by Ted Russ
“Do you know the main reason why we forbid the stealing of mascots, Cadet Dempsey?”
“No, sir.”
“It’s not because we don’t have any spirit. It’s so you dumbasses don’t do something stupid and get yourself hurt, hurt the animal, or damage property through your buffoonery.”
“Yes, sir.”
He looked back at his folder. “Are you aware that you gentlemen did several thousand dollars’ worth of damage on that farm, Cadet Guerrero?”
“No, sir.”
“Well, you did. And the academy had to cover it.”
The general glared at us.
“But the minor damage you did and the reasons why we forbid stealing mascots don’t matter that much to me. What matters to me is that three cadets can get this far in my academy and think it’s okay to disobey direct lawful orders. What am I to make of that?”
You learn on day one as plebes not to answer rhetorical questions. Doing so never ends well. We looked straight ahead.
“That was not a rhetorical question, gentlemen.”
General Franklin had graduated from West Point in the early sixties and had seen combat in multiple conflicts. He knew the deal. And he was getting more pissed as time went on.
“Cadet Dempsey, what am I to think about this situation?”
“Sir. No excuse, sir.”
The general shook his head in disgust.
“I want an answer, goddamnit. Why, Guerrero? Why did you think it was okay to disobey a direct and lawful order? Where at this academy were you taught that?”
Turtle’s voice trembled as he spoke: “Sir. I do not know. No excuse, sir.”
“Fine. How about you, Avery?”
“Sir, I didn’t think it was a serious order.”
In my peripheral vision, I could see Stephens’s eyes get big.
“You didn’t think it was a ‘serious order’? You thought I was joking?”
“No, sir. Not joking. But … it was an order you had to give, sir. It’s given every year.” I stalled. I was walking the plank. I should have dummied up.
“So I just give this order every year for no damn reason?”
“Not for no reason, sir. But … I didn’t think you really expected it to be followed … strictly speaking.”
“Look at me, Avery. Do I look to you like the kind of general who gives orders he does not expect to be followed?” He was incredulous. I suddenly realized how stupid I sounded.
“Sir, may I ask a question?”
“Go ahead, Dempsey.”
“Sir, we are about to fight a war in the Middle East. Do you really want a Corps of Cadets that does not try to steal the Navy goat? Seems like we—”
The general quickly held his hand up, palm toward us, in a “shut the fuck up” gesture. He leaned his head forward and rubbed his eyes with his other hand.
“Don’t talk to me about war, Dempsey. Please.” He raised his head. “That’s all I think about, unfortunately. My cadets going to war.” He kneaded one of his fists in the other hand. He looked old and tired.
“And what I want is a Corps of Cadets that knows how to follow orders. That knows how to evaluate between right and wrong. I want you men to lead, to fight, and to live well. Not to play games with your honor. It’s too precious. And once lost, it is really, really hard to get back.”
His voice sounded earnest, and though I believed we had done nothing wrong, I felt vaguely ashamed. West Point did that to you occasionally. You would go into meetings expecting to get your balls crushed by an officer, and at some point in the meeting it would pivot and they’d be teaching you a lesson. It was hard because the lesson was being taught as a result of some way you had fallen short. But you always left those meetings feeling good, maybe because you realized that the officer gave a shit about you and the army and the future of both. Rather than simply writing you up, they took the time to try to teach you something. You left those meetings feeling strangely obligated to apply the lesson. To live up to what they were telling you to do. To make their time worthwhile. To get strong and be ready for the next meeting at which, invariably, your balls would be crushed again. And here was the commandant of cadets, a one-star general, who had every reason to bash our heads in, seeming more troubled than anything else, weighed down by a burden we couldn’t yet see or feel.
“What should I do with you three?” Another rhetorical question. No one answered.
“You cadets think I’m just asking rhetorical questions, for my health?”
“No, sir.”
“What should I do with the three of you? What would you do if you were me?”
I spoke to fill the void: “Sir, I recommend that no disciplinary action be taken.”
“On what basis?”
“The victory over Navy, sir. And the positive effect our mission had on the Corps’ morale.”
He shook his head. “Good try. Not going to happen.” He gestured at someone behind us, and an officer stepped forward with a large folder.
The general flipped it open.
“What rank did your father retire at, Cadet Guerrero?”
“Command sergeant major, sir.”
“Did he know General Schwarzkopf?”
“Yes, sir. They served together in Vietnam and then later at Fort Lewis.”
“That would explain the phone call I got from the general after the game, then. Called me from the damn desert. He has a strong opinion regarding your spirit mission. As do other members of the class of fifty-six. Every living member of which has tried to contact me over the last seventy-two hours.”
He shifted his eyes to me. “Colonel Krieger is your sponsor, Cadet Avery?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Got a call from him, as well. In addition to pleading your case, he let me know that the SEALs he is working with were pissed off about the goat.”
I nodded, not wanting to speak.
“And who the hell is Second Lieutenant Stillmont?”
“He graduated from E4, sir,” said Zack.
“Well, that son of a bitch gave my e-mail address to everyone with a computer in the sandbox in southwest Asia. You know how many e-mails my office has gotten regarding the goat and the disposition of your discipline board?”
I started to speak.
“That one is rhetorical, son.”
“Yes, sir.”
“The real pain in my ass, though, is Good Morning America, ESPN, and the others. They want to talk to the daring group of cadets that stole the Navy goat on the eve of war in the Middle East.”
He looked at us evenly. “Who the hell reached out to the networks?”
“Sir … I wouldn’t say we reached out as much as answered their inquiries,” I said shakily.
The general rubbed his eyes again and leaned back in his chair.
“Here is what is going to happen. I’m giving each of you a hundred hours on the area.”
My breath constricted, and my heart sank. I wouldn’t be able to get away to see Stephanie at all next semester. She would crumble. We were done. And there was no way we could walk that many hours off by graduation. We would graduate late. I didn’t know if I could get through it.
The general stared at us and let it soak in. Then he looked down and slowly filled out the paperwork. We stood at attention, waiting to be marched out.
He put down his pen and regarded each of us in turn. “However, gentlemen, I must consider the fact that your spirit mission did succeed in raising the morale of the Corps, the academy as a whole, and even some of our troops getting ready to fight downrange. That means something to me.
“So, at great hazard to you cadets in the form of the lessons you will draw from this, and in light of the mitigating circumstances and in exchange for the performance of duties I intend to assign to you … I am going to suspend the punishment contingent on the following—”
Major Eifer leaned forward and took a small step toward the general. “Sir, I don’t think—”
“At
ease, Major!” The general’s voice took on the hardest edge we’d heard yet. His head had swiveled sharply as he spoke, his right hand rising instantly to a knife-edged ready position. He hesitated until Major Eifer had fully returned to his former spot. The general lowered his hand.
“I am suspending your punishment contingent on your communicating to the media that you are busy with exams and not available for any interviews. You will tell Army Times as well. No more articles about the Navy goat. You will contact this Lieutenant Stillmont and get his e-mail campaign stopped. Guerrero, your father will get Schwarzkopf to call off the dogs in the class of fifty-six. And each of you will get the word out to the Corps. Mascots are off-limits. Period. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir,” we answered in unison.
“You’d better. If a single goat, dog, falcon, or any of God’s creatures is stolen from any of our opponents while you are still cadets, these one hundred hours will go immediately into effect. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Furthermore, I am holding the three of you responsible in this area for the rest of your lives. I’m serious. I don’t care how many years from now it happens or where you are in the army. If any cadets steal any mascots, I will track your asses down. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
Cadet Stephens was smiling. Eifer shifted angrily on his feet. He was roiling inside.
“You are dismissed.”
* * *
We rejoiced, got through exams, and took off for Christmas leave. We complied with all of the commandant’s commands, of course. Fortunately, the media cooperated as well. Soon they were on to other stories.
Surprisingly, Creighton was the only one of us to do any time on the area. Major Eifer wrote Creighton up for his “failure to properly command his company,” and the quill stuck. He got twenty hours on the area for failing to uncover our unauthorized spirit mission. An even greater surprise, though, was Creighton’s reaction to having his spotless discipline record stained by such a sizable slug. He could hardly contain his pride.
He swaggered to area formation each Friday like a peacock telling anyone within earshot how he had earned his quill.
“I was involved in the goat-napping. I can’t really talk about it. But, yeah … those were my friends.” In Creighton’s mind, each of the twenty hours on the area cemented his relationship with us. It was a small price to pay for proof of his place and role within our tight circle of friends.
We were quiet firsties, and when we got back for second semester, we kept our noses clean. Creighton and I were roommates again. The war in the Gulf kicked off shortly after we returned to classes and was over in just a few weeks. Many of us cursed our luck at missing it, but Creighton laughed. “It isn’t over. Trust me. Nothing has changed over there. We’ll be fighting this one for a long, long time.”
Colonel Krieger returned to West Point in late March, and by April the national conversation had turned back to “the peace dividend” and plans for the drawdown accelerated. I got posted to aviation, Zack and Turtle got infantry, and Creighton was assigned to his beloved tanks.
Stephanie was accepted into an internship at a museum in Europe and was headed to Paris at the end of the academic year. I was headed to Fort Rucker, Alabama, for flight school. She broke up with me during our last weekend together before graduation. “I’m sorry, Sam,” she told me. “I just can’t keep saying good-bye.”
Graduation took place on the first of June, under a clear sky. The view looking north, up the Hudson, went on forever as the river flowed beneath Storm King Mountain. Dressed in our India White uniforms, we filed excitedly into Michie Stadium and sat as a class in front of the speakers’ platform. I wore Bill’s dress white hat. We listened to President Bush’s commencement address in disbelief. Had this day really arrived?
When the ceremony finally ended and our class was dismissed, I threw Bill’s hat into the air with the rest of my classmates. It rose high with a thousand others against the severe blue sky, and then disappeared as it fell to the ground.
SIXTY
1105 HOURS, 10 AUGUST 2015
“Colonel Anderson will see you now.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
I walked past the secretary’s desk, into the history department head’s office. Colonel Anderson crossed the room to shake my hand.
“Lieutenant Colonel Avery. Thanks for stopping by. I promise this won’t take long, and then we can both get out there to watch the march back.” He glanced at his watch and gestured toward two leather chairs by a large window that overlooked the Hudson River.
“Yes, sir. I’m looking forward to that. Haven’t seen it since I was a cadet. Actually, the daughter of a classmate of mine is marching back with them as a plebe.”
“Who’s your classmate?”
“Colonel Zack Dempsey.”
“I’ve heard of him. Good officer.”
“We were in E4 together.”
“That’s great. Now I know who to go to for blackmail material on you.”
“Trust me, sir. You don’t have to go far for that.”
“I get the feeling that’s true.” He smiled. “Are you settling in okay?”
“Yes, sir. I appreciate you helping out with the quarters situation.” Colonel Anderson had stepped in when they’d tried to billet me in the bachelor officers’ quarters, a crappy condo-like building full of newly minted lieutenants who had stayed back a year to help with athletics and unmarried mid-grade captains fresh out of grad school back to teach their first courses. He’d thrown his rank around and had gotten me situated on the end of Lee Road, just two houses down from where Colonel Krieger used to live.
“No problem. They can be so uptight at this place. It’s bullshit.”
I smiled.
“What’s so funny?”
“Sir, if I had known when I was a cadet that full-bird colonels and department heads still referred to ‘they’ and ‘fucking West Point’ when they talked about this place, I would have been very confused.”
“It’s a hell of a thing to become the ‘they’ one used to rail against as a cadet.”
“Do ‘they’ really exist?”
“All I know is this: I’ve heard the superintendent, a three-star general, complain about ‘they’ and ‘fucking West Point.’”
“I don’t know if I should cry or laugh.”
“You should laugh. You’ll feel better.”
“Well, your getting me into those quarters meant a lot to me. Thank you.”
He nodded, and we both looked out the window at the river.
His office in Thayer Hall faced the Hudson. The trees and rolling hills on the other side were a lush green.
He spoke without turning away from the window: “As nontraditional as your assignment process has been, Sam, it’s still really good to have you here. It’s good for the cadets to have instructors with your experience.”
“Thank you, sir.” Colonel Anderson had been on the faculty at West Point for almost a decade and looked more professorial now than soldierly. He’d done a few hard years after 9/11 as an MP in Afghanistan and then Iraq, though. The academic paunch covered scar tissue, physical and psychic.
“You ever going to tell me how all of that happened? First I see you on CNN after that mission, and then a couple days later the supe calls me in his office and tells me to make room for a lieutenant colonel coming to the history department. The next day you show up. Was it a reward for something?”
“Not exactly, sir.”
“Come on. Guys line up for years to get assigned here. Particularly to this department.”
“Sir. I’m sorry. Part of the deal was not to talk about it. Ever. I’m going to follow through on my end.” I looked back at the river. It was narrower in this spot than most, and it seemed a little faster. “To be honest with you, I don’t want to talk about it at all.”
The only thing that had saved us from being charged after our bootleg mission in Iraq
was the press. Creighton tipped off a few of his contacts in leadership positions at key networks and made sure they got to us in Baghdad before Brick and his crew were able to take us away. Thanks to Creighton, the coverage was immediate, widespread, and positive. Minutes after we landed, CNN and the others were broadcasting live breaking news reports about a “daring and successful rescue operation.” After Benghazi and the inability to rescue any of the Americans in Iraq prior to their beheadings, the administration and the Pentagon were not about to correct the public record. They accepted the praise and talked convincingly about our mission exemplifying a new period of ass kicking against terror in general and ISIS in particular.
In private, they were incandescent with rage, not only at what we had done but also at the fact that they couldn’t punish us. Thanks to Creighton, we were on the right side of the public relations wire, and the army displayed its customary institutional reluctance to cross that wire.
Admiral Brick had kept the rest of the crew sequestered on 458 until the impromptu press conference was over. Mine would be the only face associated with the mission. It became clear that none of us were going to jail, but for those of us in uniform there was a price.
Zack was taken out of consideration for squadron commander. He was assigned to another dark corner of JSOC where he could continue to serve. These days there is always a new black ops unit being spun up for duty somewhere. It’s the only growth sector left in today’s army, and no one is better at it than Zack.
Pete was given a medal and medically discharged with full benefits. Weber and the rest of the aircrew were quickly and honorably discharged and were then quietly scooped up by Thayer Tactical. They were now making three times the money I was.
Turtle and his guys were also kept on the aircraft until it was clear. The government did not want to acknowledge the help of private military contractors. They snuck away when it was all over. Turtle flew back to the States the next day and went to his friends in San Francisco to get fitted for a new leg.
Later that night, after Rear Admiral Brick finally calmed down, he shook my hand and told me how ballsy we were. He said he was glad we had gotten Stillmont back. Then he calmly told me that if it had been up to him, he would have sent us to directly to Leavenworth as soon as we landed and thrown away the key. He assigned an armed escort and put me on an immediate flight out of Baghdad, back to MacDill.