by Oliver North
At precisely 8:00, the Situation Room watch chief knocked on the conference room door and said, “Dr. Harrod, the President called down to ask if you will be joining them upstairs for dinner.”
Harrod rose and said to the watch officer, “Tell him I'll be right up.” Then turning to Newman and the other three, he said, “I have to go. The ISEG people will wrap up their D.C. briefings on Friday. They should then move back down to Fort Bragg and get out of here before they attract more attention. I have told the UN that they will be ready for operations in thirty days.”
Newman stood up and interrupted. “That's not long enough. They have only been together for two weeks. They need to be able to do a whole lot more work together before they get thrown into something like chasing after Aidid. Furthermore, they can't just go from here to someplace like Somalia without getting acclimated.”
Harrod stood quietly for a moment, contemplating Newman's walk to the edge of insubordination. Coombs, McDade, and Robertson sat in their places, contemplating the grain in the tabletop while awaiting the explosion.
Instead, Harrod replied quietly, almost in a whisper, “Thirty days. That's all you've got. If Fort Bragg isn't good enough, figure out where else they have to go to get ready. Then get them there and work them as long as they and their mission are not compromised. If they need additional equipment, go get it. I want them ready to go before the first of the year. The UN and the President want results, not excuses. Now, I have other things to do besides baby-sitting the four of you. The WHCA people should be finished by now. Go back to your office and figure out what needs to be done—and go do it.”
The four officers stood as Harrod turned to leave; but when he opened the door, Jabba stopped, turned, and said, “By the way, Newman, the secretary of defense called me this afternoon and told me that your Marine Corps selection board has decided that you should be a lieutenant colonel.” With that, the National Security Advisor departed for the diplomatic reception.
On the way back across to the OEOB, Newman was congratulated by his three colleagues with backslaps and ribald good humor. When the four officers punched in the security codes and reentered the office space they had left an hour before, they found that the WHCA technicians had all departed except for the warrant officer who had headed the installation team. In short order, he gave each man an inventory sheet, walked them through their spaces to show them what had been installed and where, and had them sign for every piece of it. Once he had officiously collected all their signature sheets, he walked to the door. “Thank you, gentlemen. If you have any questions or problems, please call me. My extension is on your copies of the receipts. And remember, gentlemen, WHCA is here to serve the President.” And then he added cryptically, “We all have to do things we don't like to do. That's why we keep an eye on each other.”
TWA Flight 324, 27,500 Feet Alt
________________________________________
56 Mi E of South Bend, IN
Wednesday, 30 November 1994
2030 Hours, Local
Rachel blamed her troubles on the Marines. “I'm clueless,” she had admitted to her friend and fellow flight attendant Sandy when things slowed down in the cabin and they could catch a short break in the rear galley. They had begun their day aboard a flight from San Diego to Chicago, switched to another aircraft, and then continued east to Dulles with a stop in Cleveland that afternoon.
Rachel shook her head. “I don't have any idea what Pete sees in the military—I really don't. I remember one day after we'd been married about two years when he came home from something called jump school—”
Sandy interrupted. “Jump school? You mean they have a school to teach guys how to jump? Like jump rope or something?” she laughed.
Rachel giggled. “That's exactly what I asked him!” she exclaimed. “He didn't like that much. He was really miffed until I got him to explain. Jump school is where they learn how to parachute out of perfectly good airplanes!”
“Oh,” Sandy said. “Isn't that kind of dangerous?”
Rachel laughed again. “Well, I think so. But P. J. likes that macho stuff, you know? He really got mad when he came home that December and showed me the ‘jump wings’ pin and emblem that he'd earned. He was so proud. And I spoiled everything by bursting out laughing as soon as I saw the pin. Boy, was he ever ticked!”
“What was so funny about it?” Sandy asked.
“Because,” Rachel replied, “the pin looked almost like this.” She picked up a cellophane bag with the words Junior Pilot on the front. Inside was a shiny, silvery pin for the flight attendants to hand out to little boys and girls who behave during the flight.
“All I could think of was someone pinning those jump wings on Pete and saying, ‘This is for being a good boy,’” Rachel said laughing.
“I'll bet that went over like a lead balloon,” Sandy observed. “What'd Pete say?”
“He never said a word—literally. He didn't speak to me for almost two weeks, even though I apologized all day, every day. Sandy, my problem is that I fell for a handsome guy in a uniform before I ever understood what his wearing that uniform meant. You and Tom have roots. Tom has a regular job. He comes home at night. You know your neighbors. You have friends where you live. We don't have any of that. Since we've been married, Pete has been gone more than he's been home. He proposed to me on the phone from Naples, Italy. A few months after we got married, he got shipped off again to the Middle East for six months. The Marines call it a ‘Med cruise.’ Some cruise! He was home for awhile, and then they sent him off to Beirut, Lebanon—where terrorists killed all those Marines. Then he was in Honduras—or somewhere in Central America—for months on end during all that Contra stuff. And then there was that thing in Panama. I couldn't believe that he actually volunteered to go to the Gulf War.”
“Didn't he get wounded in Kuwait?” interrupted Sandy.
“No, it was actually in Saudi Arabia, at a place called Khafji, with one of his ‘recon teams’ that he loves so much. He was wounded when the Iraqi Army came across the border. They got trapped there when the Saudi Arabian Army retreated and P. J. and his nine guys stayed behind, surrounded, to ‘call in fire,’ whatever that means.”
Sandy was wide-eyed. “Didn't he tell you about it?”
“No,” replied Rachel, looking downcast. “He never talks about it. I didn't even know he'd been wounded. He had given instructions that he didn't want ‘next of kin’—that's what they call me in the Marines—to be notified. The only reason I know any of this is because he was given a medal at a parade when he got back home to Camp Lejeune and they read some kind of a citation. That's how I found out that he had almost been killed!”
“Was it an important medal?” asked Sandy.
“I guess so. There were a whole bunch of generals and admirals there making a big fuss over him. His dad came down from New York and wore his uniform, and his mom said that the Navy Cross was like the Distinguished Service Cross in the Army. P. J.'s brother Jim was there in his uniform, and he told me that their dad got a DSC in the Korean War. And I had to ask him, ‘What's a DSC?’ And when he told me, I was so embarrassed because the Navy Cross and the Distinguished Service Cross are second only to the Medal of Honor.”
“That must have made you very proud of Peter,” said Sandy, trying to be helpful.
“You know, Sandy, I don't know what I felt,” said Rachel, her eyes brimming with tears. “It was obvious that everyone there was making a big fuss over this medal and what P. J. had done. His dad was so proud. But I was so mad that Peter hadn't let me know anything about what had happened to him, or how close I had come to losing him, that I just felt empty. If his brother hadn't been there, I would have been lost. I could at least talk to Jim. Sometimes when P. J. was gone somewhere, I would call Jim just to get reassurance. I really miss his brother. He used to tell me, ‘Rache, P. J. loves you. He just doesn't want you to worry.’ And now Jim's dead, and I don't have anyone to talk to.” At this, two tears
streaked down Rachel's cheeks.
Sandy put her arm around her friend as they stood there in the galley of the aircraft. “Honey, there must be a reason why God kept P. J. alive through all of that. And there must be a reason why you guys are still together after all you've been through.”
Rachel dabbed her eyes and after a moment said, “I must be a sight. I'll scare the passengers if they see me like this.” She went into the lavatory across from the galley and washed her face, reapplied some makeup, and brushed her hair. When she came back out, Sandy had just returned from providing a blanket for one of the passengers.
“Sandy, I know what you said about Pete and me still being together, but I'm not so sure that this marriage ought to continue.” Rachel's moment of sadness had passed. She now had a determined set to her jaw.
Rachel continued. “I wish there was a way for me to understand his work and why we have to pick up and move nearly every other year. It's impossible for me to put down roots. I've almost lost track of how many times we've moved. But even if I don't have to go, one day he would just come home and say, ‘I'm being deployed.’ And if I asked him when, he'd say, ‘In two days.’ And if I asked where, he'd say something like, ‘I can't say’ And I'm supposed to get used to that uncertainty—gone for a month, six months, or a year, and I don't always know where he goes or what he does. It's just an absolutely impossible life for me.”
Sandy nodded sympathetically. “Have you talked with some of the other military wives?” she asked.
“Yes. Some of them are just as frazzled over this as I am. But some of them are just so focused on serving their husbands that they don't care—they need to get a life, is what I think.”
Rachel began to empty the coffee grounds from the pots in the galley and dump the remaining coffee down the drain. As she stowed them in their compartments prior to their landing at Dulles, she decided to confide in Sandy, to get her input on something that was troubling her.
“Sandy,” she said quietly, “I need your advice. I haven't shared this with anyone, but I really could use your input.”
Sandy nodded and moved closer so Rachel could share her comments in privacy.
“Pete has just taken a new assignment. He says he can't tell me anything about it, and it's for at least two years. The good news is we won't have to move for two years. The bad news is that I don't have a clue where he will be during those two years.
“I'm really getting so sick of this that I'm ready to end this marriage,” she said.
Sandy took her friend's arm and said, “Oh no—don't give up yet.”
“I'm not kidding. In fact, I've made an appointment with a lawyer to discuss a divorce as soon as I get back from the London assignment on Friday. I'm really fed up.”
“I know, Rachel, but …”
“Remember when Peter's brother was killed last year? He went up to his folks' house to break the news to them and didn't even make any attempt to get hold of me and let me go with him. He said it was a family affair, for heaven's sake! I was so angry at him after that happened that I would have divorced him that very week. But I couldn't go through with it. I mean, with his brother dead and his parents so hurt—if I'd have served him papers then …”
“You guys need to get away and talk these things through. Before you and I met and got to know each other, Tom and I were having problems and went to a Marriage Encounter weekend. Neither one of us wanted to go, but we each felt that we had so much invested in our marriage that we couldn't throw it away without at least trying to understand our problems and see if we could fix them,” Sandy said.
“And …”
“Well, it worked great for us. We're still together, as you know. We still have some bumpy rides, but each of us knows that we aren't going to walk out on the marriage, and that helps us work things out. I think you need some kind of a structured setting like that to get you on track.”
“I don't know … we've got so much emotional baggage. P. J. would deny it—he'd say that I'm the emotional one and he's the logical one and that he doesn't have any emotion at all. But I've seen how he reacts when I hurt him—I know he has feelings.”
“Listen, Rachel,” Sandy suggested, “when we get home, let me give you some stuff to look at from our Marriage Encounter weekend and their 800 number. You should at least check it out. Please tell me you'll do that instead of filing divorce papers.”
Rachel smiled appreciatively. “Thanks for your concern. I promise to hold off on serving them, but I think it's time to look at all the options. I'll look at your stuff. But I'm also going to meet with the lawyer and explore the divorce options too.”
Area 35
________________________________________
Andrews Air Force Base
Friday, 2 December 1994
1700 Hours, Local
Newman was alone with Joshua Weiskopf as the young Delta Force captain packed up his gear for the quick trip out to the runway to board the C-130 that would take him and the ISEG back to Fort Bragg. Weiskopf jammed a rolled-up pair of jeans, a dark-blue flannel shirt, a black Gore-Tex parka, a small notebook, and his 9mm Beretta pistol into the parachute bag that served as his “flyaway kit.” Everyone in this line of work kept such a bag, always packed, full of the gear they would need to sustain them for several days. Newman certainly knew; he'd lived like this for sixteen years.
The last item into the bag was the EncryptionLok-3 that Newman had given him that morning. “This is quite a piece of gear, Colonel,” said Weiskopf, holding the device and smiling at the Marine.
“Yes, it is, Josh—and speaking of code-breaking, I'm still trying to figure out how you all got the word on my promotion before I got back here yesterday.”
When Newman had arrived at the Area 35 restricted compound on Thursday morning, the whole group had stood and applauded when he walked into the small mess hall where they were having breakfast. And in spite of it being just 6:30 in the morning, the five team leaders insisted on a traditional celebration. Someone produced a bottle of brandy and added a dollop to everyone's coffee cup and raised a toast. They then proceeded to sing several ribald verses of an old barracks ballad having to do with the honoree's dubious lineage.
As he thanked them, Newman wondered how they had learned what had yet to be announced officially even within the Marine Corps. McDade, Robertson, and Coombs, who had heard Harrod the night before, denied telling anyone. But Sergeant Major Dan Gabbard, the only other Marine and the senior enlisted man in the ISEG unit, knew before Newman that he'd been selected for promotion. He had heard the scuttlebutt from the “sergeant major's network” at HQMC and had passed the word to Weiskopf and the rest of the unit. Gabbard had also taken it upon himself to inform the group about all he knew of their “White House boss.”
After Newman, Coombs, McDade, and Robertson had departed Andrews to get back to the White House for their Wednesday night meeting with Harrod, Gabbard had sensed that the troops had questions about the man who would be sending them into harm's way. After dinner in the mess hall that evening, the sergeant major had assembled all thirty-eight men in the ready room to cover some administrative matters: how their pay, life insurance, next-of-kin notifications, and the like would be handled in this international unit. He used the occasion to tell them that he and Newman had served together off and on ever since Third Battalion, Eighth Marines back in '79 and '80. For more than an hour, he regaled them with accounts from Newman's extraordinary career as a recon Marine, about his exploits in Central America, Beirut, Panama, and especially how he won the Navy Cross at Khafji during Desert Storm—knowing that Newman would never tell these stories himself. Even these hard-bitten veterans of covert combat had been impressed and had a new sense of confidence in their leader.
Weiskopf finished packing and slung the parachute bag over his shoulder. “It's been a good three days. We all got a lot out of the briefings and the surveillance drills that the CIA put us through, and the intelligence briefings were top-notch. I'd f
eel better if we had more, but that's always the way it is. Do you still think that our first target is going to be Aidid?”
“It sure looks that way to me. Most of the intel that they've fed us is oriented on him.”
“Yeah,” said Weiskopf, “but they've also given us a big pile of stuff on Saddam Hussein, Milosevic, and a whole bunch of those thugs in Yugoslavia, or whatever it's called today. All I'm saying is that we've got a lot to get ready for and not much time to get it all done.”
“Josh, all I can tell you is that I'll give you the best info I get and give you as much advance notice as I can.”
“I know you will,” said the Army captain, holding out his hand. Newman shook it, clapped the bearded Delta officer on the shoulder, and the two men walked out of the building together into the darkness.
Weiskopf had come to respect and admire the newly brevetted Marine lieutenant colonel in the three days since he had first met him. It was clear to all the members of the unit, Delta, SEALs, and SAS, that Newman was deserving of one of the greatest compliments they could offer: “He knows his stuff.”
For his part, Newman quickly realized that the small task force at his disposal was perhaps the most skilled and experienced group of military men in the world. Few of his well-trained recon Marines possessed the language skills, foreign experience, and maturity of the men in the ISEG. Every one of these men knew what it was like to be shot at. Some of them, like Newman, knew what it was like to be shot at and hit. All of them knew what it was like to kill other human beings in moments of extraordinary violence. All of them knew the terrible rush of adrenaline in the gut when you realize that some other human being is trying to kill you. And all of them knew the awful frustration of having those who were closer than brothers die beside them.
Newman knew that these qualities made these men a remarkable collection of individuals. Now it was Joshua Weiskopf's job—with the support of Newman and his small team at the White House—to turn these individuals into an effective team and to do it in thirty days.