No wonder he missed the Corps. Civilians were idiots! They prattled about subjects not worthy of comment—and their music! To Shooter’s ears the overloud thumping from shoulder-carried “boom boxes” was ever more tribal and unintelligible. Clothing styles were important to civilians, and the main objective appeared to be slovenliness. The looser a garment hung the more “cool” it was.
A bad fit was best? Galloway missed the squared-away standards of military dress. Uniforms created uniformity.
Galloway smiled at that, but when uniformed, fit and neatness were judged by the same rules. Civilian attire, Shooter feared, would always be a mystery.
Mop Galloway had advice to offer.
Mop said, “Quit whining and comparing. You are out of The Corps, and you should stay out. You’ve moved beyond enlisted service, Shooter. You’ve seen what enlistments offer—that’s why you are out and reaching higher.
“Go to college and get the commission. Then try Carson Long. If the school offers enough military to suit you, stay there. If not, apply for active duty and go on up through officer grades.
“Don’t even think about reenlisting, nephew. You would know that you chose the lazy way—the easy route—and that you were not becoming all that you could be. You would hate yourself for the rest of your life.”
Uncle Mop had a way with words. He damned sure cut through and got to the point.
Mop was right. Shooter knew it in his heart, but The Corps had been exciting, and at times dangerous. Those were powerful attractions, and a young man could be proud of being a Marine.
Shooter did as Mop recommended. He resumed working out, and rare became the days that a pistol or rifle was not exercised as well.
He sucked up his guts and went to Penn State. His academic major would be . . .? Galloway had not the slightest interest. His real major would be the Reserve Officer Training Program.
Chapter 19
For at least two generations, Penn State students had claimed that surviving the university’s convoluted registration procedures alone qualified the candidate for a bachelor’s degree.
Gabriel Galloway agreed, at least in spirit. Thousands upon thousands of bewildered students milled about seeking correct lines and gathering advice. Galloway believed that installation of basic military discipline could resolve most of the chaos.
He endured and emerged as a freshman with intent to pursue a degree in Secondary Education. He was informed that he might be able to gain credits, certainly within ROTC, for his military service, and Shooter intended to look into those possibilities.
When they had sweat and reasoned together in the Kuwaiti desert, Doc Dyer had claimed that Shooter would find college easy. Dyer claimed that the maturity of years beyond high school simplified formerly difficult studies because the fear of abject failure had mellowed into a less demanding intent to simply do well.
Dyer reminded Galloway that, like Boot Camp or any other Marine Corps program, college classes were programmed for most of the students to succeed. If they were not, students would go elsewhere, and the schools would go out of business. If you attended classes and turned in whatever papers were required, you would pass no matter how average your work—or so Dyer had claimed.
Galloway did not test the limits of his friend’s claim. He worked at his studies with the intent of passing well so that the ROTC program would be pleased to commission him as a Second Lieutenant.
Army ROTC grasped former Sergeant Gabriel Galloway with hungry hands. Years of military school plus a hitch in the Marine Corps with two purple hearts gained in infantry combat did not often appear in their sights.
Gabriel Galloway was absolved of his first year ROTC requirement and most of his second. Two years and a butt following his appearance at the Wagner Building, ROTC cadet Gabriel Galloway could be commissioned a Second Lieutenant. Before then, he would attend summer training, perhaps at Indiantown Gap, and he expected to go directly from camp to jump school at Fort Benning, Georgia. Commissioned and parachute qualified, Lieutenant Galloway would assist with the University ROTC until his graduation with a Bachelor’s Degree.
Gabriel Galloway settled in to endure the required studies. In earlier years, his primary intent had been in preparing to kill all of the Elder family, and being a scholar lay far below other interests.
Shooter supposed he was better balanced now. Finishing off the Elders would wait, and he recognized a decreasing appetite to kill them all.
That attitude worried him a little—as if he were failing at an important task. He wished he could talk it over with Uncle Mop, but Gabriel Galloway’s terrible secret had to remain his own. No one else could know lest the secret spread or his determination be undermined by other opinions.
Galloway went to class. He did his work carefully and thoroughly, but he did not cram for exams, and he did not sweat 4.O averages. He frowned over an occasional “C” but went on. He failed no courses.
His few friends were soldiers and an officer or two assigned to the Army ROTC detachment. He spent time with the Gunnery Sergeant representing the Corps in the Naval ROTC program. Shooter attended intercollegiate sporting events, and he led the AROTC small-bore rifle team. Galloway became a familiar and accepted figure at the Wagner Building, and his story got around. Within the Penn State military community, Galloway’s exploits created deference.
That he shot two bad guys in a Montana gunfight engendered respect among men who had also, or were quite willing, to pull the trigger on enemies. In view of his Kuwait and Iraq experience, Galloway’s nickname seemed particularly applicable and came into common use, but the casual spreading of his personal history reinforced Shooter’s determination to hold his special secrets close to his chest.
In his second year, Cadet Galloway occasionally taught an ROTC class. A cadet would never be listed or recognized as an ROTC Instructor, but the active duty soldiers were quick to use to advantage military abilities and experience appearing in their classrooms.
Shooter spent two of his summers in Montana. The first summer, he moved into the A-frame with Mister and Mrs. Harry Galloway. Nobody used the Harry part, and it sounded ill fitting. Mop was a better name for a tattooed, bike riding, mountain guide.
The second summer, Shooter cleaned up the old cabin and stayed there in his own personal get- away. He and Mop re-opened their old pistol range and punched countless bullets through inoffensive tin cans.
Customary shooting distances soon lacked challenge, and to gain more, the marksmen backed away from their pistol targets, until they approached Elmer Keith ranges sometimes exceeding two hundred yards.
If marriage and advancing years had mellowed his uncle, Shooter could not see it. Mop stayed lean and, weather and destination permitting, he rode his Harley-Davidson.
Mop did not hang with bikers, but a few came to visit. His guiding business prospered a bit, and Mop was refining his routes and programs so that he could manage them in future years when his muscles had aged and his joints had stiffened. Mop was looking ahead. He liked what he was doing, and Shooter judged that his uncle’s life was satisfying.
The best thing was that Mop had married the right woman. Betsy Madigan Galloway had her own interests, and she made sure that they did not clash with her husband’s. She kept their home and hearth, and she tolerated Mop’s enemy-lurking paranoia because she knew it was well founded. Betsy let Mop teach her to shoot and shoot well. If enemies attacked the Galloway place they would encounter powerful return fire.
Mop Galloway, in turn, regularly evaluated his steadily advancing nephew. Mop found nothing to criticize. Gabriel’s military service had been exemplary, and he would like teaching at Carson Long.
Mop had, in fact, called the school and discussed Gabriel’s prospects. He had talked with Lieutenant Colonel Butler, who had been enthusiastic over Gabriel’s possible return as a faculty member, as well as the school’s president, who admitted to reservations.
“Former students have often returned as faculty, M
ister Galloway, but few have fitted in or hung on for long.
“Most recall their student years with affection, as I do my boyhood here at the school. They assume that teaching here will provide a similar atmosphere, but as we both know, the real world cannot be the same. Personalities, the political infighting that exists in all academic institutions, pay scales, unexpected teaching loads, and seemingly endless outside coaching and club duties, devour free time and create resentments.
“Shooter is not married, but we can assume that he will be, and wives are often dissatisfied with their share of the husband’s time and attention. Faculty at this school works longer and harder than their public school counterparts, and those kinds of hours and efforts can chew at family relations.
“However, we like Gabriel, and all of us who know him would like to see him here as a faculty member. If he stays interested, the school will have a position for him, Mister Galloway.”
The school president had laughed and explained, “I told Shooter all that I have explained to you, but I also admonished him that he could not beat up assorted cadets who disagreed with him, as he did during his student years with us.
“Gabriel appeared contrite and assured me that those days were over, but Shooter has lived through some violent times. Considering his father’s murder, his gun fighting out there with you, his war experiences, and even that Elder man who recently attacked him in our local restaurant, I do wonder at times, Mister Galloway, whether I will be hiring a fine teacher or turning a tiger loose on our campus.”
Chapter 20
June 1999
Dan Grouse had missed Gabriel’s graduation. Grouse wished it could have been otherwise, but he had been in court during that momentous occasion.
Gabriel understood Grouse’s absence, and by the time one hundred and twenty-five appropriate academic credits had been accumulated, he like most students, simply wanted out—the less formality the better.
Gabriel received his diploma with gratification. He had already made application to Carson Long for the fall term and been immediately accepted. He would teach Sophomore English, Basic Mathematics, and a pair of non-academic school courses that were intended to develop manhood and better understanding of the world in general. He would be Building 49’s Building Officer—which suited him because he had spent four of his cadet years there, and he thought 49 was the best barracks building on the campus.
Lieutenant Galloway’s building could house forty boys. Most were two-man rooms, and following their first year at the academy, cadets could pick their roommates. Genuinely close and lifelong friendships developed from the necessary sharing and tolerating.
Shooter liked to claim that Carson Long developed two skills. The first was to enable a cadet to speak before any audience without trepidation. The other was to look a superior straight in the eye and lie like a trooper.
Not big lies—never big lies, but the deceptions necessary to survive within a physically close and involved environment, to remain loyal, to be true to what you believed, and to protect others.
The school philosophy promoted Honor in all things, but honor—personal honor—sometimes demanded a bit of obfuscation, which occasionally translated into outright lying. It behooved a Faculty Officer to understand barracks life, and former-cadet faculty had “been there and done that,” which gave them a built-in advantage.
Forty youthful, vigorous, and calculating minds required strong but fair disciplining, and an officer’s personal experience in what was being planned (or almost surely would be planned) could grant respect and more than a little astonishment among cadets who, of course, believed their age-old schemes were original and unsuspected.
During Shooter’s sophomore year at Penn State, word had been passed throughout the county that Andrew Elder had died. Diabetes, it was reported, had caught up with him. Shooter examined his feelings, but found he had none. He supposed he was content with having broken Andrew’s knee and made him suffer lengthy surgeries and rehabilitation.
Three down, three to go.
September, 1999
Dan Grouse met Shooter at the new officer’s faculty apartment on the east end of Building 49. Galloway explained that he was dunging the place out because the previous occupant had lived like a slob.
The departed building Officer had been just a civilian-in-uniform, Shooter reported. Gabriel Galloway clearly preferred military men, and Grouse was quietly pleased that he had done his own hitch in the US Army as a Judge Advocate Officer.
They sat comfortably on Lieutenant Galloway’s un-positioned new furniture and talked finances. Grouse was worried, and he wished to make some serious moves with Gabriel’s investments, changes large enough to require Shooter’s approval.
Grouse said, “We haven’t talked much about money, except to crow a little over how rapidly your stock portfolio has grown these last four years, and I wonder if you know how much you are worth—on paper, that is?”
Shooter appeared chagrined. “Not really, Mister Grouse. You’ve told me that the market has been growing like a mushroom, but I haven’t kept any details in mind. How have I done?”
Grouse shifted uncomfortably, “And that’s another thing, Shooter. You are twenty-six years old. We’ve been friends since you were a tot, and I’m tired of the Mister Grouse title. From now on, call me Dan. That clear, Lieutenant?”
Shooter grinned and shook his head. “Yes Sir, Ex-Captain Dan, Sir.” Galloway thought about it for a long moment. “I’ll work at it, but changing won’t be easy.”
Grouse returned to his money talk. “The stock market has ballooned beyond anything I have ever experienced. Everybody with an extra dollar has jumped in, and it looks as if buyers will pay whatever is asked for any stock that catches their eyes.
“A lot of the current investing doesn‘t make sense to me. Ordinarily sensible people are dumping money into companies that have never made a dime of profit and have no visible assets. Some stocks are being traded for ten or fifteen times their value.
“Anyway, Shooter, I have ridden the wave like everyone else, and I have invested most of your money as if it were my own.”
He caught Galloway’s eyes. “Anyway, the one million, three-hundred thousand from your lumber sale is now worth almost three million dollars.”
Shooter’s jaw dropped, and he felt befuddled. “How much?”
“Three million bucks, Gabriel. That’s enough to live comfortably on the rest of your life. It is more money than most will ever make in a lifetime of hard work. It’s . . .” Grouse had to regain his breath.
Shooter Galloway was numbed by the figure. He had never completely digested the immensity of the original lumber deal, but three million dollars?
Grouse went on. “This bubble in the market cannot last. Everyone says that, but none of us want to get out too soon. All of the signs say that the market will rise, and every financial advisor I know bellows ‘Buy, buy the market is growing, the bulls are charging’ at the top of his lungs.”
Grouse shook his head, almost in despair, Galloway thought.
“Greenspan has described the market as suffering an ‘Irrational exuberance,’ and he has it right. The question is what to do, and that is why we are talking.
“Look Shooter, I want to do my best for you. I want you to make all of the money in the world, but what goes up will come down, and I suspect—almost without evidence or other supporting opinion—that the bust is coming and coming fast.
“I’m not talking about doomsday or the greatest depression of all time, but I do expect a terrific drop in stock values that will put a lot of people on the ropes and will wipe out most of the paper profits we are now rejoicing over.”
Grouse paused to drain his can of Mountain Dew.
“Wisely or not, I am pulling out of the stock market. I am reinvesting everything I’ve got in municipal tax-free bonds, and I am doing it starting today. I will not be panicky about it, but I will be completely out of the market by the end of the year.”
The attorney again sought Galloway’s eyes.
“Now, Shooter, if the market continues to rise, everyone will say that I was an idiot. There will be money I won’t make.
“On the other hand, if the market plunges, I will be safe in bonds, although the return on the bonds will be far less than a rising stock market would have provided.
“I’m betting that the bubble will burst, and I expect to be eternally grateful that I was not greedy and hung on just a bit too long.
“I’m playing it safe this time, Shooter, and my hope is that you approve and allow me to sell all of your stock and go into the bond market with me.”
Shooter heard Grouse out with a hint of confusion in his eyes.
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