“Hmmmm,” the colonel responded. “I believe I can appreciate that. My first duty station was in a little community in the Panhandle, just about as far north as you can get and still be in Texas.” The director paused, measuring the memories of his own past. “I met some of the finest folks I ever knew there, sometimes I find myself wishing I had stayed on.”
Abruptly, he brought himself back to the present. “But have you ever thought about trying to promote now? I know your sons are grown and on their own. The Department can always use good men in higher ranking positions, wherever you might choose to go.”
“Thank you, sir,” replied Micah. “But no, I guess I’m just not geared that way. That would mean moving to a much bigger community and I’ve always kind of liked my elbow room.”
For the first time since Micah had walked in, he saw the colonel smile broadly and shake his head in understanding. “Well, can I ask what your plans might be after the dust settles on this?”
Micah shifted his weight and sighed. “Well sir, I don’t have much further to go before I can retire, and I figure the next year or so will be spent on what happened at the Albright’s. Plus, Uncle Zeke didn’t have any surviving closer kin than Abby and I. According to his will, we are the sole beneficiaries.”
The head of the DPS cocked an eyebrow in obvious surprise. “You mean that you are inheriting Templar Aerospace?”
“I don’t know about that” replied Micah thoughtfully, “maybe some of the proceeds from it. Running a company like Templar Aerospace is something I know absolutely nothing about, and have no real interest or time to learn. But there are some smart people who worked for Uncle Zeke and they still share his vision, so there is talk about them buying it.”
“Then your life is probably going to change in more ways than first thought,” mused the colonel.
“No sir, not like you might believe. You see, business slowed way down after the Apollo missions. That was their bread and butter, and after the rest of the program was scrapped Templar Aerospace had to scramble in some different directions. As explained to me, that process is still going on.”
“But it still should add a hefty bottom line to your retirement check. Micah, I would say you’re a lucky man but I won’t, you’ve paid too high of a price for the privilege.” The colonel stopped before adding kindly, “is there anything special you might want to do?”
“Well sir, have you ever heard of a spot called Alamito out in the Big Bend?”
“I know a little bit about the Big Bend,” admitted the DPS boss. “But I can’t say I have ever heard of… What did you call it? Alamito?”
“Yes sir. If you drew a line between Marfa and Lajitas, and then an intersecting one between Alpine and Presidio, you’d end up real close to Alamito as well as Plata, which some think as being one and the same. Both sites have been abandoned for decades now but there is land available nearby. I’ve been watching a small place that’s come up for sale, bordering Alamito Creek.”
Micah explained further. “Most folks don’t want something that remote, however it suits us just fine. The ranch house is small, but nice and Abby really likes it. It has some shade trees, decent fencing and good grazing between the creek frontage and when the rains come. If all goes well and the Good Lord is willing, we’ll be able to afford that place and what comes with it.”
The director looked quizzically at the highway patrolman. “You really do like your peace and quiet, don’t you?”
“Just as peaceful and quiet as I can find, and still be in Texas. I want someplace where someone’ll have to work to locate me, and after looking around awhile likely not stay for long. Somewhere where I can look in any direction and see nothing but miles and miles of more nothing. And nobody.”
“I suspect you have a reason for that,” commented the colonel.
“Yes sir. I do, and more than one,” revealed Micah. “The world is changing even as we sit here talking, Colonel, and not for the better. I wasn’t blowing smoke up Wadley’s skirt when I told him that I do a lot of reading, and pay attention to what’s happening around me.”
Micah paused to better collect his thoughts. “Sir, you heard what Eggers said today and I know what we locked horns with on the Albright. My gut is telling me that was only the beginning, and we as a country are not near ready to meet what’ll follow. It’s like some gigantic storm brewing, and when that storm breaks loose it won’t be anything like we’ve ever seen before.”
The highway patrolman addressed the colonel in dead earnest. “I don’t know how many other Qassams are out there, but I reckon more than a few. And every one of them hates us and everything we stand for with a temperament nigh impossible for most Americans to understand. They’re going to try again, and as many times as it takes. They’re not stupid and one of these days, they’re going to get lucky. God help us all when they do.”
“So you are going to retire, move out to some remote spot on the map and let it happen?” asked the director bluntly.
“And what can either of us really do to stop it, Colonel?” questioned Micah. “We can both holler and wave our hands and kick dirt until we drop from exhaustion, but it won’t make any difference. Like I said, the average American can’t understand that kind of evil and don’t want to hear about it. It conflicts with all those more pleasant things they’d rather enjoy, and how they want to see this world and their lives in it.”
“There are changes coming in our Department, Micah, to meet these challenges. You could stay on and promote, and be a part of them.”
“It’ll be too little, too late, Colonel” replied Templar, “and we both know it.”
Micah Templar eyed the other man, weighing his words before adding. “Let’s just say I plan to pick my ground real carefully from here on. So far I’ve lost an uncle, a good friend, and nearly got myself killed. Both of my sons are in the Marine Corps, and it don’t take a genius to figure where they’ll be if this coalition idea takes hold. With all due respect, sir, I tend to believe my family has done their fair share in this fight so far, and then some.”
“I can’t argue that, Micah, and I do understand, especially about those sons.” The colonel lowered his head pensively. “My own is a platoon commander with the First Cav at Fort Hood. My best guess is that he’ll be there right beside your sons if and when we go into Kuwait.”
“Yes sir, there’s going to be a lot of sons headed out and it’ll be hard for them.” In Micah’s mind was the image of Jeremiah Templar standing at the bus station, hand held high to that departing Greyhound. Micah swallowed hard. “Sometimes it’s just as hard on the fathers, maybe more so.”
The man behind the desk studied his trooper, sensing a welling of grief. “You were in Vietnam, weren’t you Micah?”
“Yes sir” the trooper responded. “Marines. Two tours.”
The colonel was silent for a while and stared out his office window, A lingering sadness came over his features. “I had several friends who went to Vietnam, some were a lot older when they came back. A few came home in a flag-covered box and one of them is still over there, someplace. No one really knows where, not even his own family. It still hurts when I think about them, and I can’t even begin to imagine the pain a parent feels.”
“Yes sir, I doubt if any of us can unless we’ve been there ourselves” responded Micah, “and that’s one place I don’t ever want to be.”
The other man’s eyebrows knitted together in circumspection. “Wars bring nightmares that never end for those who have paid the most dearly, in one way or another. There are people in our agency with cousins, brothers, even fathers still listed as MIA after all these years…”
Micah did not hear much more of what the director said, but not because he was consciously trying to tune him out. Rather it was at that exact moment he remembered who Mister Eggers was, and why he knew they could trust him to keep his word. The heartbreaking acronym of ‘MIA’ served as the trigger release for what he had been trying to recall. Micah knew
now why Eggers would do everything possible to get those hostages back alive.
CHAPTER THIRTY
During the long drive home from Austin, Micah began to recall events from some three decades prior and belonging to another world entirely. He mentally castigated himself for his inability to remember those events beforehand, and how he first met Mister Eggers. That initial meeting had amounted to something important, even heroic in a time when so much seemed to bring nothing but misery, grief and destruction.
These were the memories of his youth, at least of a youth that vanished near overnight in exchange for a seemingly unending struggle to stay alive. That, and to keep alive other young men whose welfare had been thrust upon him. Too often he fell short of that mark, and perhaps his lingering guilt in doing so was one of the reasons he hadn’t recognized Eggers to start with.
Of all of God’s Creations, the human mind stands alone as a wondrously crafted complexity beyond compare. It accomplishes numerous vital feats and actions without so much as a single conscious thought. More so, it can actually shield part of itself from the other when seeing and experiencing too much.
Such is what occurs with certain memories. The memories are still there, but buried so well that it takes a strong, willful effort on the other part to bring them again into the light of day. They are seared into one’s mind and very being, yet only brought forth and examined on uncommon occasions.
This was one of those rare times…
It was in late January of 1969 in Quang Tri Province, the northernmost territory for what was once known as the Republic of South Vietnam. Quang Tri and four other provinces made up the American military zone called ‘I Corps.’ Micah Templar had been an acting platoon sergeant in a grunt outfit there, part of Second Battalion Ninth Marines. The regiment was nicknamed “Hell in a Helmet,” and for good reason. It had been a tough year for the Marine Corps, the regiment and himself. The Ninth Marines had conducted one combat action after another for the past eleven months running. Those actions had taken a heavy toll on everyone involved.
This had been his second tour, his first in country was in 1966 as a very green PFC. But what had gone on the first time around and what was happening two years later were hardly comparable. The Tet offensive of the January before had sparked a series of bloody, vicious encounters at places such as Con Thien, The Rockpile, Mike’s Hill, Vandergrift Combat Base and the Ben Hai River. Elements of the Ninth also fought at the Battle of Khe Sanh and had the casualty lists to prove it. Those following engagements in spots blissfully unheard of by a vast majority of Americans only further sapped the regiment’s strength.
But the final months of 1968 had brought a welcome respite, as the North Vietnamese Army was forced back across the DMZ due to the staggering losses inflicted by the hard fighting Leathernecks. Micah had been slightly wounded that August and medevacked to the rear for a hospital stay. During that period both he and the Ninth Marines had time to rest and make ready again for their tough, wily and highly capable foes. That wait would not last long.
As Tet 1969 approached, American intelligence chatter was at a fever pitch concerning a massive NVA buildup in the vicinity of the A Shau Valley, near the border with Laos. Not only was this worrisome fact marked by increasing numbers of enemy personnel and units but also by an escalation in their activities, and it all pointed like the proverbial dagger at the throat of I Corps. When heavy artillery barrages and air strikes proved less than successful against the expanding enemy capabilities, the call went out yet again to ‘send in the Marines.’
Thus began the last major offensive of the United States Marine Corps in Vietnam, a two-month long assault that would go down officially in military journals as Operation Dewey Canyon. For the Marine grunts on the ground Dewey Canyon proved to be a tough, sometimes desperate journey up the watershed of the Da Krong River and into Laos itself.
Yet these Marines left their marks at every chancy step, providing the Marine Corps with dominant tactical successes due to their individual sweat, tenacity, spirit and life’s blood. Five Medals of Honor were earned by the men of the Ninth Marine Regiment during Dewey Canyon, but only one would survive to receive our nation’s highest honor. The other four, along with many another good Marine, would lose his life somewhere along the way.
Early on Micah’s platoon had set in on a knoll about two clicks west of Firebase Razor, under construction at the time. Razor was one of the necessary stepping stones toward the Laotian border as well as the enemy contained within, and he and his men were providing a blocking force against any possible NVA reconnaissance or incursion.
Their position had been a good one, not only as an obstacle for any attacking forces but also as an observation point. Some 500 meters to the west down steeply sloping terrain was the Da Krong River, which before the monsoons was nothing more in spots than a rocky stream. That would change in the next few days, when that rocky stream would become a raging beast fed by nine straight days of near continual rain.
For now it served as a clearly defined marker for their area. The wide, open riverbed was a welcome change from the triple canopy jungle that covered their side of the steep, hilly landscape. Across the river the jungle thinned into large, isolated clumps of trees and tangled undergrowth surrounded by large swaths of elephant grass.
The different terrain making up the opposite side allowed their field of view to extend to the west for nearly two clicks. Just south of the knoll, the river took a sudden jag to the east before it continued on south. The ground fell away in a more gradual incline to that general direction, which afforded them even a better view toward Laos and the Ninth’s ultimate objective.
It was fairly early in the morning, and Micah had just made breakfast from a box of C-Rats labeled “Beef, Spiced with Sauce.” At least that was what they called it for officialdom’s sake, but the joke was that it looked and smelled much like a can of Alpo dog food. He was talking with the newly arrived second lieutenant about how the platoon’s three squads were employed around their makeshift CP, when Mister Eggers first entered Micah Templar’s world.
“Sergeant, Gonzales says we got movement coming in from the west, across the river.”
Micah looked up into the earnest face of a young PFC from Third Squad. His boy-like features were belied by dirt and whisker stubbles on his face, mixed with the deeply etched lines of protracted weariness brought on by daily life as a Marine grunt.
“What sort of movement?” he asked.
“Gonzales don’t know exactly, said it was something strange and to go get you ASAP.”
Micah had met Corporal Enrique “Chapo” Gonzales even before they had both landed in the same platoon. A star linebacker for the McCamey Badgers while in high school, the short, stocky Gonzales was known in the outfit as being a Marine’s Marine. When he said he saw something strange and needed Micah immediately, the acting platoon sergeant knew that business was fixing to pick up.
“Lieutenant,” he addressed the new platoon commander, “I’d better go take a look.” Micah reached down for his M14, the most prized possession he had in country. As per Headquarters Marine Corps all line companies by now had transitioned to the M16 but he still preferred the older, heavier battle rifle due to its far greater punch and reliability. His existing chain of command appreciated his demonstrated skill with the non-standard weapon, and tended to look the other way.
Second Lieutenant Amos A. Johnson had only been assigned as the new platoon commander as of yesterday. A lean, blue eyed, strikingly handsome Cornhusker who had run track for the University of Nebraska, he had only been commissioned six months ago and had seen Vietnam for the first time the week past.
This was his first command and he found himself involved in the steepest learning curve of his young life. To compensate for part of that was the sagely advice from older, more experienced officers: pick out your best NCOs and learn from them. It was advice that he planned to follow.
“I’m going with you, Sergeant”
replied Johnson.
The gaunt PFC led the way to a spot above the platoon’s improvised CP, an observation point affording a commanding view to the west and south. Micah had personally selected this location as their primary OP and put the best man he had in charge of operating it. That was why Gonzales was here.
“Whatcha got, Chapo?” asked Micah as he crawled next to the dark complected man, who looking through a Bausch and Lomb spotting scope. Lieutenant Johnson wiggled up on the other side.
“I got bad guys. NVA regulars, looks to be at least platoon strength” replied Gonzales, never taking his eye off the scope.
“Where?” asked Templar, picking up a pair of binoculars lying in front of him.
“About 1500 meters out, directly to our west in that low area draining to the river. You probably cannot see them through the binos unless they are moving. Right now they’ve stopped, and we have beaucoup elephant grass and brush in the way,” replied the corporal.
“Okay, so what’s so strange about that? Probably doing a little skirting recon to see what’s up with Razor” observed Micah.
“No, Mikey. This is not a recon; I think it is a hunting trip. I think they are tracking someone or something.”
“Huh,” grunted Micah, scanning the area described with the dull green field glasses. At first, he saw nothing, but as Chapo predicted he picked up the motion as soon as they started moving again. At this far out, the NVA troops were only mere specks drifting toward the riverbed.
Micah Templar steadied the binoculars as best he could on a low berm to their front, making certain he was still in the camouflaging shade. They were NVA and far more in number than a standard recon team. Beyond that he couldn’t tell much more. Gonzales’ far more powerful spotting scope was much better at picking out the details at this distance.
The three Marines watched the enemy movement for some time, trying to determine exactly what was going on. The NVA soldiers came to a clearing and hesitated for a moment, but then pushed on through as tactically sound as possible. Micah continued to concentrate through the twin lenses in total silence, straining his eyes for a better read on the evolving situation.
The Uvalde Raider Page 26