Fade to Black - Proof (19 page)

“You make me
so happy, Casey,” Pam said dreamily from the chair beside him. Her hand was
warm and soft in his. “I love you so very much.”

“I love you
too, Pam,” he answered. He took a sip of his beer and then turned and looked at
her, head back against the chaise lounge, eyes closed. “I am never going to
leave you,” he said.

“I know,” she
answered.

Chapter

23

Jack woke up in the big bed,
with its perfect pillows, wrapped tightly around the warm naked body of his
sleeping wife. The alarm he had set for eight a.m. had not yet gone off, so he
lay there happily, legs entwined around Pam’s, breathing her scent.

The alarm
chirped and Jack opened his eyes, set his jaw and gritted his teeth. No matter
what he found at Pendleton, he would not allow it to end here in California or
in the dirty streets of Fallujah. He would find a way. He would keep his life
with his girls. Pam stretched beside him and woke up, opening her eyes slowly. The
realization of where they were and why enveloped her, and her face darkened.
Jack rolled over, face to face with his wife, and caressed her cheek.

“Good morning,
baby,” he said.

“Morning,” she
said sadly, mourning the passing of their evening together, he thought.

“Everything is
going to be ok, Pam,” he said. “I promise.”

“I know,” she
said, hugging him, but her voice did not hold much conviction.

Then they rose
slowly from bed and headed together to the shower, neither wanting to be apart,
not even for a moment.

As they
dressed, Jack thought about Camp Pendleton, the sprawling Marine Corp Base and
home to the First Marine Expeditionary Force. He knew it was a huge complex
stretching over miles and miles. North of San Diego, not quite halfway to Los
Angeles, he thought perhaps that the massive military base might be the only
thing that prevented the two cities from eventually meeting as they grew
outward like two cancers, seeking each other to become one giant tumorlike
metropolis. From San Diego “the Five” connected the city and suburb commuters
with the base, joining close to the base with Highway 805 to form a daily
bottleneck of merging traffic.

Before joining
the throngs of travelers, Jack called the information number published in the
phone book for Camp Pendleton and asked to be connected to the PAO at Third
Battalion, First Marines. A moment later he was speaking to First Lieutenant
Sheila Rawls, the PAO for First MEF. She was very polite, and explained that
there was currently no PAO for Third Battalion, but could she possibly help?

Jack rattled
off the same story about a current events lesson about the Marines in Iraq. This
time he added how he and his wife had spent a long weekend in San Diego, and
since they were so close he thought he might be able to arrange a visit and get
more information for his class. He explained that one of his students had a
relative with Third Battalion and thought it might be nice to focus on that
unit in particular. He also apologized for the short notice. Pam sat nervously
beside him on the bed throughout the call and held his hand in silence.

Lt. Rawls
proved very accommodating. She said she would arrange for someone to meet him
at the gate and escort him to First MEF headquarters, where she would be happy
to meet with him and answer any questions that their operational security rules
would allow. Jack thanked her, gave her a rough guess of their arrival time,
and then hung up.

“Well, that’s
it,” he said to Pam with a forced smile after he got off the phone. Pam gave
him a tight smile back and said nothing.

Now they sat
in the slowly moving rental car, flowing with the tide of traffic. Finally
north of the 805 merge they picked up speed again. They were both quiet during
the drive, sipping coffee from the hotel coffee shop and munching halfheartedly
on croissants, lost in their own thoughts. Neither wanted to upset the other by
bringing up the obvious and myriad questions. It was enough that they were
together.

After a while,
Jack saw the blue sign that quietly announced that Camp Pendleton was the next
exit. He felt his heart flutter and his stomach flip. This was it. Finally, he
would put the biggest question to rest. What he would do next was still a
frightening mystery.

Only a few
minutes off the exit they approached the main gate to Camp Pendleton Marine
Corps Base, and Jack felt his hands tighten on the steering wheel. He couldn’t
shake the sudden and overwhelming sense that he was home. He felt Pam’s hand
reach for his leg and squeeze it just above the knee. The feel of her was
soothing. As Jack approached the gate, he snapped off the daytime running
headlights, an expected courtesy to the gate guards. Then he pulled up beside
the guard house, stopped, and rolled down his window. A young Marine in crisp woodland
digital cammies approached the window, his rifle slung off his shoulder low, a
combat configuration that allowed him to bring the weapon to bear without
unslinging it.

“Hoorah, sir,”
he said.

“Hoorah, Corporal,”
Jack replied, noting the rank by his two chevrons over crossed rifles on his
collar. He fumbled in his wallet for his driver’s license and school staff ID,
and then asked Pam for her ID, as well. He presented them to the guard. “Lt.
Rawls is expecting me. She said she would send an escort to the gate.”

The young Marine
consulted a clipboard, searching for his name. Satisfied he pointed to a short
pull-off to their right.

“Very well, sir,”
he said. “Just pull over into the circle there and the pick-up private will be
along in just a second to escort you to MEF HQ.” He handed the IDs back to Jack
through the window. “Sir, you understand that access to the base implies
consent to involuntary search of yourselves and the vehicle?”

“Yes, I do,
Corporal,” Jack replied, putting his IDs back in his wallet. He handed Pam her
driver’s license.

“Very well, sir,”
the corporal said again then motioned them to pull forward.

Jack pulled
into the circle and put the vehicle in park.

“You gonna be
ok, Baby?” Pam asked, the tension now clear on her face and in her eyes.

“I’m fine, sweetheart,”
Jack answered sounding more confident than he felt. “Thank you so much for
being here with me. I don’t know if I could make it without you.”

“You’ll never
have to, Jack. I love you,” she added simply as if it explained everything. For
Jack it did.

Only a minute
or two passed before a desert-tan painted Humvee, a Mark-19 machine gun mounted
but unmanned on the roof, pulled up beside them. A very young Marine got out
and walked over to them. Jack rolled down the window again.

“Morning, sir,”
the Marine said. “May I see some ID, please?”

Jack presented
their IDs again. The Marine studied them briefly and then handed them back.

“Lt. Rawls is
expecting you, sir. Just follow me and I’ll take you there. I’ll stop beside
the spot you can park in,” he said.

“Thank you,”
Jack said, and then rolled up the window while the Marine mounted his Humvee
again. Then he followed the lightly armored jeeplike truck onto the main road.
“Here we go,” he said softly to no one in particular, but Pam wrapped tightly
around his arm again.

First MEF
headquarters was several miles from the gate at the end of the main road on
which they entered the base. On the way in they passed the typical nondescript brick
or grey wood buildings that made up every base he had ever been on. The traffic
was fairly heavy, a mix of civilian vehicles and green or tan seven‐ton trucks
and Humvees. The Marines on the street were all clad in cammies, some in
woodland green, others in tan and brown desert digitals, indicating those who
had either just returned or were soon heading to Iraq.

Jack pulled
into the parking spot which the private’s Humvee stopped beside, right next to
the large, brick three‐story building with its towering white pillars. Over the
entry was a large brown sign with yellow lettering which announced “One MEF HQ.”
Below it, in script, Jack read the words “Through these doors pass the finest
warriors in the world.” He locked the car and he and Pam followed the private
through the white wood and glass doors. Jack felt a stirring inside, pride
mixed with fear. He had no doubt he had passed through these doors more than
once, and he knew in his heart that he was also “one of the finest warriors in
the world.” He unconsciously took his wife’s hand.

Lt. Rawl’s
office was on the second floor (second deck, Jack thought to himself). The
private opened the door for them and led them into a small waiting room. In it were
a simple sofa and two chairs, centered around a coffee table with various
military magazines and newspapers.

“Have a seat, sir,”
he turned to Pam, “ma’am. I’ll let the lieutenant know you’re here.”

“Thank you,”
Jack said as he took a seat beside Pam, her hand still tight in his.

Jack resisted
the urge to pick up one of the various and sundry military magazines on the
table. His mind was a torrent of images and emotions. He had such clear
pictures in his head from this place. And sitting here, with the distinctive
smell and feel of the base, took him back to another time, or at least to another
place. He watched a slide show of snapshots of himself and his Marines. He saw
them drinking beer in the bowling alley, Pam at his side. He saw them crawling
through the woods, weapons ahead of them, doing combat land navigation training
and humping packs through the nearby high desert and conducting joint training
with their sister Light Armored Reconnaissance unit, their heavily armed
LAV-25s kicking up dust. He had a clear picture of all of them together in
their gear, stretched out in the grass in front of the Headquarters and Service
Platoon, waiting to debrief after a long day of training. They were laughing
and joking the way young men, friends bound by a common purpose and
codependence, were familiar with in unspoken ways. Jack sighed. He knew where this
journey was taking him. He was still unsure how he would get back from there, but
he had no doubts anymore where the journey would begin.

“Hi, folks. My
name is Lieutenant Sheila Rawls,” a friendly voice said behind him.

Jack rose and
let go of Pam’s hand long enough to shake hands with a woman about their age,
dressed in woodland digital cammies with the sleeves rolled up tightly to her
midupper arms. The rank insignia on her collar showed her to be a first
lieutenant.

“Good, morning
Lieutenant,” Jack said releasing the woman’s firm grip. “I’m Jack and this is
my wife Pam,” he said as the two women also shook hands. “Thanks so much for
taking time to meet with us on such short notice.”

“My pleasure,
Jack,” the woman said. “Why don’t we go to my office and we can chat. It’s
always a pleasure to meet with people interested in teaching kids about our Marines
and the tough job they’re doing.”

Lt. Rawls led
them back to a small room, made smaller by a modular cubicle system that
divided it into four, even smaller, office spaces. She pulled two chairs into
her cramped cubicle and motioned them to sit down. Jack took in the typical
space, full of Marine Corps memorabilia and pictures, and noted the scattered
pictures on the desk of a handsome man holding and playing with two small boys.

“You have a
lovely family,” Jack said, pointing to the pictures.

“Oh, thank
you,” Rawls said proudly. “Steven is wonderful and our two boys are just great.
They put up with a lot having a Marine for a wife and mother.” Jack knew just what
she meant. “What can I do for you today?” she asked.

Jack ran
through a similar set of vague questions as those he had asked Staff Sergeant
Perry. Rawls answered his questions with a little more spin than the recruiter
had. She emphasized the tough job the Marines faced in Iraq and the fine job
they were doing in a trying war with difficult rules of engagement. She focused
on the role of the Iraqi people and their efforts to help them build their
country. She also talked about the various humanitarian missions the First MEF Marines
were engaged in to provide health and security, and “win the hearts and minds”
of the Iraqis.

“What we are
trying to do is give them security and safety so that they can have the
confidence to build and defend a free society,” she said, quoting the party
line of her commander in chief. Jack had no doubt that her words were not
rhetoric, and that she believed very much in the mission they had been given in
the Middle East. “Stability in the Middle East begins with freedom and requires
security for the people,” she said. “That stability will ultimately mean safety
for Americans at home and abroad,” she emphasized.

As before,
Jack made a show of scribbling notes in a notepad Rawls had provided. It was
time to get to the tough questions.

“What about
losses,” he asked as casually as he could. He felt his pulse quicken, and Pam,
who had been quiet throughout the conversation, put a hand on his leg and
squeezed gently but nervously. “I know the action in Fallujah the last few days
has been intense. Have we lost many Marines there?” Jack watched the lieutenant’s
face closely and saw it cloud. She shifted uncomfortably.

“Well,” she
began, clearly choosing her words carefully, “we’re in a dangerous business,
Jack. I’m sure you’ve seen on the news that we do lose Marines and soldiers.
The action in Fallujah has cost us the lives of several brave Marines recently.
I’m not at liberty to discuss many specifics, of course.” She smiled, but was
clearly not as at ease as she had been earlier.