Purple Hearts

by Michael Grant

  “Wild Bill?”

  “Have you ever met him?” Herkemeier asks a bit too casually.

  “No,” Rainy says, and her radar is definitely alert.

  “Well, he’s really only a civilian, poor fellow, but he’s likely to be running the espionage world. And . . .”

  “Do not tease me, Jon.”

  He laughs. “He wants to meet you.”

  35

  FRANGIE MARR, RIO RICHLIN, JENOU CASTAIN, AND RAINY SCHULTERMAN—ROY J. AND LUCILLE A. CARVER COLLEGE OF MEDICINE, IOWA CITY, IOWA, 1964

  “I can’t believe you guys came,” Frangie says.

  “Like we would miss this?” Jenou says.

  “But the airfare and the time . . . ,” Frangie protests.

  At age thirty-nine, Frangie Marr is still tiny. A bit rounder than she had once been, but giving birth to three children will do things to a woman’s body. The black robe and mortarboard hat are not exactly flattering, but they have certainly raised grins from her old army buddies.

  “Airfare.” Rio snorts dismissively. “Jenou’s richer than God, and I just grabbed a MAC flight.”

  “MAC?”

  “Military Airlift Command, for you civilians,” Rio says. She’s also in her very late thirties, but her uniform is stiff on her rigid body. Her chest is a whole Technicolor billboard of medals, including the one she earned in Korea in 1953, the one with the upside-down gold star and star-spangled blue ribbon, the Medal of Honor, which all by itself causes full generals to fawn and eat themselves up with envy.

  Lieutenant Colonel Rio Richlin, MOH, West Point class of 1950, still manages to look too young for her rank, still has a faint dusting of freckles, and she can still laugh and even, on occasion, giggle.

  “What, no koummya?” Frangie teases.

  Rio grins. “It’s hanging up over my fireplace. I’m supposed to set a good example. No unnecessary adornments.”

  “She doesn’t need a knife to scare people anymore,” Jenou says. “She has rank. She can bully anyone from major on down. Probably has lieutenants polishing her car daily.”

  “Oh, Jenou, you are so unfair,” Rio says, winking at Frangie. “I only get my car waxed twice a week. Not daily.”

  “Oh, look!” Jenou points. “My God, is that Cat?”

  Cat is across the room, standing and chatting with another woman, obviously a close friend.

  “Is that her sister . . . roommate . . . ?” Rio squints to see better—she’s been told she needs glasses. She has thus far refused.

  Frangie shoots a wry look to Jenou, who rolls her eyes and stage-whispers, “No, Rio still doesn’t know. You can take the girl out of the country . . .”

  “Know what?” Rio demands.

  “Rio, Cat’s a lesbian,” Frangie says. “You know: she likes girls.”

  Rio stands gaping for about two minutes. Then, “Oh. Wow.” She raises an intimidating eyebrow. “And I’m the last to find out?”

  “Oh, absolutely,” Jenou says, and Frangie nods. “You never noticed that Cat wasn’t interested in guys?”

  “I thought she was . . . well . . . I . . . I thought she was just, I don’t know . . . shy.”

  “Shy. Cat Preeling we’re talking about.” Jenou nods. “Shy. Or . . . or maybe she likes girls and you are despite the foo-fah all over your chest”—she waves, indicating medals and ribbons—“still a Gedwell Falls girl.”

  “Well,” Rio says tolerantly, “I won’t deny that. Let’s go say hi. I’ve missed the hell out of that soldier. I wonder what she’s been up to?”

  But then it’s time, and Frangie has to rush to her seat in the front row.

  Jenou winces as she wedges her stiff leg under the seat in front of her. Rio sits the same way she does everything now: like she’s made out of steel and bends only under great pressure.

  “I’m sending you my new book,” Jenou whispers to Rio.

  “Another one?”

  “Hey, property in Beverly Hills is not cheap.”

  “Mmm, right, not to mention the salaries of all your lithe young pool lads.”

  Jenou sighs. “Well, what’s a twice-divorced, beat-up old soldier girl going to do for fun without pool lads to watch?”

  A black woman doctor is up front now giving an inspirational speech. Both Jenou and Rio are relieved to be seated toward the back. They lower their whispers a decibel or two.

  “How about you, Rio? Last I heard you were not dating.”

  “No. Not since Strand and I divorced.”

  “Since before Korea?” Jenou shook her head. “I told you that wouldn’t work, honey. He was never going to be able to live his life with you. You’re . . . you know. You.”

  Rio turns her eyes sideways to look at her friend. “I felt like I owed him a try.”

  “Duty. Of course.” Jenou rolls her eyes with a deliberate lack of subtlety, like some silent movie star.

  Rio draws Jenou’s attention downward to see the raised middle finger discreetly by her leg. Both women grin hugely as a way to avoid giggling like misbehaving children in church.

  The speeches end, and it is time now for the moment.

  “Oh my God, I’m going to cry,” Jenou says.

  “Don’t start that or . . . just don’t.”

  But there are tears in both their eyes when Francine “Frangie” Marr of Tulsa, Oklahoma, walks up onto the stage to receive the piece of paper that now, finally, after time out to have children, after delays getting through college, after the grueling years of medical school, finally means that she is now . . .

  “Doctor Francine Marr,” the presenter says. Frangie doesn’t quite skip across the stage, but she sure looks like she wants to.

  Just a few rows ahead of Jenou and Rio is a gray-at-the-temples Walter Green, Walter Jr., age fourteen, George Green, age twelve, and Alicia Green, age ten. They all stand and applaud wildly, as does an absurdly tall Obal Marr, who helps his arthritis-crippled mother to stand as well and see her daughter’s impossible dream become reality. Harder stands beside his wife and his own two children.

  It is not until they begin to file out of the auditorium that Rio spots the woman standing at the back.

  Rainy Schulterman wears clothing just short of expensive, in the most conservative of styles, in the least noticeable of colors.

  “Rainy!” Rio cries. “I haven’t seen you since . . . well, since. What the heck are you doing with yourself? Come on, we’re going to see if anyone serves beer here in Iowa. We’re supposed to meet up at Walter and Frangie’s house in an hour.”

  Rainy shakes hands with the soldier and the best-selling author. “I couldn’t miss Marr graduating. I always felt a bit guilty about browbeating her into staying in after the Silver Star. Wanted to see how it all came out.”

  “Ah,” Rio says. “Not worried about guilting me into it, just Marr.”

  Rainy smiles. “Who guilted you into West Point? And Korea?”

  “What are you doing nowadays?” Jenou asks.

  Rainy shrugs and sighs and makes a little smile. “I’m just a lowly bureaucrat, I’m afraid. I work for the Department of Commerce as a very junior foreign trade attaché.”

  Rio might still be sufficiently naive not to know that Cat is a lesbian, but she’s not naive enough to buy this story. For one thing, Rio’s car is not the only dull, four-door government sedan parked outside. And Rainy’s driver does not look like the sort of fellow employed by the Commerce Department.

  But Rainy sticks to her story with all the tenacity and subtle lies one might expect of the deputy director of central intelligence.

  Even after beer DDCI Schulterman will talk only of her work as a special trade envoy to various countries she manages to avoid naming. The one personal detail Rainy will divulge is the name of her husband: Halev.

  “Kids?” Rio asks, when they are seated on the screened porch of Frangie and Walter’s pleasant if chaotic home.

  “No,” Rainy says. “You?”

  Rio shakes her head. “I think Frangie
has the nurturing personality.” She smiles at young Alicia, who leans against the doorjamb eyeing the three of them.

  The girl takes the smile as an invitation—she’s already at age ten as tall as Frangie—and she comes over.

  “My mommy says you were in the war and were really brave.”

  “Does she?” Rio says. “And what does she say about herself in the war?”

  “Oh, she wasn’t really in the war,” Alicia says waving a dismissive hand. “She just took care of people who got hurt. She was only a medic.”

  “Only a medic?” Rio says. “Well, you may not know it, and I guess your mom is too modest to tell you, but I have known a lot of brave soldiers. Your mother was as brave as any of them. Come here. Sit down. Let me tell you about your mother.”

  Later, after the party breaks up and the last good-byes are said, Rainy Schulterman is driven to Chicago, where she will catch a flight back to Washington. She has her burly driver up front and her assistant beside her.

  “I want you to get me some information on a British subject,” Rainy says. “Jack—which may be a nickname for John—Stafford.”

  “That’s a pretty common name,” her assistant mutters.

  “Well, cross-reference with service in the US Army. There can’t be more than one Jack Stafford in both sets of data. Besides,” she says, “we are the CIA, after all.”

  OBITUARIES

  Diane Scott (neé Mackie), who was one of the first generation of women to serve in the armed forces, has died after a brief illness. Scott began as an enlisted soldier before earning a commission and serving with great distinction in World War II in Europe.

  Mackie is survived by her two grown children: a daughter, Jennifer Ann, and her son, Frank, and seven grandchildren.

  Services will be held . . .

  Jenou Castain has died peacefully at her home in Beverly Hills, age seventy-one. Castain was one of the original “soldier girls” and served with distinction during the Second World War, where she was awarded the Purple Heart for wounds sustained in Germany. After the war Castain became the best-selling author of seventeen novels and one memoir.

  Castain is survived by four ex-husbands. She leaves her considerable fortune to her longtime friend Alberto Diaz and to the Soldier Girls’ Retirement Home in Petaluma, California.

  Services will be held . . .

  Luther Geer, decorated World War II veteran, shoe store owner, and social activist who successfully lobbied Congress for the Manzanar Japanese-American War Memorial, has died at the age of sixty-nine. Geer earned a Bronze Star for bravery. He leaves behind his beloved wife, Ellie, and their nine children, twenty-two grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren.

  Elisheva “Rainy” Schulterman has died of undisclosed causes. Her age is not given. Schulterman served with distinction in the US Army in World War II. After the war she took a job with the US Commerce Department, later moving to the State Department.

  Schulterman is survived by her husband, Halev Leventhal. Attempts to garner additional details about her life were answered by Mr. Leventhal with the following statement. “Rainy would roll over in her grave if I told you anything. I will only say that a great many people owe their lives and liberty to my brilliant, beautiful, and so very deeply loved wife.”

  Services will be held . . .

  Catherine “Cat” Preeling-Tomás, who was one of the original “soldier girls,” has died at age seventy-six after a long illness. Preeling-Tomás is survived by her wife, Mary, by their adoptive children, Ling Ju and Carlos, and by their three grandchildren.

  Preeling-Tomás worked for twenty-eight years as an English teacher at Wilberforce Middle School before retiring. She is also known for her social activism, in particular her work for peace and for gay and lesbian rights.

  Services will be held . . .

  Dr. Francine Marr, known to her many patients as “Doc Frangie,” has died peacefully in her home at age eighty-one. Marr kept her last name but enjoyed a fifty-two-year marriage with businessman Walter Green, who passed some years ago. Marr served as a combat medic in World War II, one of the famed “soldier girls.” She earned a Silver Star for bravery under fire, as well as the Purple Heart. She is survived by her three children, eight grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren.

  Services will be held . . .

  General Rio Richlin, US Army retired, has died at age eighty-six after a long illness. Richlin was one of the historic “soldier girls” immortalized in a war memoir by author and close personal friend Jenou Castain. General Richlin rose from a private to a two-star general, with distinguished service in World War II Europe and later in Korea. She earned the Silver Star and the Purple Heart in World War II, as well as the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest recognition, for actions at the Chosin Reservoir in Korea.

  Richlin is survived by her husband, Jack Stafford, a retired real estate salesman and decorated veteran.

  Services will be held . . .

  Epilogue

  ELIZABETH MASTERS-GALE—FORWARD OPERATING BASE CASTOR

  “Sarge! We got mail.”

  Sergeant Elizabeth Masters-Gale, often called MG, which stood for both Masters-Gale and, conveniently, machine gun, tosses her iPod aside and bounds toward the door.

  The sun outside is blinding. It often is. Sometimes it’s bright sunshine and staggering heat, sometimes it’s bright sunshine and bone-snapping cold. And other times it rains and is cold. At FOB Castor the weather is described, almost 365 days a year, as bad.

  But MG’s corporal, Paul Cofield, has a canvas bag of mail—actual snail-mail letters and bundles from home.

  “Package for you, top,” Cofield says, handing her a carefully wrapped parcel. “Letter too. Same address. Hope it’s cookies.”

  “Like I’d give you any of my cookies, Cofield,” Elizabeth says. Frowning at the return address, she carries the mail back inside her hooch and sits down on her cot. It’s no one she knows, though she has the vague sense that there is something distantly familiar about the name.

  She whips out her Ka-Bar knife and slices neatly through string and brown paper. There’s a lacquered box inside, maybe eighteen, twenty inches long. She pauses, frowning even more intently, and opens the letter.

  Dear Elizabeth,

  I doubt very much you will remember me as we met only once, briefly, at your grandmother’s funeral. But I have thought of you often since. I knew your grandmother very well. We served together in World War II. She was a very great woman, your grandmother.

  Anyway, as I write this the doctors tell me I have less than a week left. I’ve left most everything to Jack—that’s my husband—and his family. We never had children of our own, and when you’re contemplating the end you want to pass something along.

  In the box you will find something that served me very well when I held your rank as a sergeant. May it serve you as well.

  Rio Richlin

  Major General, US Army, Retired

  PS: You’ll want to oil the scabbard from time to time.

  Ten minutes later Elizabeth emerges into the glare again.

  “Whoa, Sarge, what do you have there?”

  “What, this?” Elizabeth pats the knife strapped to her thigh. “Well, I just googled it, and I believe it’s called a koummya.”

  “Badass, top.”

  “Yep. Okay!” She claps her hands loudly and insistently. “Enough playtime, boys and girls, these holes aren’t gonna dig themselves. I want to see some shovel work, people!”

  “Fugging sergeants,” Cofield says under his breath. “They’re all the same.”

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  I confronted a surprising problem in writing this last book of the trilogy. The events from D-day onward are much better known to people from books, movies, and TV than earlier battles in North Africa and Italy. As a result some stories are tied in readers’ minds directly to specific individuals, real soldiers who did terribly brave things. It felt wrong repurposing their personal stories, so I�
�ve tried to avoid that. I’ve also been at pains to avoid my fictional 119th Division seeming to take the place of real units, many of which suffered catastrophically. My goal has been to insert my characters without attempting to replace the real-life Americans who died at Omaha Beach, in the bocage, in the Hürtgen, or in the Bulge.

  That said, I’ve stuck as close as I know how to the actual events of World War II.

  Rainy’s mission is invented, but the massacre at Oradour-sur-Glane happened: 642 French civilians, of whom 205 were children, were mercilessly gunned down by the SS. And yes, the SS officer responsible, Adolf Diekmann, was killed a few days later in Normandy, though the details of how have never been satisfactorily determined. . . .

  After the war, French general Charles de Gaulle decreed that the burned and shattered village should be preserved as the SS left it. You can visit it, as I did. It is the most deeply moving war memorial I’ve ever seen.

  The Hürtgen Forest happened as well, a stupid waste of thousands of American lives. First-person accounts generally agree that nothing in the European theater of war was more terrible. Even German soldiers who’d been in the hell of the Eastern Front often agreed that the Hürtgen was worse.

  Some have slighted American soldiers, alleging that they could not fight without the masses of weapons and equipment provided by the productive power of American industry. But the battles of the Hürtgen Forest and the Bulge were not contests of machine against machine, but of soldier against soldier in pitiless conditions. The American soldier, outgunned, outnumbered, cut off, and surrounded, held on against everything Hitler had to throw at them.

  Malmédy happened as well, which set off a wave of pitiless brutality from both sides, as all the rules of war were cast aside.

  The liberation of Buchenwald began at the Ohrdruf satellite camp, where SS guards did in fact build a sort of macabre grill and attempt to hide the evidence of their atrocities before fleeing. The Dachau death train also happened.

  The aftermath was where I felt free at last to depart from actual history. I don’t know what effect women serving in combat would have had on the politics of the United States. I know that after World War II was over, women were quickly pushed out of the jobs they had held while the men fought. The 1950s were a period of genteel but steady suppression of women, and the beginning of more women pushing back. I have to believe that feminists would have made short work of it with a nation of female war veterans marching in their ranks.