by Tanya Biank
“If you need anything at all, anything, call me,” he insisted.
She hugged him good-bye and never expected to see him again. She certainly never thought she would telephone.
At the end of August, as the move loomed and the packers began to tackle the garage and the upstairs, Andrea Lynne looked in Rennie’s drawers and saw knives and bullet casings. She remembered Rennie had a gun, but now she couldn’t find it. She panicked. There was so much stuff in the garage—boxes of Army equipment, a reloader machine, and things to make bullets with. Rennie had treasured those things; he had always been careful to pack them himself.
Suddenly she remembered Roland’s phone number. Where had she put it? Everything was a mess, but she found the note in her address book. Andrea Lynne dialed his cell phone and got his gruff, deep voice on voice mail: “This is Roland. Leave a message.”
“Roland? This is Andrea. Sorry to bother you. I’m moving. Actually the packers are here and, well, I don’t know what to do with Rennie’s stuff … .” her voice broke. “You know, his guns and knives. Well, he always took care of that, and I thought … maybe you could tell me how to pack it or transfer it. I really don’t know how. That sounds stupid, but I know Rennie would trust you to handle it. I know you’re at work. If you could call, I’d appreciate it. Thanks … bye.”
She knew her voice was shaky. What am I going to do? she thought, as she sat down on one of the chairs on the patio. She couldn’t bear to go back in the house. For all those years Rennie had been so protective of his guns and equipment. This move was different. She and Rennie had moved nine times as a couple. This was the first one alone. He never let her move alone, no matter what. She began to cry.
Just then she heard a man’s voice.
“Andrea Lynne? Hey, I got your call.”
Walking quickly around the side of the house was Roland. Like a man on a mission. Her heart almost stopped. Rennie had been looking out for her after all.
Now, with all the boxes and furniture gone, Andrea Lynne got up and walked through the house one last time, calling up a happy memory for each room. Afterward she went back into the living room, got on her knees, and gave thanks for her life, for Rennie, for her children.
She gathered up the items from the mantel and stood for a long time in the foyer. She walked to the car, put her sentimental trinkets in the front seat, then returned to the house and removed the POW/MIA flag, its black fabric screen-printed with a man—a tear on his face.
Tears streamed down her own face as she remembered the morning Rennie first put it up, the day he left for Vietnam, and how Andrea Lynne told him it would come down the day he came home. She rolled it up lovingly.
“You’ll only be down a short while.” Her hands shook. “You’ll fly with me again at our new home.” She had never thought it would be with her forever, that she’d fly it for a man who would never return, who died for many men who would never return. She placed it in the backseat of the car, then returned one more time to the house like a soldier whose every step represented a duty to perform. She looked up at the American flag attached to the other porch column, removed it, and placed it in the car.
At last she locked the house door for the final time. Then she went down the front path and took down the nameplate, caressing it in her hands. This was the last home they would all have lived in together, she suddenly realized. There on the sidewalk, Andrea Lynne felt as if she were deserting her family. The pain, the endless pain, was unbearable. She turned and walked back to her car, each step underlining her thoughts: I lost my husband. I lost my life. I lost my home. And Bragg has lost me.
A few weeks later, on September 11, Gary Kalinofski came in from the showers after a PT run and was getting dressed in his office in the 504th’s brigade headquarters, as he did every morning, when Colonel John Campbell called out down the hallway.
“Hey, Sergeant Major, come in here!” In an age of cell phones and e-mail, the Army custom of shouting to subordinates from one’s desk still rendered the fastest results. Ski walked in and found the colonel glued to a small TV in his office. The men usually listened to the news as they dressed to raise their “situational awareness,” Army speak for being informed.
“Man, a plane just hit the World Trade Center.”
“What?!”
“Yeah, there it is.”
With his hands on his hips, Ski looked at the TV screen, then back at his boss. Colonel Campbell was the clearheaded, unshakable brigade commander of the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, part of the 82nd Airborne Division. Almost all who had commanded the “Devils in Baggy Pants,” as the 504th had been known since World War II, went on to wear stars, as would Campbell.
The brigade had just assumed Division Ready Brigade, the “first-to-go” status that rotated every six weeks among the 82nd’s three infantry brigades. The division is the only one in the Army with the capability of parachuting into any hot spot in the world with guns blazing. But the division has also been used for humanitarian missions over the years, helping fight wildfires out West and providing flood- and hurricane-disaster relief in the South.
“Boss, I think we’re going to New York City,” Ski said.
He went back into his office and called Delores. “Honey, turn on the TV.”
As the day wore on, Delores sat on her knees in front of the TV set and cried. She was overwhelmed by the thought of all those people who were dead or missing. Of all the families left behind. How many people hadn’t made amends? How many had never said what should have been said? Delores thought about what it might mean for her family. Would Gary be leaving? Oh, God, what about Gary Shane? Could there be another attack?
All over the post, soldiers wanted to know the same thing. By 10:30 A.M. commanders and senior leaders were talking about courses of action in an emergency meeting with Major General John Vines, the 82nd Airborne Division commander. The 82nd trains constantly to be the first unit to respond to a crisis; its mission is to force its way into a country so that other units may follow. As the leading edge of a massive military machine, it is often the unit of choice for execution of National Security Policy. Now it went onto a heightened state of alert, and soldiers spent the rest of the day securing the division and the rest of the installation.
Fort Bragg was an “open post,” meaning there were no gates or guards monitoring access. In fact there were countless ways to get on and off Fort Bragg, and controlling the tens of thousands of cars that rolled onto post each day, on several hundred miles of highways, was a nightmare. It would take twenty-four hours to get the post totally secure. Soldiers guarded barracks and blocked off side roads as well as Ardennes Street, one of the main thoroughfares in the division. They manned traffic-control points on Gruber Road. Back at the 504th soldiers formed human fences on the side streets; no cars were allowed between the barracks.
Like Americans everywhere, Bragg soldiers reacted to the attacks with astonishment and shock. But they were also pissed off. Someone came into our backyard and did this? And with the war planning and the commotion on post, it seemed as if the attacks had happened right in Fayetteville. Civilians might say, Let’s go kick some ass; Bragg soldiers knew they would be the nation’s heavies. Ski and his paratroopers were ready to go to hell itself if need be. You never could tell what the Pentagon would ask of you. A soldier’s duty wasn’t to question but to follow orders and accomplish the mission.
Delores, like the other wives, was equally aware of this.
“Honey, I can’t discuss what it is,” Ski told her when he called later that evening. “We can’t talk about it over the phone. What’s going to happen will happen, and where I go, I go. Keep watching the news. If I don’t tell you, someone will.”
Delores worried, too, about Gary Shane, who was now stationed in upstate New York, with the 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum. They had found out in May that he was scheduled for six months of peacekeeping duty in Kosovo beginning in November. She hadn’t seen her son in eight month
s, since she had taken him to the airport after Christmas. The Kalinofskis had honored their son’s wish and had not gone to see him graduate from Basic Training. Delores had so wanted to share in her son’s accomplishment; she was confused by Gary Shane’s refusal. Ski had tried to comfort her.
“He just wants to do this by himself, Delores,” he had said, “and we should let him. We’ll give him a little space and let him concentrate on himself. He’ll gravitate back.”
Meanwhile she had Cherish to take care of. When the seventh grader came home from school, she told her mother that most of her teachers were crying. Delores kept the TV turned off and did her best to calm her daughter.
“Nothing like this will happen here in Fayetteville,” she assured Cherish. “We’re safe.” She kept her own worries to herself. Just before eleven in the evening, Ski called to say he was on his way home. Delores knew that at some point her husband would be going somewhere, she just didn’t know where or when.
Just after seven in the evening, with her children next to her in the wooden pew, Andrea Floyd covered her face with her hands and prayed. She knew she had much to be thankful for. She thanked God that Brandon’s father, Art, was all right. He worked at the Pentagon and had been there when American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the building that morning.
She thought back twelve hours, which now seemed so long ago. It was a beautiful Tuesday, one of those rare southern days in early September, marked by low humidity and sunshine cut with a breeze. The tranquillity of the morning was shattered with a phone call from a friend telling Andrea to turn on the TV. She tuned into the Today show just in time to see the second plane hit the Twin Towers. Stunned and horrified, she went through the motions of her daily routine.
Not wanting to be late for work, Andrea dropped the kids off at her friend’s house and then headed to Dick’s Sporting Goods, where she was helping prepare for the grand opening in October. She liked the job. She worked with nice people, and she got a sense of satisfaction from earning a paycheck once more. She hadn’t felt like this since her Army days. She was smart; she had been raised to take care of herself. And now she felt important and smart again. Somewhere along the way she’d lost that. In high school she had always been determined to do well in academics and sports. She approached her new job the same way, giving it everything she had.
She usually savored the forty-five-minute drive into town. It was the only time she had each day to be alone, but this day her thoughts were consumed with what she had just seen on TV Brandon was TDY—on temporary duty—again, exactly where she had no idea. Did he know what had happened? Was he a part of it somehow? Was he okay? What should she tell the kids? Her head began to throb as the radio droned on. Suddenly the announcer’s voice brought her back to the present. An airliner had struck the Pentagon. Brandon’s dad … Brandon’s Dad! Andrea felt sick to her stomach. She pulled out her cell phone and called her mother and sisters. Had they heard anything? Did they have Art’s work number? No, she didn’t know where Brandon was.
And things had finally been coming together, Andrea thought. Maybe it was selfish to think that way, but she couldn’t help it. She and Brandon had found a nice house on five acres of land in Stedman, a town southeast of Fayetteville with fewer than seven hundred people. They had already been through so much as a couple, it was nice to be excited about something they could do together.
But her mind kept coming back to the awful plane crashes. As soon as she got to work, she called Joanne.
“Joanne, did you see what happened? Quick, turn on the TV The Pentagon got hit. Brandon’s dad works at the Pentagon. We haven’t heard anything. If you would, please call Cindy and start the prayer chain. We’ve got to pray, pray, pray.”
As the morning’s events began to sink in, Andrea was petrified. Brandon was deployed somewhere, and there was no way for her to reach him. All day she kept in touch with her friends and family, and by evening she had heard that her father-in-law was fine and Brandon was back at his unit. That night the church held a special service, and Andrea took the kids. Their church had been a saving grace for their marriage. Brandon had even talked to Mark Strickland about the seminary and asked him about taking correspondence classes.
“I feel like I may be led to the ministry after my military career,” he had said.
Being involved in the church held them to a higher standard, and it made them accountable to each other. Now it provided a refuge and reassurance as Andrea prayed for all those killed.
Even people who never attended the church came that night. About 85 percent of the congregation was military families, and few men other than the pastor himself were in the building that evening. Many of the men were on lockdown at Bragg. Some wives hadn’t heard from their husbands and didn’t know where they were.
Like the others, Andrea was somber and worried. The events of 9/11 were the biggest acts of terrorism the country had ever experienced, and Brandon’s unit specialized in counterterrorism. How could he not play a role? She knew, just like all the other Army wives sitting in pews around her, that life was about to change drastically for them.
On the morning of September 12, 2001, Rita sat in traffic and shielded her face from the sun. How was she ever going to get to class now? A month earlier, with the help of a Pell Grant, she had enrolled in classes at Fayetteville Technical Community College. She planned to finish her associate’s degree and get a job as a pharmacy technician. At the moment, she couldn’t figure out how she was going to get to her biology test in time.
Rita cocked her head to get a better view and saw nothing but cars ahead of her, bumper to bumper on Cliffdale Road. Subdivisions of affordable three-bedroom ranch homes sprouted off Cliffdale like tributaries off a river because of the street’s proximity to post. They were popular among military families and bachelor lieutenants and their roommates. Morning rush hour, 5:30 to 6:30 A.M. in Fayetteville, was always a bear on roads like Cliffdale, but today it was gridlock.
Rita rolled down her window and lit a cigarette. Brian had left home at 3:00 A.M. to beat traffic. She stopped a driver about to pass her on the shoulder of the road and asked him how bad it looked ahead. When he told her he had been in traffic for four hours, Rita steered her Ford Escort onto the shoulder and followed him. She was determined to take that biology test, but deep down she knew the class was the least of her worries. Somehow the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center couldn’t help having a direct impact on her family.
Yesterday, when news of the attacks spread through the barracks, Brian and the others in his unit had been getting ready for an inspection for their upcoming DRF-1 cycle. Under ordinary circumstances that meant three weeks in the hot seat. But now?
“Oh, my God, what are we going to do, Brian?” she asked him, when he got home last night at nine. “What’s going to happen? Are you fixin’ to go somewhere?”
“Rita, they’re not telling me anything,” Brian said. “We can probably watch CNN and find out as much as they’re telling me.”
If the shit hits the fan, Brian is gone, Rita thought. The thought made her stomach turn heavy. And coupled with the sights of yesterday’s mass destruction, it was too much to absorb.
Rita had been to New York City on a ninth-grade field trip. She had sold Krispy Kreme doughnuts and snipped her grandpa’s hair to raise money for the trip, and she remembered the way the tops of the Twin Towers were lost in clouds. Now her kids were asking, “Mama, why did they fly the planes into the buildings?” and “Why couldn’t we get them out?”
Her friend Sherry didn’t seem worried at all. A short, chubby, twenty-year-old with permed brown hair, Sherry was lighthearted and giggly, with brown eyes that disappeared into slits when she laughed. Brian and Sherry’s husband, Charlie, were in the same unit, and the two women had become close friends in the spring. Friendships formed fast in the Army, and they were often over quickly, too, due to the frequent moves. Only truly special friendships spanned a twenty-year Army career.<
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From the moment Rita met Sherry that May, Sherry had constantly griped about her husband, whom she had married two months earlier. She complained of her husband’s messiness and his habit of giving the TV more attention than he gave her. In many ways she was right. Charlie was a two-hundred-plus-pound dolt, who wound up on the Army’s fat-boy program because he failed to make his tape measures. In the 82nd being placed on the program—a strict exercise regimen—was like having leprosy.
In Rita’s view Charlie wasn’t a bad guy, just a simpleton. Too many wives wanted their husbands to be something they weren’t.
“You don’t marry a project,” she often counseled Sherry. “You marry him for what he is.
“Look, he’s just come out of the barracks, where he’s cussed, he’s farted, and he’s watched porn, and you expect him to come home and be refined? Why don’t you try and make home a place your husband wants to come to? He should feel that here is somebody in the world who is glad to see me. Here is somebody who makes me feel right. My husband will run you over to get home.”
But Sherry shrugged off her marriage, and now she shrugged off the seriousness of 9/11 the same way. Either she couldn’t grasp the enormity of what had happened or she didn’t want to.
Rita felt differently. A year at Fort Bragg had taught her that if trouble arises or plans change, you had to just roll with it. I’ve got to make the Army as much my life as it is Brian’s, she thought. There’s got to be some soldier in me, too.
At night, while they were in bed, Brian would draw out battle drills on a steno pad. It was Brian’s way of unloading and Rita’s way of taking it in. She tried hard to bring the Army into her fold, to embrace it like a family member. But the Army was a demanding relative. It could bring couples closer by making husbands and wives cling to each other for comfort and support, or it could rip relationships apart.