Sergeant Bob Bresnahan had been assigned to headquarters as a clerk. Which is where I found him, sitting behind a desk pounding on a typewriter.
I walked up and stood in front of his desk as he clacked away, periodically adjusting his glasses, a nervous habit from his childhood. His eyes never wavered from his work. So typical of Bob, the studious one; everything he did had to be perfect.
Finally, after what seemed like a minute, I cleared my throat causing him to stop and look up at me.
Bob flinched as if he’d been electrically shocked. “Oh my God, Mick.” He bent down and came up with two crutches. He quickly positioned the sticks so he could stand. Then he braced and saluted me.
I pulled my burning eyes off the crutches and returned his salute. Then I stepped around the desk and pulled Bob into my arms. “What are you doing here? Didn’t they offer you an honorable discharge?”
“Yeah, but I committed to serve, and I will,” he half whispered. “Then, when my term is up, I won’t feel guilty about going to school on the GI Bill.”
I pushed him to arms’ length. “You’ve already earned every penny that bill will provide.” I looked him up and down. “Damn, it’s good to see you . . . out of the hospital and standing.”
“It’s good to see you too, you dumb son-of-a–bitch.” He patted my arm and grinned. “I’m so proud of you.”
I nodded as I released him. “You guys are consistent; I’ll give you that. Remember I saw Jerry in Andong.”
“I know, we correspond.”
I needed to dodge that bullet, so I glanced at my watch. “Can you get off base after your shift is over?”
“Sure. What’d you have in mind?”
“I thought I’d take you into Beaufort and buy you dinner along with a case of beer.”
An hour later, dressed in civilian clothes, Bob and I sat in Jimmy’s Steak and Suds, somewhere on a back street in Beaufort.
The bartender, an older woman who looked worn beyond her years, was asking for our drink order before our asses touched the wooden chairs.
Bob ordered a draft beer, and I ordered a double bourbon on the rocks; my recent behind-closed-doors tour drink of choice.
Bob stared at me for a moment after the bartender left. “What’re you doing? You’re not drinking age. You want to end up in the brig?”
“No one ever cards me. I guess I can thank Korea for the advanced aging.”
Bob shook his head. “Have you seen your folks since you got back from your tour?”
“No.”
“We should go home together one weekend. We could go to Goodman’s and . . . and you know.”
I glanced around. Although Goodman’s wasn’t in the same class as Jimmy’s, not that Jimmy’s was anything special, the memories briefly flashed. But yesterdays’ good times were now coated with sadness. “I think I’ll pass.”
“What’s up with you, Mick? You sound like you’re down. You should be walking tall. You’re a national hero, and you’re home, away from that hell.”
“It’s a long story,” I said as the bartender delivered our drinks.
“I’m all ears, buddy.” He raised his glass. “To Jerry, Sam, and Carl Henry, may they all be in God’s care.”
“To Jerry, Sam, and Carl Henry,” I repeated softly.
Two drinks and a steak dinner each later, I had told Bob everything that had happened with Sara.
He folded his arms over his chest. “No wonder you’re drinking bourbon. That’s fucked up.”
“Yeah, and there’s nothing I can do about it. Nothing.”
“Then walk away. Start over.”
“You sound like my parents. I love Sara.”
“And you sound like a spoiled brat versus a war hero. Regardless of who Sara’s married to, she’s married. You two were a mistake. Put yourself in her husband’s shoes, particularly a mob boss’s shoes; a man used to being in control. How would you feel if you were him?”
I shook my head. “Just like my parents.” I waved my empty glass at the bartender. “And speaking of war heroes, I’m not. A guy named Sculini was the real hero, unfortunately he didn’t survive to tell his story.”
“Did you tell his story?”
“I tried, but no one wanted to listen.”
“Well they don’t give those medals to just anyone. You had to do something pretty spectacular.”
“I shouldn’t have come home; I should’ve stayed there.”
“Where’s Mick, and what’d you do with him? Mick would never have said something that dumb.”
“At least over there I had a purpose.”
“And what was that besides staying alive?”
“What good is living, if you can’t be with the one you love more than life?” I finished the drink noticing that the whiskey didn’t burn anymore. It just tasted like more.
I started to raise my glass, and Bob stopped me.
“You’ve had enough, Mick. Believe me you don’t want to stagger through the front gate at base. I know. You’re not the only man who has succumbed to feeling sorry for himself. Dragging around these half-assed legs gets to you after a while. But the booze doesn’t fix anything. It only makes things worse. I know.”
“Are you sure you’re not my dad in disguise?”
Bob reached across the table and touched my arm. “Time heals everything, my friend.”
I dropped my head into my hands. “I want her back, and I don’t know how to make that happen. The big national hero, the fuckin’ Medal of Honor recipient, doesn’t have a clue.”
Chapter Seventy-Six
My days as a firing range instructor seemed to melt into one another.
I think I was in the last days of my second week at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot on Parris Island. I wasn’t certain.
Drinking every night helped drown my anxieties over Sara and numbed my sober mind the next day. I was time drifting on a river of whiskey; existing.
It was late afternoon on a very hot and humid day. I was at the end of the range, replacing targets, prepping for tomorrow’s classes when a jeep drove up.
I squinted through the heat haze as a man got out of the vehicle, but I couldn’t discern his features under his ball cap.
As he walked toward me, the way he moved seemed familiar. But my drinking had limited my ability to concentrate on more than one thing at a time; which in my cloudy judgment was a good thing. I returned my focus to my task; my job.
“Mick.”
I should’ve known that walk. I shielded my eyes from the low sun with a hand. “Dad? What are you doing here?”
He stopped, braced, and saluted me.
I had to blink away the burning sensation. I hadn’t seen Mom and Dad since returning from the Medal tour; only miles apart but worlds away. I straightened and returned his salute.
“Bob called me, son,” he said as he closed the gap between us.
I glanced away and nodded.
“I knew your tour ended a couple of weeks ago. And when we didn’t hear from you, I made a couple of calls. You have no idea how your mom and I were hurt when we found out you’d been assigned here, in our backyard.”
I chewed on my lip through a sigh and just stared at him.
He motioned at the targets. “What time do you get off. I’d like to meet you. Maybe we could go into Beaufort and have a beer or even dinner.” He wiped his forehead. “A cool drink sounds mighty good to me. And we, ah, we need to talk.”
I pulled a target out of a box. “I’m on call tonight. I can’t leave.”
He nodded. “Yes, you can.” He reached into his shirt pocket. “The Commander is an old friend of mine. We served together. I stopped to see him before I came out here. He loaned me the jeep.” He pulled out a slip of paper. “You have a pass.”
“Dad, I can guess what Bob told you, but I-”
“What time, son?”
I knew that I-won’t–take-no-for-an-answer tone. I walked over to another target stanchion. “I’ll meet you at the sta
ff barracks at five-thirty,” I said without looking back as I attached the paper.
As I finished, I heard the jeep start.
Around six o’clock, Dad and I walked into an off-the-beaten-track bar in Beaufort, aptly called the Outoftheway Bar & Grill.
I had been in the bar before, a few times.
A waitress, in jeans and a T-shirt with the bar’s name stenciled on the front, walked up to our table. She nodded at me. “I rarely remember names, but I never forget drink orders from regulars. A double Seagram’s on the rocks and what would you like, honey?” she asked my dad.
Dad glanced at me. “We didn’t come here to drink. How about two drafts and a couple of menus please.”
After the waitress left, Dad reached across the table and squeezed my hand. “Mick, let’s start this off on the right foot. I’m not here to judge you, or confront you for that matter, I’m here because I . . . I love you and want to help you. Okay?”
I couldn’t remember my dad ever holding my hand. It was a little weird and yet comforting. I looked into his intense blue eyes. “I appreciate your concern, Dad, but there’s nothing you can do.” I started to remove my hand, and he held onto it.
“Funny you should say that, I said the same thing to my dad once,” he said with a slight grin. “When I came home from the war, I was a wreck. The nightmares haunted me day and night. I thought I’d lose my mind. The only thing that dulled the God-awful memories was booze. And the more I drank the more I wanted. I was a mess.”
“I don’t recall you being drunk, ever.”
“That’s because your mom sent you off to live with her parents for the summer.” He shook his head. “My drinking led to fights between your mom and I, and the fighting continued until she threw me out. That’s when my father came to see me.”
“Did he help you?” I asked, though I was pessimistic.
“He started out by telling me he’d been in a few dark holes himself. And now that he knew where the ladders were, he thought he could help me. And he did; he got me pointed in the right direction. He saved my marriage and probably my life.” His eyes had moistened, and he took a deep breath and blew it out.
“But that’s not my problem, at least not yet, anyway.” I squeezed his hand. “But I can’t tell you how much it means for you to be here for me.”
“I know you have other problems; more complicated and much more dangerous than mine were. And I can’t tell you how to fix them. But I can tell you how to make them worse.” He released my hand and held up his glass of beer. “Keep drinking. A fogged brain can’t fix anything; believe me I know.”
Head bowed, I looked at him out of the tops of my eyes and slowly nodded. “I guess it’s time to start listening when my two best friends, Bob and my dad, tell me the same things.”
“Yeah, all of us want the old Mick back; the smart young man with the high aspirations.”
I rubbed my temple and eyed the beer. “He sort of got lost along the way; the lost Mick.”
“Get your head on straight and use that wonderful mind of yours to find a solution, your solution. Something you can live with after the fact. Then do it and don’t look back.” He paused and looked away rubbing his chin. Then his intense blue eyes returned to me. “But never forget one thing. You have been blessed with an opportunity few live to appreciate; the Medal of Honor and all its perks. You have been put on a pedestal above and beyond,” his eyes became saturated again, “for the sake of all those who have served, always walk tall and do what’s right. Make us proud, Marine.”
Chosin chills ran through me. “When you’re at the bottom, there aren’t many choices left. I know drinking isn’t the answer.” I stood and pulled Dad to his feet and hugged him. “I’ll try . . . I’ll do my best. I want you to know, you’ve always been my hero.”
Chapter Seventy-Seven
Three Months later
Marine Corps Recruit Depot
Parris Island, South Carolina
I couldn’t believe summer was almost over, and I had survived another batch of recruits at Parris Island.
My dad, and possibly my grandfather, belonged in an office with a couch where they psychoanalyzed people. People who had fallen into dark mental pits. Dad had righted my ship; actually he hadn’t, I had. But he led me to the ladder so I could climb out of my black hole.
One of the consequences of climbing out of my hole was that I was once again obsessive about reuniting with Sara. Although I still didn’t have a Sara plan, I knew I’d have to be physically and mentally sharp to carry one out. So for the past several months, I had been running, lifting, and doing calisthenics almost every day. And the more I worked out, the better I felt, and the cycle was formed.
In addition, I had honed my shooting skills with both pistols and rifles.
Up to this point, I had never been much above average with a pistol. But with months of practice, I had become not only deadly accurate, but fast as well. I could pull my .45 automatic pistol and fire all seven rounds into a four-inch bull’s eye from twenty-feet in just under five seconds.
And I was spot-on at a distance as well, consistently hitting a ten-inch circle at a thousand yards with a M1C Garand Sniper Rifle with a Stith-Kollmorgan 4XD-USMC scope.
As my body hardened, my mind sharpened. My guts told me I’d know when and what to do about Sara, I just had to be prepared and patient.
My weekday life was a routine. Up early, exercise, work, exercise, sleep.
I’d bought an old Hudson sedan for a hundred bucks from another Sergeant who was shipping out.
The lost Mick hadn’t seen Mom and Dad since returning from the Medal tour; only miles apart but a different-life-ago away. That was wrong. They had tried to help me and Sara.
The recovered Mick changed that. I visited them frequently on week nights, not wanting to disturb their weekends when Dad was off work. I languished in their hugs and loved Mom’s cooking.
The weekends were the most difficult time for me; too much idle time to think. I would often take long drives in the Hudson, listening to the radio and hoping the warm wind would blow away my issues.
One Saturday, flooded with thoughts of Sara, I found myself back in Asheville. Something, some little voice in my head, had tugged me back here, back to the Forrest Manor Motel, back to the place of my most recent memories of her.
I arrived in the afternoon, checked in and had a late lunch and decided to wait until Sunday to tour the Biltmore before heading back to Parris Island. Sara and I had talked about seeing the historic estate but never got the chance.
As I entered one of the Manor’s room, identical to the one Sara and I had shared, the memories of my last moments with Sara transitioned from black and white to Technicolor.
When anxieties began to creep into my recollections, I decided to take a stroll through Asheville. I wasn’t going to let anything take me down; not again.
Although it wasn’t apparent at the Marine base, here in the mountains in late August, the taste of fall was in the air. When I arrived, the atmosphere had been warm yet crisp, but as evening approached, the air turned to refreshingly cool with no bugs and little humidity.
I happened upon a bar and decided to have a beer, my whisky days were behind me.
A half-finished local draft in one hand and a local paper in the other, a wisp of vanilla perfume drew my attention to the woman climbing onto the bar stool next to me.
“Now there’s a Marine haircut if I ever saw one,” she said.
I shifted uncomfortably, and on instinct glanced around the dim, smoky interior. She was alone. From what I could gather, she was about my age, on the tall side, wearing white peddle-pushers and a green short-sleeve blouse. Her pony-tailed hair was redder than a Packard I used to know, and her eyes were, as my dad would say, Irish green.
I nodded.
“Shot of rye,” she said to the bartender as he approached. She retrieved a pack of Lucky Strike cigarettes and a lighter from her purse.
Another whisky
drinking, smoking woman sitting down next to me on a bar stool was a large chunk of deja vu to absorb.
“Let’s see, what’s the closest Marine Base?” she asked rubbing her small dimpled chin. “My dad would know.”
“I’m at Parris Island, and I doubt if it’s the closest,” I said.
She held out her hand. “Kate, Kate O’Shaughnessy,” she said.
I stared at her offered small hand for a second then dropped my paper, took her hand, and shook it. “Mick Mackenzie.”
“I feel like either I just crossed the Irish Sea or got invaded by the Scots,” she said and smiled revealing white but slightly crooked teeth.
“Are you from Ireland?” I asked.
“Me, no, I’m from here, but my grandfather came here from Shannon, Ireland.” She took a sip of the rye. “How about you?”
“I’m from Bluffton, South Carolina. Grandpa Mackenzie was from Aberdeen, Scotland.”
“I know where Bluffton is. I have a cousin in Hardeeville. You didn’t have to go far to get to Parris Island, did ya?”
“Just halfway around the world and back,” I said.
She leaned forward to snag an ashtray, and I couldn’t stop my eyes from wandering down her body, noticing she was svelte and well put together. I shook my head and refocused on my beer.
“Why’s that?” she asked offering me a cigarette.
“No thanks,” I said. “I was in Korea.” The name, Korea, used to activate cold chills and flashes of exploding shells, with everything in black and white except for the blood. But since my tour with all the emphasis on Korea, the mention of the name rarely brought back the horror.
Her green eyes fixed on mine. “Oh.” She lit a cigarette and blew the smoke away from me.
I drained my beer. “Fred, could I get another beer?” I asked the bartender who was washing glasses. I glanced at her drink, and she had only taken a sip of the shot. So I refrained from offering to buy her a drink, plus, I didn’t want to imply I was interested in her.
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