Gunga Din 9

Cptr. 8

Wednesday, Sept. 19, 2001, 1130. National Naval Medical Center, Bethesda, MD.

Sean eased their minivan down the onramp and into Beltway traffic, then let out a sigh; it was going to be a long crawl back to Quantico. His mind wandered to the conversation with the doctor…

“-nervous about surgery?”

“What’s that?” Sean broke out of his thoughts. He didn’t look at Marie, but kept his eyes on the stop-and-go traffic on I-495 South.

“I said, are you nervous about your surgery?”

“Well, sure… although I was more glad when he said that me playing hockey couldn’t make it any worse.” Sean turned his head quickly and smiled at his wife. She had asserted, as a nurse, that there was no way the doctor would allow him to continue playing hockey every Thursday. “I”m telling you, the gliding isn’t like running, the pounding kills me, and I need to be able to do something for PT.”

“Watch the road, wiseguy. And that’s not what he said: he said it was very unlikely hockey would make it any worse. If he saw how you played, howevah, he would have changed that. I promise ya.”

Sean snorted, but then thoughts of hockey brought memories of lost friends, and his mood turned somber.

“What’s wrong? Is it Mark?”

“No, well, sort of… I talked to my buddy from high school, Woody - our goalie my freshman year - the other day. I was asking about another friend of ours, a guy we used to pal around with, Rob Schlageter… Shaggy we called him. He kinda looked like Scooby’s partner - a great guy. And Woody told me that he as one of the passengers on board PanAm Flight 103…”

“Wait, what’s that? I think I remember that?”

“Yes - it happened back just after I got out of high school, eighty-eight, I think. It was a flight that got blown up over Lockerbie, Scotland, and killed something like two-hundred fifty people, including some on the ground from falling debris, I think.”

“Oh my god,” Marie crossed herself.

“Yeah, the Libyans. One of them, apparently a Libyan intel guy, was convicted by a tribunal in Scotland this past January. The families sued Pan Am into bankruptcy, too…” He paused. “I couldn’t believe it. Shaggy was like, twenty at the time… I had no idea; we lost touch after I moved and then we all went away to college… and I was thinking about Mark, and then I find this out from Woody, and I’m like, huh, we had the first World Trade Center bombing in early Ninety-Three, we had the Riyadh bombing in late Ninety-Five, Khobar Towers in… Ninety-Six, I’m pretty sure-”

“Oh, that’s right, I had forgotten about both of those.”

“Yeah, and then the USS Cole in Two-thousand… and I’m like, it’s hard not to conclude that Islam’s at war with us that we haven’t really acknowledged for a long time…”

They drove on in silence and traffic began to loosen as they got further south.

“So… Troll’s the Ops O at Seven-Seventy-Five… like how does back surgery affect all of this, going back to flying? Like, do you lose your slot in the squadron? I don’t know how it works,” Marie laughed nervously.

Sean chuckled. “No, its… It’s not like that. This is all fine. In fact, I have to get back fixed and signed off on by a flight surgeon if I’m going to go back, so I’m fortunate that I got this surgeon. What are the odds I get an Army back surgeon who is also a former Blackhawk pilot?”

“I know! I couldn’t believe when he said that.”

“When you were going to pee we talked about getting a flight physical when he gives me a clean bill of health at the end of rehab… It’s all going to be a matter of timing. I got an email from Bill yesterday. I’ve still got to refresh, which means go TAD to the west coast for the training squadron, to Three-Oh-Three, for what amounts to the full syllabus because I’ve been out of the cockpit for… what, five years now? Closer to six by the time I get through and I’m discharged from active duty, then get picked up by the squadron… that would be in fall of two-thousand-two?”

“What does that mean, though?”

“Well, again, no one’s sure,” and now he cut a quick glance across at Marie, “but he’s saying that if this thing goes the way they’re talking, it’s likely to be seven months in-country in Afghanistan, seven months off, and then 6-7 workup and go again and everybody has to buy in for at least two cycles.”

She nodded her head up and down. “So, basically, what? A full three year tour back in the squadron?”

Sean nodded. “Maybe more like three-and-a-half, but yeah.” He nodded his head again doing some math.

“When?”

Sean shrugged. “I don’t think any time soon, but… these engines have to crank up, so they’re starting now. You can bet that the first guys to go in will be the active duty guys off of the current MEU, just like when we were on Float in the Med with Bosnia and O’Grady went down. I mean, that why they’re there, for shit like this,” he gestured vaguely in the air.

They drove on in silence, and Sean took the southbound exit onto I-95, the van’s engine straining toward their home in base housing at the Crossroads of the Marine Corps, Quantico, Virginia. The afternoon sun felt more of fall and less of summer, not quite as intense as it had been.

Marie turned toward him.

“We could do it… the kids are older now. We’d be closer to the northeast, right?” Marie asked as much as said. “Although Pennsylvania? What the hell is there in Pennsylvania?”

Sean turned and held up a finger: “Hershey’s chocolate in Hershey, Pennsylvania!”

“Is that close to where we would be?” she asked with mild interest.

“No,” Sean chuckled, “not really. Other side of the fucking state. Sorry. Closest big city is Pittsburgh to live anywhere close to the base.”

“Oh, God, the Steelers?! We’ll be living near Steelers fans?”

Sean laughed. “Yeah.”