by Z.M. Kage
**********
Jon wasn’t just a cop. He was also in the Marine Reserves... the Infantry, more specifically... and he was set to deploy to Iraq in a few days. He’d worked his way up to the rank of Sergeant just four years after he’d enlisted... another way he was walking in the shadow his dad had left behind.
Same branch, same rank... the only difference between his dad’s experience and his own experience was that Jon had the opportunity to actually put his infantry training to the test – something his dad told him he’d always wanted to do, but since there wasn’t a conflict going on during his years as a Grunt, he never got the chance.
Jon was proud of that, proud for the privilege of experiencing something beyond what his dad had experienced – you’ll be there with me, dad, you’ll get to experience it too... don’t you worry.
With the rank of Sergeant came the honor of leading Marines in combat. Not a lot of Marines... just a squad... and as a Squad Leader Jon was responsible for twelve brave souls. Twelve men he wouldn’t – couldn’t – let down.
Twelve men he’d do everything in his power to make sure they all got home safely.
Oddly enough, when the average about-to-be-deployed Marine was getting nervous about having to leave, Jon was getting excited. The only thing he wasn’t jazzed about was leaving his high school sweetheart behind.
THREE
Erin.
They’d lost their virginity to each other, and they’d been inseparable ever since. She belonged to him, he belonged to her. Jon didn’t want to leave her, to spend so much time away from her (the longest they’d been apart since meeting and falling for each other was two days)... but this was his calling.
This was beyond himself, Erin, and anything either of them wanted. If anybody was meant to go over there and fight for the freedoms American citizens take for granted, it was Jon. He wasn’t just born to be a police officer... he was born to be a Marine.
It’s the night before Jon ships out, and he’s decided to spend his last precious hours, minutes, and seconds before he has to leave with Erin. Nothing over the top, nothing fancy. They’re at the movies, the drive in, the same drive in where they enjoyed their first date back in high school.
The previews start.
“Hey, wanna go grab something from the concession stand real quick?”
Erin declines.
“Oooh c’mon, it’s a special occasion, let yourself stop watching your figure for ONE NIGHT.” Jon pauses. He grins. “Please?”
Erin’s lips form the most gorgeous smile; the smile Jon fell in love with, the smile he doesn’t want to say goodbye to. Knowing he’s getting to her, confident that she can’t resist his charm, he lays it on extra thick. “Do it for me, Erin, do it for me!”
Laughing, Erin throws caution to the wind and lets herself have some junk food. Jon could always get her to laugh, and he had a real knack for helping her relax.
Walking away from the car, away from the screen, and toward the concession stand, Erin hears something familiar coming out of the drive-in speakers next to her. She stops. Jon takes another couple steps forward, like he doesn’t know what she hears, like he doesn’t know what’s going on. Like he hasn’t planned this.
“That sounds like my dad,” Erin says, turning around and facing the giant movie screen. She gasps when she sees it – “it IS my dad!” she screams.
“Mr. Reed... sir...”
“Hey, that’s you!” Erin shouts again, looking back at Jon briefly before re-gluing her eyes to the screen.
“...I love your daughter more than anything in this world. She’s the first thing I think about when I wake up in the morning and the last thing I think about when I go to bed at night. She’s my everything. My sunrise, my sunset. My heart, my home. I want to spend the rest of my life with her... loving her, caring for her, growing old with her. And call me old fashioned, sir, but I don’t feel like I can do that without your blessing...”
A hush falls over the crowd of parked cars surrounding Jon and Erin. It’s quiet enough to hear a pin drop... and that’s saying a lot, because they’re standing on grass. People are paying attention now, they know something’s up, they know that something magical is about to happen. Jon pulls the ring out of his pocket and gets down on one knee behind Erin. She doesn’t notice.
“...so what do you say, Mr. Reed, is it cool with you if I ask Erin to be my wife?”
Erin sniffles uncontrollably as her hands cover her mouth. She watches her father turn, look straight into the camera – straight through the screen and straight into her heart as he says: “Erin, baby, it’s cool with me. You might want to turn around now.”
Erin turns... much slower than Jon thought she would. She’s taking it all in, she can’t believe this is happening right now. Finally she’s facing Jon, staring into his eyes as tears of happiness fall from hers.
“YES!” Erin blurts out in between her joyful gasps.
Applause all around.
Horns honking in approval.
Couldn’t have went smoother.
“You’re so amazing, I love you,” Erin says as Jon rises to his feet, hoists Erin into the air and spins her around... not wanting to ever put her down; not wanting to leave.
But he has to. In less than 12 hours.
Erin’s excitement fades.
She’s thrilled – beyond thrilled – but reality crashes into her; wakes her up.
“You’re leaving tomorrow, Jon,” she says. “And I’m very proud of you for doing what you’re doing... you’re my hero, babe. I know it’s something that has to be done and I know you’re very good at what you do... what I don’t know is why you’d propose to me NOW. Why now?”
“Because I knew it’d be the last thing you’d expect tonight, my last night in the States. Because everything in that video was true – I want to spend the rest of my life with you, have a family with you and grow old with you. And because I want you to think about me when I'm overseas... I wanted to give you something to do. We’ve got a wedding to plan, babe,” Jon explains, finishing with a wink.
“I’m going to miss you so much,” Erin says, crying again. “If I lost you, if you didn’t come back, I’d...”
“Don’t do that,” Jon interrupts. “Don’t even talk like that. I’m coming back.”
“But that’s what everybody that goes over there says, and not everybody DOES come back,” Erin argues, trying to get Jon to see just how scared she really is.
“I’m not everybody. I’m me. And unlike anybody who’s ever gone over and not come back... I’m leaving with YOU in my heart,” Jon reassures her, as certain of his safe return as he is about the sun rising in the East the next morning.
“Promise me you’ll come back,” Erin pleads... still crying, but much harder than before.
“I promise.”
FOUR
Fallujah, Iraq.
July 21, 2004
Plenty of Marines had deployed to Iraq and found themselves stationed at bases fancy enough and established enough to remind them of home – dorm-style rooms with air conditioning, a chow hall with a never-ending supply of hot, nourishing food, cooked on site, the luxury of taking a hot shower whenever – every day if you wanted to.
Jon wasn’t fortunate enough to experience such luxuries.
The base his unit occupied – if a perimeter of sand-filled barriers topped with concertina wire wrapping around a small group of shoddily constructed Iraqi buildings qualifies as a ‘base’ – was in the rural area just outside the city of Fallujah, miles away from anything American.
Miles away from anything that felt safe.
Jon wasn’t one to complain, but then again, maybe he’d have more to complain about if he was forced to live like the Marines he was responsible for. They didn’t have as much living space as he did. He shared a room with the other two squad leaders in his platoon... while the twelve Marines in his squad had to divide a very similarly-sized room amongst themselves.
&
nbsp; It wasn’t a privilege he wanted, and it certainly wasn’t a privilege he asked for. If he had it his way he’d be living with his men – getting to know them the best he could, showing them he wanted them to see him as more than just a superior, and more than someone to take orders from... he wanted each and every one of them to look at him and trust him like a best friend, maybe even an older brother.
OK, maybe not an older brother, because technically, though Jon was in charge of the squad... he wasn’t the oldest member.
A leader has to feel like they’ve got something special to offer, though, and Jon felt like he did: police experience. He may have been a brand new police officer, he may not have had years of on-the-job experience... but the training he’d received on the road to becoming a cop, Jon felt like it crossed over very well to what him and his men were up against in Fallujah.
This wasn’t World War Two.
The enemy didn’t wear a uniform, an obvious sign that would let Jon and his fellow Marines know that Hey, this guy’s not a friendly. Much like being a police officer back in the States, everybody NOT wearing Jon’s uniform looked the same.
Everybody is an innocent civilian until they do something to prove otherwise, but at the same time, in order to stay alive Jon would have to look at everybody as a suspect, a potential threat, a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
After making sure his boys are settled in and in relatively good spirits, Jon returns to his room to find the other two squad leaders sitting around, laughing and joking with each other. Jon wonders if they’d even taken the time to drop in on the Marines they were responsible for yet.
To see how they were doing, to bond with them.
Jon wasn’t like the other two squad leaders. They were both the type that had no issue whatsoever with using their rank to make their lives easier.
Both of them were Sergeants, just like Jon.
Whenever something ‘physical’ had to be done – unloading ammo, food, water... anything that required manual labor from more than one Marine, Jon’s fellow squad leaders would bark orders to their subordinates and then stand there with their arms crossed, watching the junior-ranking Marines do the dirty work.
Jon didn’t see his rank – his position as squad leader – as a license to be lazy. When he went to pass an order down to his squad, he did the work with them, even if he was supposed to be somewhere else. Nothing was more important to him than the trust and respect of the men he was in charge of.
Another thing that set Jon apart from the other two squad leaders:
He didn’t demand that his Marines address him as Sergeant all the damn time.
If a Marine higher-ranking than Jon was around... say, their Platoon Commander, Lieutenant Lopez... then yes, Jon’s Marines addressed him by rank.
But among the other squad leaders, the other Sergeants, or any other time when it was just Jon and his Marines, he let them address him by his first name – something his Marines loved him for.
“We’re all just people,” Jon reminds his squad as he addresses them all as a group. Sitting cross-legged in a tight circle around him, they hang on his every word.
“Rank doesn’t make the man,” Jon continues. “I’m no better than any one of you, I’ve just been in a bit longer and I’ve got a stripe or two extra. Yes, the other squad leaders give me shit over it, and yes, our lovable Lieutenant has chewed my ass about it. More than once. I don’t care. Bring it on.
“Knowing you guys as people, as men, beyond the uniform... feeling like you know me and trust me on that same level... is so much more important to me than doing things by the book – kissing ass to climb one step higher up the rank ladder. They won’t demote me for treating you guys like human beings. And if they do, fuck them. They can have the rank. Unless I go down there’s nobody else to lead this squad, so as for right now they’re just going to have to let me run the show as I see fit.”
Jon’s differences as a leader paid off. In a big way, too. The other two squad leaders, whenever they were away from their men, would bitch and moan about having ‘shitty Marines’ in their squads.
They’d compare who was worse off, who got dealt the shittier hand. “Why don’t you ever complain about your boys?” squad leader number two asks Jon one night in their fancy, spacious squad leader room. Squad leader number three, just as curious to hear how Jon answers this, throws down the book he’s reading and leans in close.
“Because I’ve got nothing to complain about,” Jon replies, laughing inside at the puzzled looks on his fellow squad leaders’ faces.
FIVE
Two months into deployment.
Everybody’s settled in, the job is getting easier, and Jon’s platoon has yet to suffer a casualty – a small miracle, considering how much time they’d spent outside the wire.
Foot patrols, convoys... they’d done it all, and done it well. The bond Jon shares with his Marines transcends anything related to the work they’ve been doing – battlefield trust was there, and there in spades, but it was more than that. They were a family.
