by Rinker Buck
The flight had been late, and then there was mail and cargo to offload first, with only a small weekend crew of cargo handlers around. It was nearly midnight before Shane was lowered from the back hold of the Boeing. The driver of a blue cargo truck with a conveyor belt assembly on its front end pulled up to the plane, and then raised the lift while Hutchison and Morgan watched through an immense overhead door.
Hutchison was surprised when the casket emerged through the hold, because it was wrapped in a reinforced cardboard container, not the flag-draped coffin he expected. But Richardson quickly assured him that this is the way caskets are transported, to avoid shipping scrapes and other damage, and told him that they would remove the container back in Powell. When the cargo truck lowered the container onto the loading ramp, Richardson cheerfully waved away the marines’ offer of help and muscled the heavy cargo box into the hearse by herself.
As the container carrying Shane was lowered from the plane, Hutchison’s throat tightened and his heart raced. He felt exhausted that night, but strangely alert. He was a captain in the marines, standing on the cold cement floor of an airport cargo bay, with the Montana chill coming through the open space of the overhead door, reaching right through his thin dress blues. He was on CACO duty and was supposed to be disciplined, controlled. But he didn’t feel that way at all, and perhaps the pressures of the week had something to do with that. He felt sadness, yes a great deal of sadness as the container with the casket inside was lowered, but he also felt relief, almost wondrously so. Emotions beyond that swirled in as his heart raced.
Oh, Shane, you’re home. Semper Fidelis, brother marine. You’re back, and I’m taking you home to Powell, to your parents. I’ve done the best job I could with Judy and Joe. You’re back, Shane, and I’m taking you home.
That’s what he felt, but mostly relief. Hutchison being Hutchison, of course, there was some guilt mixed in with that. He was certainly entitled to feel relieved about a burden being lifted from his shoulders, now that his obligation to return Shane to his parents in time for the Tuesday funeral was fulfilled. But he felt guilty about feeling relief for himself, when he should have felt only more sadness for Shane and the Childers family. That’s the head trip that the CACO was playing on Hutchison now. I feel relieved that Shane is back, but maybe more for myself than for the Childerses, which makes me feel guilty. But he knew that perhaps he was just being too earnest here, too Hutch. The next time he spoke with his mother on the phone, he thought, they would have to debrief this little number that he was pulling on his brain.
Hutchison and Morgan were now good to go on escorting the hearse down to Powell. Shane Childers was back in the snowy bosom of the Bighorns, where he belonged, and now they were anxious to deliver him to his family and the necessary catharsis of a funeral.
Laura Richardson gently pushed the insulated rear door of the hearse shut, so that it settled against its frame with the sound of a soft timpani drum. Then the hearse and the marine Suburban left the grounds of the airport in tandem formation, descended the serpentine road down the rimrock plateau, and headed through Billings for the interstate west. At Laurel they turned south for the hour’s drive into Wyoming, down through the black Pryor Mountains void.
In their SUV, following the taillights of the hearse through the mountains, Hutchison and Morgan talked for a while. The CACO mission was going well, they agreed, but they were both still worried about Judy. One of the things that was returned to Billings with the casket was a clear plastic bag containing the “initial personal effects” found on Shane’s body. They could see through the plastic what the bag contained: Shane’s picture I.D. card, his watch, and a lanyard flashlight that he had worn around his neck as he went over the line into Iraq. The CACO manuals required immediate return of the initial personal effects to the family, and the marine tradition was that they be given to the mother. But Hutchison and Morgan weren’t at all sure how Judy would react when she received these possessions. They would just have to see tomorrow. There were other things to discuss, including Morgan’s return to Billings on Sunday to continue the drilling of his honor guard team.
But after that they were quiet in the car together, not a glum quiet, just quiet and relieved. They had been through a lot all week, attending to innumerable details and worrying about Shane’s body returning on time, and now they both just wanted to be alone with their thoughts as the lights of Rockvale and Bridger went by.
After the Belfry cutoff, the Polecat Bench became a purple-black rim surrounding them in the darkness, and Hutchison couldn’t make his mind behave. A strange mind-wander, like an emotional compass, was overwhelming him now. He was crossing the open range country along the Wyo-Montana line, but his mind, uncontrollably, raced southwest over the mountains to California.
Earlier in the week, Joe Childers had told Hutchison that Shane had picked up surfing over the past two years at Pendleton, a weekend pastime that allowed him to escape the pressures of preparing his platoon for Iraq. After college, before joining the marines, Hutchison had spent an aimless year surfing the California beaches, all the way from Malibu to Baja. He knew all those beaches down past Dana Point and San Onofre, the surf Shane had done. And it just felt right to Hutchison now, really good, bringing home to Wyoming the marine who had surfed his own waters in southern California. But now he couldn’t prevent his mind from returning there, to his home, too. Palos Verdes. Surfing the big ones on a windy day along Haggerty’s Reef, just below the cliffs. If he had been the one to take the bullet in Rumaila, and not Shane, Hutchison thought, well I would want to be taken back to my special place too.
They had reached the canyon badlands now, just above the Wyoming line. The snowy Bighorns were in view, reflecting the moonlight, and the occasional antelope spooked in their lights.
Shane, we’re bringing you home, brother. Semp Fi. But, oh, take me home too, take me home. Carry me back to Haggerty’s Reef below the cliffs at Palos Verdes and give me back to the surf. Shane, we’re almost there, and we’re giving you back to the mountains.
Hutchison just couldn’t get rid of that mind-wander all the way across the range lands, along the winding road up through the Polecat Bench, and then down into Powell. Geography became spiritual as he followed the hearse carrying Shane.
Oh, take me back to the reef. Shane, we’re bringing you in now, Semp Fi. I can see the lights of Powell, and there’s Heart Mountain. This will be my last time alone with you Shane so Semp Fi. You’re home.
Immense black Wyoming sky with moonlit snowy Bighorns in the middle merging southwest toward aquamarine Palos Verdes.
That was Hutchison’s big mind-wander bringing Shane in.
Just past the grain elevators along Highway 14 on the outskirts of Powell, Hutchison pulled out into the passing lane and sped past the hearse, then glided back into the driving lane to lead Laura Richardson in. He knew the way to the funeral home from there and it was just something that he felt he should do as a marine, and for Shane. Don’t follow, lead, bring the hearse in from the front. Semp Fi, Shane, and we’re here.
Hutchison switched to his high beams and lead the hearse along the highway, parallel to the Burlington Northern Railroad tracks. The big water tower outside town and the grain elevators in the distance were vaguely lit by the moonlight. Then, just before he could make the turn onto North Absaroka Street, something very simple but touching happened.
Four police cruisers—two from the county sheriff and two from the town of Powell—were quietly waiting along the gravel shoulder of the highway just outside of town, their lights dimmed. Oh, Hutchison thought, they knew we were coming. Laura Richardson would have informed the police about our arrival plans. As the government Suburban leading the hearse approached, the cruisers started rolling.
Merging, merging, merging in bumper-to-bumper formation, effortlessly graceful, their lights not coming back on until just the right moment, tires softly whooshing in the Wyoming night, two patrol cruisers pulled onto the highway to
form a new lead from the front. Hutchison didn’t have to touch his brakes or change his speed. They were just there now, two patrol cruisers in front. The other two cruisers fell in behind the hearse to bring up the rear. No flashing lights, no sirens, no fanfare. Just a quiet early-morning whoosh of the tires merging with the vehicles delivering the dead marine.
It was a local convoy for Shane now and they were bringing him in all together, a six-car formation turning left onto North Absaroka.
At the funeral home parking lot on East Third Street, the patrol cars parked in formation at the edge, thirty yards from the hearse, and dimmed their lights. Four officers emerged from the cruisers, stood beside their doors, and removed their Stetsons and police caps, holding them against their chests. They would keep their distance. They didn’t want to be intrusive. But they would wait there until the hearse was emptied. It was more than a display of respect for Shane, a resident of Powell who was the first killed in this new war. The body language of the officers, with their hats on their chests, said: We’re here if you need us. Just let us know.
Hutchison was moved by the presence of these policemen and deputy sheriffs because like many California boys, and even many marine officers, he’d never had much use for local cops. He’d spent his youth squealing off from the lights in muscle cars, careening down beaches in VW dune buggies, DWI, stuffing “chickenshit” speeding tickets onto the pile in his glove compartment, a teenage life right out of the scenes in American Graffiti. Marines don’t like cops on principle. When you’re drunk and having fun outside Pendleton or Lejeune, the local law is just a nuisance in your face.
But Hutchison liked these patrolmen and deputy sheriffs that night, and appreciated why they were there. With the help of an assistant waiting at the funeral home, Richardson unloaded the container carrying Shane and his coffin onto a four-wheeled dolly, and then wheeled it through the rear loading doors of the funeral home. Once Shane was safely inside, Hutchison turned and faced the patrol cars and officers, saluting them from his officer’s cap. He watched from the parking lot as the patrol cars backed and turned and then whooshed off again into the night, disappearing as quietly as they had first appeared out on the highway.
Inside the funeral home, Richardson and her assistant used box-cutting knives to slice away the cardboard around Shane’s casket. Then they removed the nylon straps securing the casket to a plywood “air tray” base that had kept the whole cargo package in place. Hutchison, with his usual curiosity about things, was fascinated by all this. He didn’t realize that so much engineering had gone into shipping bodies and caskets around. The cargo container carrying Shane was as lightweight but durable as a marine ammo crate.
When they were done, Richardson and her assistant wheeled the casket into the front of the viewing room “chapel” where Shane would be resting during the reception-wake.
“Presentability of the remains” is a sensitive issue for CACO details, and the marines pay careful attention to it. Most soldiers returning as fatal casualties take as long to return home as Shane did and the consequences of the delay—desert dehydration, emergency medical care, then the flights home in military transports before proper embalming—can shrivel up a face and turn its complexion almost black. That can’t be hidden from a family, and CACO officers are generally advised to prepare them beforehand about how the body looks. Also, all branches of the military, but particularly the marines, are meticulous to the point of obsession about a proper uniform and medals rack being presented on a dead soldier.
For these reasons, Hutchison needed to view Shane’s body, but the Childerses had also presented another issue, in a way. The normal schedule for a returning fatality is that a private family viewing is held one day, followed by the public wake a day later. That way, the family has some time to recover after initially seeing the body and is more composed about facing the large group of strangers who often show up to pay respects to a fallen soldier. But Joe and Judy hadn’t decided about a private family viewing yet. They were waiting for Hutchison to tell them about the shape Shane was in so that they could make a decision about an open or closed casket.
So Hutchison decided to view the body that night, even though it was now after 1 A.M. This would enable him to give Joe and Judy some indication in the morning about Shane’s appearance, in case they planned a private viewing tomorrow.
It was difficult for Hutchison and Morgan when Richardson finally opened the lid of the casket. There was Shane, the marine they’d heard so much about by now that they felt they practically knew him. The prominent Roman nose, the slightly protruding ears, the handsome cleft chin and the dark brown hair with natural sandy highlights.
But he did look pretty bad, his face gaunt and emaciated, with the effects of dehydration and the long ride back from a field morgue in Kuwait evident in his skin tone, which was a mottled brown-black. This was not the Shane the family remembered, and Hutchison knew this would be rough to deal with.
Richardson assured him that with a little rouge and other cosmetics, Shane’s skin tone and facial look could be improved. She was trained in mortuary cosmetics herself and would personally do the work in the morning. It was her judgment, and also Morgan’s, that Shane’s appearance was not as bad as they might have expected, and that the Childerses would be realistic about it. It was important for them to confront the face of their son, to accept his death. Closure about that would be harder to achieve if they lived for the rest of their lives with the mystery of what had lay underneath a closed casket.
Reluctantly, Hutchison agreed. Already, he was rehearsing in his head what he would say to Judy in the morning. “Judy, he’s not the son you remember, okay?”
Hutchison did feel good about one minor problem concerning Shane’s uniform, because he had anticipated it. The green fourragère, a braided cord that marines wear above the ribbons on their chest, was missing from Shane’s uniform. But Hutchison expected that the uniform specialists at the national mortuary in Dover, Delaware, might have trouble remembering this final touch, and he had taken precautions. The marine casualty branch at Quantico had already dispatched a fourragère by Federal Express, and it would reach Powell by Monday, in time for the public viewing and wake.
Their work done for the day, and subdued by the viewing of Shane, Hutchison and Morgan left for the Lamplighter Inn over on First Street.
Checking into his room and then carefully hanging up his dress blues, Hutchison collapsed on the bed, exhausted from his day and the late hour. He was mildly frustrated as well. This CACO work just kept presenting new difficulties, new pressures. Two hours ago, he had felt such relief about Shane finally being home. But now he felt pressured all over again about what to tell Judy regarding Shane’s appearance. Solve a problem, create a new one. Solve a problem, create a new one. He just seemed trapped in an infinite regress of CACO pressure.
There were other things about the CACO experience and its related emotional toll that were fascinating, except that it was all happening to him. In the space of a single week, his short-term memory had become so degraded that he could only keep track of details that he wrote down on yellow legal pads. His sense of time was vanishing as well. The big mind-wander from Wyoming to Palos Verdes had somehow vastly stretched time, so that he felt that tonight’s hearse escort from Billings took place a month ago. He’d heard so many stories about Shane from Joe by now that he felt he’d known the family for years, and not just a week. The drive between Billings and Powell felt like one that he had been making all his life. When he talked to his mother on the phone, he felt that he was a boy again, a rushing sensation inside that he hadn’t experienced for years.
It just went on and on like that, all these CACO-connects banging around in his brain. CACO, Shane Childers, snowy Bighorns in spring, Palos Verdes, the Belfry cutoff, the taillights of a hearse, Joe and his piles of farm machinery and his mules, it was a major period in his life now, a matter of years, oh, rediscovering the good sense and love of his mother and
maybe the Peruvian girlfriend will come back to the states finally and God I should just marry that beauty. The wind really kicks up here down here at night. You can hear it whistle around the corners of the motel.
Hutchison found this ironic, because learning to manage stress was one of the things he most liked about being a marine. At twenty-two he had given up the surfer boy life to become a marine because he thought that the career would be romantic, but in fact he had learned something else. Running a rifle platoon or a small command like Billings was inherently chaotic and demanding, and the only way to manage the stress was discipline and routine, and then more discipline on top of that. But there was something else that he liked about stress. A fatigued brain working right past the threshold of exhaustion suddenly produced these wonderful insights, particularly about human nature. Being stressed as a marine, somehow, renewed his faith in people and refreshed his love of humanity and life. Stress, get a thought about motivating other men. Stress, get a thought about the impact of family baggage. Stress, get a thought, stress, get an insight. He loved being a marine.
But this CACO stress was very different. It had to do with the supremely conflicting and confusing emotions related to life and death, and not just Shane Childers’s life, but Kevin Hutchison’s, too. These emotions couldn’t be managed by discipline alone, he didn’t have a control mechanism to deal with so many new and involuntary sensations. Meanwhile, he was the CACO team commander, and he wasn’t allowed to show the stress.
But he knew that he was just tiring himself out by all this. He had to rest up and relax so that he could adequately face Judy Childers in the morning. Before Hutchison finally nodded off, he set out his running shoes and outfit. He was annoyed at himself for breaking marine routine and not getting enough exercise. In the morning, he’d take a long run out into the farm country that spread south to the Shoshone River. The Crown Hill Cemetery, where Shane would be buried, is out that way, and he wanted to inspect the layout to get a sense of what he faced on Tuesday.