  Sleep well, he thinks as the copter lifts from the ground. Sleep on into eternity, and I will take care of the living.

  To the victor go the spoils.

  Chapter 14

  Fort Lewis

  Sharice

  The minute Sharice steps out of Abby and John’s house she faces her husband with the question that has been nagging at her all evening: “How am I going to work around Abby?”

  “I don’t want her to get hurt any more than she is,” Jim says, unlocking the car door and opening it for his wife. “She’s very vulnerable right now. In too much of a state to handle the media with real control.”

  “She wants to play down John’s accomplishments,” Sharice says in disbelief. “She’d have the press minimize all the things John fought for, the things he gave his life for.”

  “That’s not going to fly. If you doth protest too much, the media is going to pump him up all the more.”

  “Mmm.” Sharice stares through the windshield as Jim starts the car. “I don’t know how Abby’s going to handle all this considering the state she’s in. Poor thing. She’s an emotional wreck. Thank God I intervened and insisted on packing a few things that she can wear to the funeral.”

  “I heard her ask you to keep the obit subdued and understated,” Jim says. “How are you going to do that?”

  “I’ve got to be guided by my best instincts.”

  “Which means, a hero’s tribute?”

  “Which means the truth,” Sharice confirms. “And if some people are looking for a strong, courageous role model to inspire them, then let them honor John.”

  By the time they arrive home, it’s all decided: Sharice will reach out to the media and encourage them to use all the bells and whistles in telling John’s story, and if Abby doesn’t approve? Well, eventually she’ll get over it.

  Downstairs, from the trail of discarded flip-flops, backpack, hoody, and empty yogurt cup, Sharice can see that Madison has blazed through here on her way up to her room. And she’s left the computer on. Well, for once, Sharice has good reason to go online.

  Sitting at the unfamiliar computer, Sharice searches online to find contact information for the Seattle newspapers, as well as the local TV stations affiliated with national networks. She starts by drafting an e-mail to one of the TV stations, but halfway through, she realizes this is going to be a time-consuming process for someone who’s not computer literate.

  “Sometimes you just need to make a good old-fashioned phone call,” she tells Jim, who is tucked into in his old blue recliner, watching the ten o’clock news.

  While she’s on hold, Sharice paces into the small laundry room to start a load of colors, and there, hanging on the “wall of fame,” as the kids dubbed it, are three framed montages, one devoted to each of her children. She quickly pour
s in detergent, then takes the framed pictures of John from the hook on the wall, studying the photos of her oldest son, from infancy to manhood, the most recent shot taken last Christmas right here in this house.

  Still holding the phone to her ear with one shoulder, she closes the door to the living room, leans back against the filling washer, and allows herself to gape, open-mouthed, over the photos of her son, her first baby, her oldest child, who is never coming home again.

  A sharp howl escapes her throat, but she staves off feeling, wanting to see her son, his life in its entirety, captured in still photographs.

  Her eyes dash from the photo of John potty training with a rebellious smirk on his face to a shot of him pressing a ball to his mouth below a miniature basketball hoop. There he is as a baby, swaddled in a downy blue blanket, looking so innocent you’d never believe he was a howler, that she’d spent night after night trekking up and down the stairs in their quarters outside Stuttgart, Germany, because the gentle jostling was the only thing that seemed to ease the discomfort of his colic. My, how the baby weight melted for her that time.

  With apple red cheeks, John the toddler hangs from his dad’s arm, those red cheeks the tip-off that he was sick with fever. How sick, Sharice had not realized until the doctors admitted him to the army hospital at Robinson Barracks. An abscess in his throat, swollen to the size of a golf ball…a wonder he could breathe or swallow. Sharice remembers the sleepless days spent sitting beside his hospital bed, an IV line strapped onto his tiny arm, telling him what a brave boy he was, assuring him that everything would be just fine when she was actually quivering at the thought of losing him.

  There’s John at age ten, looking dark and serious in his Boy Scout uniform. Barefoot on a summer day, chasing his brother through a shallow stream. At dusk, he’d loved to catch lightning bugs but refused to put them in a jar like his friends because he didn’t want to harm a living thing.

  John at twelve, when she home-schooled him during a short tour of duty in Japan. Twelve years old and he was reading Kierkegaard, discussing existentialism and the search for the “true self” like a seasoned philosopher. Another shot of him holding baby Maddy at that time, singing her the ABC song, using her Elmo puppet to teach her to count and say words. What twelve-year-old nurtures and teaches an infant, sharing joy with such alacrity?

  He was an exceptional child; she realized that years ago.

  Not that he was without flaw.

  John could be stubborn. Bullheaded. How many times had he defied her and Jim, standing his ground because he felt that his actions were justified. “I’m doing it in the name of right!” he told her, time and again. After he’d chastised her father for smoking cigarettes. Protested that enlisted men weren’t welcome in the Officers Club. Convinced some of his friends to join him in tree hugging so that a grove of trees wouldn’t be cut down by the base maintenance crew. Such a tough nut, he could be. Uncompromising and determined.

  She recalls Jim’s disappointment when John graduated from high school and chose to attend Rutgers University. It had been Jim’s dream for his oldest son to attend West Point and become a commissioned officer, but although John was accepted there he bucked his father—“I just can’t hide in my father’s shadow,” he’d said—and taken the scholarship offered by Rutgers. Such a disappointment to Jim, despite the fact that John developed a national profile as a running back and was drafted to the NFL right out of college.

  That he’d landed in Seattle, not too far from Fort Lewis, had been a stroke of luck. And playing the first year that the new stadium opened. Sharice will never forget standing in the new stadium on opening night, her arm linked through Jim’s, as the stadium and the sky above it glowed from festive fireworks. And though Jim’s pleasure may have been tempered by disappointment, Sharice was proud that John was achieving his goals—playing professional football, performing beyond all expectations. That night, when he broke away from the pack and ran the ball into the end zone, leaping and bounding like a stag in the woods, she couldn’t deny the swell of pride and pleasure.

  He achieved so much in his twenty-seven years.

  Her throat tightens at the sight of him in his dress uniform—so stern and strong. When he’d called to share the news, told them that he and Noah were signing up together.

  That day that John and Noah enlisted…perhaps it was the happiest day of their lives, hers and Jim’s. It changed something in Jim, made him stand taller, knowing his sons would be serving, following in his footsteps.

  She hugs the montage to her breast, unable to imagine the world without him…her son, her oldest. How could he be gone?

  Sharice’s face crumples as a quiet whimper escapes her throat.

  Her son, her baby boy, who grew into a beautiful, responsible man…

  She presses her eyes closed and purses her lips with deep resolve. If he’s really gone, she will not let his life end with a whisper. She’ll make sure everyone knows of his heroic decision to leave pro football to serve his country because, despite Abby’s hesitance to attract publicity, she knows John did it all for a reason. Sharice will dedicate herself to making sure people remember that John Stanton stood up for his country and gave his life to keep America free of terrorism.

  “Hello?” someone says on the line, and Sharice realizes she has passed through the black hole of a telephone system to a real person, whose voice becomes alert when she mentions that she’s John Stanton’s mother.

  “I’m so sorry for your loss,” the woman on the phone says. “I’m a segment producer, and this is certainly newsworthy.” The woman wants to ask Sharice a few questions over the phone, then send out a camera crew for some video footage. “Would tomorrow morning be okay?” asks the producer, Lacey Phelps. “I know this is a difficult time for you, but this is definitely a story with local appeal…probably even national.”

  “Tomorrow morning is fine,” Sharice says. She presses the framed montage to her breast, unable to view the photos of her son and keep the tremors from her voice. Preparing to answer Lacey’s questions, she braces herself and takes a deep breath.

  Stay focused on the mission. Maintain composure. Don’t fall apart and play the overwrought soldier’s mom. You can do this…for John.

  Chapter 15

  Al Fallujah, Iraq

  Emjay

  From high up in the warehouse, Emjay stares down at a stain that won’t go away.

  Some of the guys from Alpha Company were here last night and again this morning scrubbing the hell out of the bloodstain for hours, pouring on bleach and cleansers. Emjay heard them cursing under their breath, unaware that he was watching from above.

  But it won’t go away. Damned bloodstain. You’d think John was freakin’ Superman or something. The whitewashed surface continues to ooze rusty brown, as if the blood is now running from beneath the floor, an underground spring.

  Perched some twenty yards above on a loft that was probably once used to store tiles, Emjay Brown stares down at the dark spot on the ground, which seems to darken and grow before his eyes. Like a curse, a scourge, it will never go away.

  What’s that Shakespeare play where the woman tries to scrub out a bloodstain but can’t get it out? “Out, damned spot! out I say!” Emjay can still hear his junior high teacher acting out the scene for the class. Lady Macbeth, he thinks. She became a chronic hand washer. Shakespeare’s attempt to point the finger at obsessive-compulsive disorder before Freud was even born. Emjay doesn’t have an advanced degree in psychology like Doc, but he’s read enough to know about the psychosis of the month. When you live on a chicken farm there’s a lot of time for reading, and unlike his old man, he wasn’t ashamed to make the trip into town and borrow a bunch of books from the library. That old library became his refuge, a safe place to go when the old man was on a tirade and his friends dried up. By the time he finished high school he’d read through more than half the fiction section, women’s books included. Not that he was like that or anything, but Emjay didn’t re
ally care who was telling a story, as long as it was interesting.

  Yeah, that was Lady Macbeth, scrubbing the skin off her own hands.

  Could use a neurotic scrubber like that to work on the stain three stories below.

  And all because of…what?

  The army wants to make it sound like a raid gone bad, an insurgent who turned on them, but Emjay knows better. The man he saw running away was no Iraqi insurgent.

  “It was one of our own, sir,” he told Lt. Chenowith and Col. Waters at the debriefing.

  Waters sat back in his chair and pressed a finger to the bridge of his dark glasses. “What are you saying, Corporal? Do you mean you saw a U.S. soldier shoot John Stanton?”

  “No, sir, when the shots were fired I could only see the muzzle flash. But I saw the gunman running away.”

  Chenowith leaned over the table of the briefing room, a small spartan space in a bungalow that held only the table with an ancient slide projector and a few wrinkled maps and satellite images on the wall. “Did you see who it was?”

  “No, sir. Only that it was one of our guys. An American.”

  Col. Waters rubbed the stubble on his chin, considering this. “And why would an American soldier kill John Stanton?”

  “That I don’t know, sir.” Emjay set his teeth tight, bracing against the colonel’s disdain. Either the man didn’t believe him, or he was furious that Emjay would open up this can of worms in his company.

  “Have you mentioned this to anyone, Corporal Brown?” asked Waters.

  “No, sir.”

  “Good. Information like this is of a sensitive nature. You’re to repeat it to no one, understand, Corporal?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Chenowith squinted at Emjay, then turned to the colonel, who opened a folder and started leafing through it.

  “You’re dismissed, Corporal,” Col. Waters said.