No Greater Duty

CHAPTER 1Arlington, VA May 2016 “Help me understand this. You’re not going to college? Where’s this coming from?” demanded an exasperated Olivia Kramer after her son had announced his plans to enlist. Even his girlfriend had disapproved, telling Alex he was making a big mistake by not going to college. Carolyn Hagerty was headed for one of the Ivy League schools, loaded with ambition about making a difference for mankind or womankind. The hard and plain truth was that Alex, the son of parents with professional careers, had been floundering without any direction his whole high school senior year. He would soon graduate, yet still struggled to figure out what he wanted to do with his life. Then in early April 2016 his mother received an unexpected letter. That letter replaced Alex’s aimlessness with a specific direction to follow—a purpose. Standing in their townhouse kitchen, his mother ran a hand through her long auburn hair and peered down for several seconds at the hand-scribbled letter in her grip. “What’s going on?” Alex asked, pointing to the letter in her hand. “A letter from an uncle,” said his mother. “He up and vanished years ago. Now he’s coming here because”—her eyes turned from the letter to her son—“because there’s a place he wants to see.” “What’s that all about?” said Alex, puzzled. “Sit down and I’ll explain,” she said, gesturing to a kitchen chair. “My uncle Gerry Rourke, my father’s brother, enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1967 and went straight to the war in Vietnam. But after coming home from ’Nam, he refused to speak about anything that happened over there, not even to his own brother.” She inhaled slowly, then let it out. “For all I know, he’s never recovered from the war.” Olivia reached down and fiddled with a placemat on the table. “I could really use a cigarette right now.” “Keep talking, Mom.” “Anyway, that’s when he vanished. No one’s heard from him in years”—she lifted the sheet of lined paper scrawled with slanted handwriting—“until this letter. Somehow, he found out we lived close to DC, and he wants to visit. But he also wants to see the National Museum of the Marine Corps before he dies.” Two words, “lousy health,” were posted in the letter without any explanation. “You know about the museum? Down at Quantico?” “Can’t say I do. Why?” “Doesn’t matter.” She dismissed it with a wave of her hand. “If he asks you to go with him there, please say yes. He might finally be ready to talk.” “Glad to, Mom.” Olivia sat herself down in a kitchen chair. “It was awful when he came home.” Years back, she had eavesdropped on Rourke and her father talking outside the house. On the day he returned to the States, some people in the airport, upon seeing him in uniform, stared with visible contempt. They wanted him and other service members returning from Vietnam to feel shame. “For what?” Rourke had snapped with bitter indignation. His humiliating homecoming was cemented in her uncle’s memory. Visiting the museum might afford him the dignity he and other Marine veterans never received when they came home—if they even made it back alive or in a casket. He’d be surrounded by symbols of selfless service, sacrifice, duty. That might be enough to spill his guts. If going there would make the man whole, she was all for it. True to his letter, Gerry Rourke showed up two weeks later. He asked Alex to accompany him to the museum, and Alex agreed. They stopped at a diner on the way home because the Vietnam vet was ready to unload memories of war he had tightly held onto until now. “I was a boot Marine with 1st Battalion, 9th Marine Regiment,” said Rourke. His voice was so quiet Alex had to lean in closer to hear him say, “To Marines it’s always 1/9—not the 1/9.” The unit’s infamous nickname was the “Walking Dead” because it had suffered the longest sustained combat and had the highest killed-in-action rate in Marine Corps history. Rourke’s opening words began an uninterrupted thirty-minute saga about relentless warfare. Alex’s plate of food sat untouched. “You saw a lot of men wounded? Killed?” Rourke’s aging body stiffened. “Both. And too many of ’em.” He pivoted when the teenager wanted to know if he’d received any medals. “Every Marine in the fight was a hero, whether the Corps pinned a medal on his chest or not.” Alex later learned Rourke had been awarded the Bronze Star with a “V” device and the Purple Heart. “Were you wounded?” Rourke exhaled sharply. “I was shot twice. Still got pieces of some grenade fragments floating inside me.” The probing questions began to trample on sensitive terrain. The boy was jabbing Rourke without permission because he wanted to know more. “Did you—” Alex waited, then blurted it out. “Did you kill anyone?” “What do you think?” Rourke glared at the teenager. “It was war.” “Just one more question.” Rourke cringed. “You sure have a lot of those, don’t you? Have at it.” “Why’d you enlist in the first place?” The old Marine pursed his lips. “I wanted to be part of something greater than myself.” He stared out the diner window. “You’re just a kid, you can’t understand.” Except the Vietnam vet was mistaken. When he visited the museum without any preconceived ideas, Alex had understood. His desire to find out if he had what it took was enough incentive to talk to a Marine Corps recruiter, then enlist. Two weeks later, Olivia was home early from work and dressed casually in a fuchsia cotton sweater over denim jeans. She’d just finished pouring unsweetened iced tea into a glass when Alex walked into the kitchen. His awkward expression relayed that he had to get something off his chest. “You all right?” she asked. “I’ve got an announcement to make.” Olivia noticed Alex was holding what looked like papers and a multicolored brochure clutched in his left hand. The Marine Corps emblem was visible on a section of the brochure. “Okay, I’m listening,” Olivia said, iced tea forgotten, and turned to face her son. He lifted the papers toward her. “I’m going to enlist in the Marine Corps,” he said and stopped, anticipating the perplexed look that formed instantly on his mother’s face. “But first I need yours and Dad’s written permission because I’m seventeen.” There was benevolence in Olivia’s eyes. “Are you sure about this?” “Yeah, Mom. I’m sure.” She slowly set down her drink on the kitchen island. “Your father’s going to try and talk you out of doing this.” “I know.” Olivia wrapped her arms over her chest and slowly inhaled a deep breath. “I’ll sign the papers giving you my permission,” she said. Her mouth twisted with a hint of knowing what else she had to do, and it wouldn’t come easily. “I can’t promise anything, but I’ll try my best to convince your father to sign the papers.” Alex walked toward his mother and wrapped his arms around her. “Thank you.” She hugged him back, then withdrew to look into his face. “Is this what you really want?” “Yes. I want to do this.” Captain David Kramer, US Navy, Alex’s father and US Naval Academy Class of 1992, already had two sea commands and was designated for a third following his assignment with the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon. Alex’s dad wanted, practically expected, his son to apply for an appointment to the Academy. For David it was foregone, but not for Alex. Annapolis hadn’t been on his radar. Even with solid high school marks, college wasn’t in the plans. He wouldn’t say why, either. Two days before Alex signed his enlistment papers, he and his father exchanged tense words while they walked. “Do you really think enlisting is better than going to college?” probed the Navy captain, looking at his son with eyes wide in disbelief. “What makes you think it’s not?” Alex shot back. “You’ve got the intelligence and spirit to become an officer—if a military life’s what you want.” David inhaled sharply. “You could have gone to the Academy. I thought—” Alex shook his head. “You thought I was looking for the same thing. But me at Annapolis? That was your wish, Dad. Not mine.” An eerie silence settled between them. Alex finally spoke. “I could change my mind about the Academy someday, you know,” he said, wanting to avoid an argument. “Right now, enlisting in the Corps feels right.” The Marines had let Gerry Rourke be part of something greater than himself. Alex had been searching for something similar, for a purpose. “Give me some space here, sir. That’s all I’m asking for, okay?” Alex asked, making sure to not beg. Captain Kramer nodded but his mood was lukewarm. “All right. We’ll see where this goes.”