Pale Blue

by Mike Jenne

  He had listened to the radio earlier, but most of the news focused on the United Airlines crash in a Chicago neighborhood, killing forty-five people, including an Illinois congressman and two persons on the ground. The other big story was the ongoing peace treaty talks in Paris. Rumors abounded that President Nixon was prepared to announce the end of the conflict at Christmas. If so, it would be a welcome gift for a nation weary of war and torn by internal dissent. Ourecky thought of Carson and knew that his friend was probably infuriated about being aboard an aircraft carrier making full steam toward a war that would likely be over before he arrived. At least he would be safe, and that was something to be thankful for. Maybe Carson would be allowed to return home early, and then the two of them could sit down to discuss Tarbox’s offer of the MOL flight and public recognition as astronauts.

  He heard a noise outside, stood up, and saw Bea’s red Karmann Ghia pulling into the driveway. He frantically gathered the nuclear manuals and stashed them in his briefcase; none of the references were classified, but it was just something else that he didn’t want to explain.

  “I’m absolutely exhausted,” confessed Bea, trudging through the front door, carrying two brown grocery sacks and trailed by Andy and Rebecca.

  “Uh, I wasn’t expecting you,” said Ourecky, standing up. He was taken aback by her disheveled appearance. Covered with a floral print scarf, her blonde hair was unbrushed and unkempt. Her eyes were red, as if she had been crying, and she wasn’t wearing makeup.

  She slipped out of her Navy pea coat and hung it on the peg by the door. “I’m ready to come home, Scott.”

  Ourecky hugged her and asked, “Is Jill…”

  Wiping a tear from her eye, Bea sniffled as she solemnly nodded. In a hushed voice, she answered, “This morning. The kids don’t know. I don’t think that they would understand anyway.”

  Ourecky glanced into the paper bags. One contained Andy’s favorite blanket, some stuffed animals and a few toys. The other held a loaf of white bread, a jar of peanut butter, two boxes of breakfast cereal and a carton of milk. She knelt down and dug through the first bag before handing Rebecca her well-worn Raggedy Ann doll and Andy his blanket and a plastic car.

  “I’m sorry, Scott, but I’m just spent,” she said, standing up. She brought the groceries to the kitchen, put the milk in the refrigerator, and placed the sack on the counter. “Jill’s mother is at the funeral home, making arrangements for next week.”

  She returned to the living room, plopped down on the couch, picked up his beer from the coffee table, and took a long swallow.

  “I didn’t think you liked beer,” he observed, sitting down next to her.

  “I don’t mind it today.” She took another sip and handed the bottle to him. “Have you heard from Drew?”

  “Yeah. He called yesterday.”

  “Is he already in Vietnam?” asked Bea.

  “He wasn’t there yet,” answered Ourecky, remembering that Carson had placed the call through the MARS—Military Auxiliary Radio System—network. His aircraft carrier had a “MARS shack,” operated by a Navy radio technician, where sailors could place calls home through a network of volunteer amateur radio operators. When he called, the carrier had just pulled into Subic Bay Navy Base in the Philippines, where it would take on fuel and ordnance stores before sailing on toward Yankee Station in the Gulf of Tonkin.

  “Well, I sure hope that he’s safe,” she replied. “So, have things changed between you and the Air Force?”

  “No,” he answered, shaking his head. “Not really. We’re still tying up loose ends. I’ll be here at Wright-Patterson at least until Drew gets back from Vietnam, maybe longer. Maybe much longer. Sorry.”

  “So you’re not going back to school?”

  “Eventually. So you said that want to come back home?”

  “Yeah,” she answered. “Very much so. I’m ready to sleep in my own bed. With you, Scott.”

  He grinned, but his smile was quickly replaced by a frown. “I wasn’t kidding when I said that I might be staying here for a long time. To be honest, it’s not going to be much different than before you left. Sorry. Are you sure that you’re so anxious to come back?”

  “I am,” she replied, nodding. “We’ll take it a day at a time, Scott. A day at a time.”

  “So Rebecca is going to stay with us for a while?” asked Ourecky, watching the children quietly play in the corner next to the television.

  “For a while, if it’s okay with you. At least until after Christmas, and then she will go to live with Jill’s mother. Right now, I’m trying to give her a break. Not only is she grieving, but she’s worn ragged, and there’s still a lot left to be done.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “Are you still going to Nebraska at Christmas?” she asked, slipping off her shoes.

  “I’m planning to. I put in my paperwork for twelve days of leave, and Virgil already signed off on it. I’ll drive over the day before Christmas Eve and come back the day after New Year’s.”

  “That sounds so good. Do you think your parents would mind if we brought Rebecca?”

  “Not at all,” he replied. “How is she?”

  “Rebecca is all right now, but at some point it’s going to sink in that her mother is gone forever, and that’s going to be very difficult to deal with. If nothing else, a change of scenery might help. Besides, I would really like to see her have something resembling a happy Christmas, so I can’t think of a better place to be than at your parents’ house.”

  “I’ll call later and let them know,” he said. “I’m happy that you’re home, Bea.”

  “And I’m happy to be home.”

  6:35 p.m., Wednesday, December 13, 1972

  Reclining on the floor, Ourecky played with the kids as Bea fixed dinner in the kitchen. The phone rang as he was helping Andy stack a collection of colored wooden blocks.

  Bea rinsed off her hands, dried them on a kitchen towel, and answered the phone. After listening for a moment, she said, “Over? Over what? What? This is so confusing. Let me see if my husband knows anything about this. No, no, I won’t hang up.”

  “What’s up?” asked Ourecky, carefully balancing a red block on a teetering tower on the verge of falling over.

  She covered the phone’s mouthpiece and used her free hand to spin a finger over her head. “Some crazy guy, asking if we’ll accept a call from Mars. I’ll wait a minute, then tell him you’re not here and hang up.”

  Mars? Initially, Ourecky laughed at the absurdity of it, and then suddenly realized what Mars meant. He jumped up and raced towards her. “Carson! It’s Drew Carson! Don’t hang up!”

  He took the phone from her. Curious, she stood close by, listening in on the conversation as she arranged rolls on a baking pan.

  Ourecky listened to the operator’s instructions, and then replied, “Yes, operator, we’ll accept the call. Yes, I do know the procedures. Over.” He felt self-consciously awkward saying “Over” on the phone, especially within earshot of Bea and the kids, but it was just part of the goofy rules associated with the MARS calls.

  After a moment of silence, he heard Carson’s voice, slightly scratchy and distorted. “Hey, buddy, I only have a five-minute block, so we have to make this quick. Over.”

  “Okay. Good to hear your voice. Over.”

  “Hey, I wish that I had brought my wool scarf. It’s a lot cooler than I expected. Over.”

  Wool scarf? Ourecky breathed a sigh of relief; with a phrase pre-arranged between them before his departure, Carson was telling him that he had arrived at Yankee Station, off the coast of North Vietnam. After years of pestering Wolcott and Tew, Carson had finally achieved his goal: he was in Southeast Asia.

  “So, have you had a chance to drive around and look at the neighborhood?” asked Ourecky. “Over.”

  “Yeah,” answered Carson. “Very quiet. Not much traffic. Kind of disappointing. Over.”

  Quiet was good, thought Ourecky; quiet was safe. Maybe the peace pr
ocess would come to quick fruition, and the war would be over by Christmas.

  “So how’s our old gang back there in Ohio?” asked Carson. “Any new developments that you can tell me about? Over.”

  Ourecky looked at a yellowed water stain on the ceiling. There was so much that he wished that he could tall Carson. He wanted to tell him about Rebecca, the daughter he didn’t know about, and the news about the MOL. At this point, with the reality that his friend was now flying in a combat zone, more than anything else, he just wanted him to be safe. Certainly, he didn’t want to distract Carson or diminish his focus, but he wanted to say something, anything, to motivate him to be safe, so he could make it home in one piece. If he could somehow make Carson aware of the MOL mission, then maybe the fearless pilot might not be so prone to take unnecessary risks.

  He thought of a potential tack. He glanced at Bea, smiled, and then took a stab at it. “Hey, Drew, you know how you used to talk about applying to become a NASA astronaut? Over.”

  Bea raised her eyebrows as she brushed melted butter on the dinner rolls and then slid the pan into the preheated oven.

  Other than a mild buzz of static, there was a prolonged silence on the phone line. Finally, Carson replied, “Uh…NASA astronaut? What about it? Over.”

  “Well, you might have a shot at it when you get back,” said Ourecky tentatively. “Wouldn’t that be cool, Drew? Wouldn’t you like to see your face on the front cover of Life, just like all the other astronauts? Over.”

  “Life magazine? Yeah, that’ll be the day, brother. Over.”

  “You just never know, Drew. You really, really should think about it. I’ll even help you with the paperwork when you get back. And you know that the admiral has a lot of connections in high places. With his signature, you might really have a good shot. Think about it, Drew: Life magazine! Over.”

  “I’ll think about it. Over.” They chatted for a couple of minutes, mostly idle talk about what was going on with the Paris peace talks and war protests in the States.

  “Hey, the operator just gave me the one minute warning,” declared Carson. “We need to wrap it up. Over.”

  Ourecky glanced at the second hand on his watch, and asked, “When will I hear from you again? Over.”

  “I’ll sign up for a MARS block on Christmas Eve. My squadron has the daylight shift, from dawn until dusk, so I’ll have to call late at night. I’m thirteen hours ahead of you, so the call should probably come through around noon your time.”

  Before he left Pensacola, Carson had explained to Ourecky that three aircraft carriers were typically stationed at Yankee Station at any given time. To ensure uniform coverage and continuity, one carrier’s air wing conducted flight operations from noon to midnight, the second carrier covered midnight to noon, and the third carrier—the assignment that Carson had apparently drawn—launched and recovered aircraft from dawn to dusk.

  Remembering that he and Bea weren’t going to be at this number on Christmas Eve, Ourecky blurted, “Hey, Drew, we’ll be at my parents’ house, in Nebraska when you call. Let me give you that number. Stand by.”

  Ourecky slowly recited the phone number and then waited as Carson read it back to him. “Good copy. Over,” he confirmed.

  “Christmas Eve, around noon. Over,” said Carson.

  Bea nudged him, grinned and pointed at the phone. “Bea wants to say hi. Over.”

  “Can’t,” replied Carson. “Sorry. My time block is over and there’s a line of guys waiting. Give her a hug from me, and tell her I’ll talk to her on Christmas Eve. Over.”

  Pointing at a clock on the wall, Ourecky shook his head at Bea. “Roger. Be safe. Goodbye. Out.”

  “Bye. Out.”

  Ourecky hung up the phone and went to the refrigerator to retrieve a beer. “Sorry,” he said, snapping the cap off with a can opener. “He ran out of time on the call. He’s calling back on Christmas Eve, though. You can talk to him then.”

  “I just wanted to tell him to be safe,” she said, stirring a pot of steaming succotash. “I just want him to come home.”

  “He’ll be safe. And he’ll come home.”

  “I know, but that doesn’t make it any easier for me,” she said. “Anyway, that was very enlightening. After all, it’s not every day that we get a call from Mars. And Drew Carson wants to be an astronaut?”

  Ourecky sipped the beer and nodded. “Yeah. That’s really why he went to test pilot school in the first place.”

  “Didn’t you also want to be an astronaut?” asked Bea. “Back when you were in high school?”

  “Yeah, but I got over it,” answered Ourecky. He wiped a bead of condensation from his Schlitz bottle and added, “I’m entirely content to keep my feet on the ground now.”

  “Well, you never know,” she said. “I’ve read that NASA is accepting scientists now, and they don’t even have to be pilots. You know, I heard that one of those astronauts on the last mission was a geologist.”

  “Schmitt,” he said. “Harrison Schmitt. So, are you saying that you wouldn’t have a problem with me applying to be an astronaut? Granted, it would never happen, but you were so dead set against me being a pilot, I couldn’t possibly imagine you wanting me to be an astronaut.”

  “It’s certainly not what I want, Scott Ourecky,” she replied, sliding the lid back onto the pan. “More than anything, I want us to be happy. I want you to be happy.”

  “I am happy,” he replied, stepping toward her and wrapping his arms around her waist. He looked at Andy, playing with his blocks, and Rebecca, thumbing through Green Eggs and Ham, and added, “I’m very happy now that we’re all back together.”

  “Maybe you’re satisfied now,” she said, playfully smearing a streak of flour on his nose before kissing him. “But I don’t want you to ever look back and regret not pursuing something that you could have done or should have done. Face it, Scott, you’re a smart guy, so much so that the Air Force wants to send you to MIT for your doctorate. You have a lot going for you, and that admiral’s signature should carry as much weight on your application as anyone else’s.”

  As he held her close, Ourecky struggled hard not to laugh at the irony of their conversation. Trembling, he managed to keep his composure until her final comment caused him to burst out laughing. “You know, Scott, as handsome as Drew is, and he is a very handsome man, that could be your face on the cover of Life magazine.”

  19

  THE PEACE TRAIN LEAVES THE TRACKS

  Yankee Station, Gulf of Tonkin

  6:35 p.m., Sunday, December 17, 1972

  The squadron’s wardroom was jammed with men passing the monotonous hours as they waited for a call to action. A table full of pilots and RIOs raucously sang along with the squadron’s unofficial theme song, “Bad Moon Rising” by Credence Clearwater Revival, as it blared from a cassette player. Other aviators—equally bored but far quieter—played cribbage, cards, checkers or chess. Two men busied themselves setting up a movie projector in preparation for the evening’s feature attraction: The Pearl Harbor war drama Tora! Tora! Tora! The men had seen the film so many times that most knew the dialogue—including the Japanese parts—by heart, and loudly recited each line as it was spoken on screen.

  Nibbling on popcorn, Carson flipped through a recent issue of Life magazine as he waited on the movie to start. He had long admired Life’s coverage of the NASA astronauts, and had read each such article—many written by the astronauts themselves—with a fervor that bordered on obsession. He couldn’t believe that the illustrious news magazine would cease publication at the end of the year, joining several other similar magazines—Look, Saturday Evening Post—that had folded in recent years. Supposedly, the advent of color television had hastened their collective demise. It made sense, since the average citizen seemed more inclined to spend his leisure time watching Laugh In or M*A*S*H than reading a book or magazine.

  He grinned, thinking about Ourecky’s recent comment about someday seeing his face on the cover of Life; obviousl
y, like so many other things that might have been, that time had passed. Finishing an article about Joe Namath, Carson set aside the glossy magazine and reflected on last week’s conversation with Ourecky. It had been a very odd and restrained exchange; Ourecky had diligently tried to convey some insight about something happening back at Wright-Patterson, but was unable to say outright whatever it was that he wanted to say. Carson didn’t know if his friend’s reluctance was due to communicating over open phone lines and the MARS network, or whether it was simply because he couldn’t freely talk in front of Bea. In any event, it was immensely aggravating, since Carson yearned to know more about what lay in store once he returned to Ohio.

  Because Ourecky had seemed so fixated on NASA’s astronaut selection program, Carson suspected that Virgil Wolcott and Admiral Tarbox were probably working some sort of angle to allow him to expeditiously transfer to NASA. Perhaps the move might be in conjunction with NASA’s next call for astronaut candidates, whenever that might be. With Tarbox’s considerable political pull, Carson could likely be slipped into the mix as a surefire ringer.

  Considering how long he had aspired to be an astronaut—more specifically, a legitimately recognized astronaut and not some guy who had just anonymously snuck into orbit nine times—the idea just didn’t appeal to Carson as it once had. After all, NASA already possessed an abundance of astronauts on their roster, and even when the program was in full swing, there was a constant competition for the few available seats aboard spacecraft.

  Now, with the Apollo lunar program literally ending the day after tomorrow—with the planned splashdown of Apollo 17 in the Pacific—flight slots would become even more scarce. The only scheduled mission after Apollo was Skylab, and only nine men—three three-man crews—were slated to occupy that makeshift space station cobbled together from Apollo hardware. Sure, the Space Shuttle would eventually fly—maybe—but how long was Carson willing to wait for that opportunity? Regardless of his flight experience, which he could obviously never speak of when and if he was assigned to NASA, or any sort of influence that Tarbox was able to exert, he would be at the lowliest bottom of the pecking order, and it was extremely likely that he would be too old to fly before he even had a chance to catch a ride on the Shuttle.