by Mike Jenne
“Perhaps,” said Bao Trung. “But I still feel guilty.”
“You shouldn’t.”
“I do. We Buddhists don’t believe in God the same way that you do,” observed Bao Trung, intertwining his fingers. “But I still think that I was punished for my sins.”
“How so?” asked Ourecky.
“I think that for my transgressions, I was forced to remain at that camp for ten more years. I watched hundreds of men die, mostly by starvation. After the South collapsed, we became even busier, and I was eventually placed in charge. Thousands of men and women passed through my camp. Most died, but some were reformed and went back into society. I’ll tell you; with the burden that I carried on my soul, there were many days that I would have gladly joined their ranks as they marched into their graves.”
“Well, I may never change your mind, Bao Trung, but I am still grateful for what you did. If nothing else, for his last few hours on earth, Carson was free.”
The four men were silent for several moments, contemplating the skeleton on the table. With Henson’s assistance, Glades opened a jar of pills, took two, and chased them with a swallow of water. He cleared his throat, and in a gravelly voice said, “I want to know something. There were a lot of other American POWs who didn’t make it home. What happened to them?”
“Honestly, I don’t know,” answered Bao Trung. “Besides those that I killed in combat, you, your team and Carson were the only Americans that I ever had contact with. Except for Carson, I never had direct contact with any American prisoners, so I cannot tell you what happened after the Americans were released in 1973. But I’ve always been curious about something…”
“What’s that?” asked Henson, twisting the lid back on the medicine bottle.
“I could never understand why your country was so swift to close the books about the prisoners. With so many men unaccounted for, I’m sure that questions still lingered. If I were in your shoes, I would certainly have doubts.”
“How so?” asked Ourecky.
“Well, consider this: I know just enough about jet aircraft to be aware that an emergency ejection is a traumatic event. Men sometimes lose a limb or two when they are forced to eject even during routine training missions. You have to assume that for all of your pilots who ejected in combat during the war, at least a few would have suffered a traumatic amputation. Yet for all of the 591 American prisoners who were repatriated, none were missing limbs. Do you really suppose that’s possible?”
Glades started to reply, but there was a knock at the door. The forensic specialist entered the room and declared, “It’s a match, General.”
“Are you sure?” asked Ourecky.
“I am. They are definitely related. I have absolutely no doubt.”
Ourecky nodded and said, “Bao Trung, I want to finish this conversation, but I have some urgent business to attend to. Would you mind?”
Bao Trung shook his head. “Please do whatever it is that needs to be done.”
“Henson, I need a favor from you. I need to make a couple of calls on the satphone. In the meantime, would you jump on the radio and call the security detail accompanying Bea and Deirdre? I would like to get them back here as soon as possible.”
“Will do, sir.”
Ourecky tapped in a string of numbers on the satellite phone, waited for a minute to hear an answer, and then said, “Sorry, son, I know it’s really late there, but it’s him. I just thought that you’d want to know.
He terminated the call and said, “Henson, one more thing: bring Major Smith back in here, please.”
Accompanied by her co-pilot, Major Smith arrived. “You called, sir?” she asked.
“I did. Your C-17 is taking up a lot of valuable real estate, and since we’ve accomplished our mission here, I want to get it back into the air ASAP,” said Ourecky. “To be frank, Major, my friend has been waiting a very long time, and I want to get him home as quickly as possible. Do you understand that?”
“I do, sir,” she answered. “I lost friends in Afghanistan, so I know exactly what that feels like. I guess that you’re aware that we came in here with an extra flight crew aboard, so crew rest is not a constraint. I’ve already inquired about take-off spots, and the locals have told me that they can slot us to depart in about three hours.”
“Three hours?” he asked, glancing at his watch. “I would have guessed they could get us out of here sooner.”
“This airport is a very busy place,” she replied. “That’s the nature of humanitarian relief. Full planes in, empty planes out, all day, every day, until the work is finally done.”
“Then so be it,” he said. “Please make the necessary arrangements. I’ll work with Bao Trung and the Vietnamese to have Major Carson’s remains ready for movement.”
“I’ll have my loadmaster unload the transfer case and bring it over here,” said Smith. She spoke quickly in a hand-held radio, and then said, “Begging your pardon, General, but there’s no need for you and your party to be uncomfortable on the way back.”
“How so?”
Turning toward the window, she pointed to a Gulfstream executive jet parked next to the C-17. “The State Department diverted that airframe from a trade mission in China, on orders from the White House,” she explained. “It’s earmarked for your party, General. You’ll be here a few extra hours, maybe overnight, and make a layover in Hawaii, but you’ll travel back in comfort.”
Accompanied by Glades and Henson, Bea and Deirdre walked into the room. “Scott, dear, what’s going on?”
“The State Department has dispatched an executive jet for us, but I intend to go back on the C-17 with Drew. I’ll be leaving in a few hours, but there’s no need for the rest of you to be in a rush or be uncomfortable. You, Nestor and Deirdre can stay here for a day or so and then ride back in comfort on the Gulfstream.”
“How about the funeral?” asked Bea. “Won’t that be at Arlington? Will we make it in time?”
“The funeral won’t be for another couple of weeks, at a minimum, so you’ll have plenty of time.”
“General, are you absolutely sure you want to do it this way?” asked Major Smith.
“I will fly back with Major Carson’s remains,” declared Ourecky. “On the C-17.”
“Sir, it’s going to be a long haul,” counseled Major Smith. “Are you certain that you don’t want to just ride back in the Gulfstream with the others?”
“I will fly back with Major Carson’s remains,” reiterated Ourecky, obviously becoming impatient. “I’m staying with Drew.”
“I understand,”
“Sir, I’ll go with you also,” said Glades. “Please.”
“Nestor, I’m a hardheaded old Czech, but there’s certainly no need for you to be uncomfortable,” observed Ourecky. “Especially in your current state. You and the ladies can fly back in the Gulfstream.”
“General, if it’s all the same to you, I will accompany Major Carson’s remains as well. This was my mission, and I intend to finish it.”
Deirdre shook her head. “I go where Nestor goes. And there’s no sense arguing about it.”
“I’m flying back with Drew, dear,” added Bea. “And you. It’s only fitting that we take him home together.”
Less than an hour later, Carson’s remains had been carefully shifted from the wooden casket to the aluminum casket, the “human remains transfer case,” to be loaded on the C-17.
“General, uh, we have a problem,” confessed Major Smith. “There’s a specified protocol for transporting the remains of deceased military personnel, and in our rush to get here, and the humanitarian relief mission, uh, uh, we neglected to…”
“Just spit it out, Major,” said Ourecky. “What’s the problem?”
“Sir, we don’t have a flag to cover the remains.”
Ourecky shook his head. “Well, Major, that’s a pretty significant oversight, but one way or another, we need to get in the air. Why don’t you check with the Gulfstream’s crew to see if they
have one?”
As Smith rushed away, Bao Trung stepped forward. “Perhaps this might suffice,” he offered, pulling a carefully folded American flag from the box that contained Carson’s personal effects. He handed it to Henson, who unfolded it and stretched it out for Ourecky to see. It bore a few dark stains, and its colors were dulled by time, but it was clearly recognizable as the Stars and Stripes.
“Where did that come from?” asked Ourecky.
“It was in the bag that your team cached in the swamp,” explained Bao Trung, looking toward Glades. “It was the same flag that I left in Carson’s cell the night that I took him away.”
The four men carefully draped the small, faded banner on the shiny casket. In unison, they stepped back and saluted.
After slowly lowering his salute, Henson commented, “You know, General, under any other circumstances, that would sure look pathetic, but I couldn’t think of anything more appropriate.”
“That’s perfect,” commented Glades, as he dropped his salute.
“You’re right, Nestor,” noted Ourecky, smiling at the notion that his friend was going home at last. “Absolutely perfect.”
30
TWO FUNERALS
Faith Methodist Church, Perryton, West Virginia
Present Day
As much as Nestor Glades desired to be at Carson’s funeral, he just missed it. Just two weeks after he had returned from his final journey to Vietnam, his pancreatic cancer finally caught up with him. Like everything he had done in his working life, his funeral was planned in meticulous detail. All that remained was to execute the plan.
In accordance with his wishes, Deirdre Glades took him back to West Virginia to be buried in a graveyard beside a Methodist church that had long since been boarded up and abandoned as a house of worship.
Some of his former comrades had arrived the day prior, to make the place more presentable. They mowed the grass, pulled weeds, trimmed the hedges, straightened toppled memorials and touched up the black paint on the metal picket fence surrounding the cemetery. After a long day of it, they retired to a pub in nearby Morgantown for an impromptu wake.
Although she expected at least a few old soldiers to make an appearance, Deirdre was absolutely astonished by the turn-out. Hundreds of former comrades and acquaintances came, pouring in from all over the country. An official Honor Guard was sent from Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
Lying in his coffin, Nestor wore an Army dress uniform, resplendent in awards. He wasn’t empty-handed. In one hand, for his parents, he clasped a single .22 caliber bullet wrapped in an ancient scrap of possum fur. In the other hand, for his father-in law, was a sand-colored beret of the British Special Air Service, presented to him many decades before.
On any other day it would have taken a mere twenty minutes to drive from the funeral home to the cemetery, but today it took the funeral procession more than two hours to make the transition. Although they were effectively in the middle of nowhere, in a deserted coal mining community, the tiny cemetery and surrounding grounds were absolutely filled—and then some—with scores of men who had known and fought with Nestor Glades.
Ourecky and Bea sat beside Deirdre and comforted her as the bugles sounded Taps and the folded flag was gently handed to her in memory of her husband’s service. After presenting her with the flag, the ceremonial leader of the Honor Guard, a former Special Forces colonel who had served with Nestor, leaned forward and took her hands. Whispering in her ear as he surreptitiously slipped an object in her palm, he said, “Your father’s Regiment sends their regards.”
As grief-stricken as she was, Deirdre could not help but smile when she later opened her hand to glimpse the SAS cap badge, a winged dagger above the inscription “Who Dares Wins.”
Nestor Glades was buried next to his mother. His father was not buried here; he and two of Nestor’s brothers were entombed a few miles away, thousands of feet below ground, trapped in a collapsed coal mine. Nestor’s grave was marked with the simple stone that marks a soldier’s passing: a GI slab of marble, provided by the Veterans Administration, marked with his name, rank, highest decoration and some of the places he had fought.
When the official ceremony was concluded, one of Nestor’s MACV-SOG teammates—an elderly Nung mercenary who had escaped Vietnam in 1978 and later settled in Cincinnati—used a stamp-sized P-38 can opener to methodically slice the top from a Number Ten can of peaches. In remembrance of him, Nestor’s former teammates gathered in around his coffin to participate in the quirky communion that used to mark his departure from Vietnam. As the men stood over his yet unclosed grave, they passed the big can and each ate a peach slice in his memory. While they were sad at his passing, none cried in his memory, just as Nestor had not shed a tear at his own mother’s funeral. They saved the next-to-last slice for Deirdre, and then placed the final slice—dripping with sweet syrup—atop the coffin of Nestor Glades.
Deirdre lingered there long after they left. Tomorrow, she would return home to Florida, to dote on grandchildren and do those things that elderly widows do, but she knew that in time she would come back here, to this forlorn cemetery by an abandoned church in a gritty little town that had long ago ceased to exist. She would come back here to be with Nestor always.
Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Virginia
Present Day
Ourecky didn’t venture to Arlington very often, but when he did, he set aside plenty of time to walk the hallowed ground and pay homage to the men and women who rested here. Consequently, on the day prior to Carson’s funeral, he and Bea had spent hours roaming amongst the stones and monuments, visiting old friends and acquaintances.
Legions of heroes rested here, as did more than a few cowards. In the gentle hills were thousands of fathers never granted the opportunity to meet their children, resting in the midst of multitudes of teenagers whose lives were erased even before they were written. It was a place where rank and social standing mattered little; in these lawns were the mighty and powerful—Generals, Admirals, Ambassadors, Senators, Congressmen—eternally taking their places amongst common Soldiers, Sailors, Marines and Airmen.
Here on these grounds, an eternal torch burned for a young President, taken away in his prime, whose stirring words set the Nation on a course to the Moon. Victims of a horrific fire that occurred as we stumbled along that path, a pair of Apollo 1 astronauts—Virgil “Gus” Grissom and Roger Chaffee—were not too far away, buried beside each other. Several other astronauts were also buried in Arlington, including men and women who had perished in the Challenger and Columbia space shuttle disasters, as well as two brave explorers—Charles “Pete” Conrad and James Irwin—who had long ago strolled on lunar dust.
Mark Tew was here, just a stone’s throw from the graceful sky-reaching curved spires of the Air Force Monument. Leon Tarbox and Virgil Wolcott were not. Admiral Tarbox had died just five years after Carson was shot down near Haiphong. At his request, he had been buried at sea in the Pacific, at the site of a naval battle where his older brother had died in 1944.
As he had always intended, Wolcott retired to his family’s ranch in Oklahoma shortly after the Project folded. He lived to be ninety-two years old, and succumbed to a heart attack while mending fences. With his favorite roan hitched to a nearby fencepost, he died with his boots on, a Stetson on his head, a hammer in his hand and an unfiltered Camel cigarette between his lips. He was buried near the family’s homestead, under the spreading branches of a grand oak he had planted as a child.
A month had elapsed since they had returned from Vietnam. The day had come to pay respects to Carson. Although long retired, Ourecky donned his Air Force dress uniform. For only the second time in his life, with special authorization from the President, he wore the ribbon that signified the Medal of Honor, as well as his astronaut badge.
In fact, even though he had earned a stack of ribbons during a long and illustrious career, his astronaut wings and the pale blue ribbon were the only awards that adorned his un
iform on this bright morning, and everyone present knew that he wore those decorations not to honor himself, but rather to honor his friend.
Although Carson’s funeral wasn’t a large ceremony, it wasn’t without auspicious attendees. The current President, Secretary of the Air Force, and Chief of Staff of the Air Force were present to honor Carson. Five of his shipmates from the Vietnam era—including “Badger,” his former squadron commander, and “Beans” Leesma—were guests as well.
Of the seven pilots—other than Ourecky—who had worked on the Project, only two—Tim Agnew and Mike Sigler—were still alive. Both men were in attendance. Ed Russo had succumbed to cancer less than five years after being rescued from orbit. Parch Jackson had been killed while flying a vintage racing plane at an air show in 1995; his last conscious act was to steer the stricken aircraft away from the crowd.
With Bea at his side, Ourecky took his place beside Rebecca, Carson’s daughter. Although the field DNA test in Vietnam showed that they were related, a more sophisticated analysis definitively proved that Carson was her biological father. As his sole surviving relative, she would receive his military insurance and back pay—compounded with interest—which came to a fairly substantial sum since Carson had continued to be administratively promoted with his peers, eventually achieving the rank of full colonel.
But Rebecca really had no desire for the windfall; Ourecky was quite aware that she had married a good man, and that they had no cause for want. They planned to set aside enough for their children’s education, and then contribute the remainder to service organizations that cared for wounded veterans.
The service was short and very simple: Ourecky read a heartfelt but suitably vague eulogy, a prayer was said by an Air Force chaplain, three volleys of seven rounds were fired by an Honor Guard, and the flag covering Carson’s casket was painstakingly folded thirteen times and tucked into a tight triangle. The Honor Guard paused as four fighter aircraft—-two from the Air Force and two from the Navy—screamed overhead, with one suddenly breaking away to form the “Missing Man” formation.