No Greater Duty E-Book

Robert Stewart

• Herausgeber: BQB Publishing
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

No Greater Duty

Leseprobe

No Greater Duty, A Novel

© 2022 Robert Stewart. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, digital, photocopying, or recording, except for the inclusion in a review, without permission in writing from the publisher.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, are coincidental.

Published in the United States by BQB Publishing (an imprint of Boutique of Quality Books Publishing, Inc.) www.bqbpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

978-1-952782-59-6 (p)

978-1-952782-60-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022933937

Book design by Robin Krauss, www.bookformatters.com

Cover design by Rebecca Lown, www.rebeccalowndesign.com

First editor: Caleb Guard

Second editor: Andrea Vande Vorde

PRAISE FOR NO GREATER DUTY AND ROBERT STEWART

“No Greater Duty is a tour de force that plunges readers headfirst into a skillfully paced, intricately plotted ethics drama on par with A Sense of Honor by James Webb. Stewart captures the gritty, often paradoxical, essence of military service, expertly presenting one of the most omnipresent leadership challenges—how to balance ‘doing what is right’ against ‘the rules.’ A timely, riveting story by an author highly tuned into the Naval Academy and the naval service.”

– Steven Konkoly, USNA ‘93. Wall Street Journal best-selling author

“A powerful story that provides a multi-faceted leadership case study full of ethics challenges. The author does a great job developing the characters in a realistic context that displays their individual growth, and biases facing women service members.”

– RADM Margaret Klein, USN (Ret.), USNA ‘81, former Commandant of Midshipmen

“It sounds cliche to call No Greater Duty a page-turner, or a book that you can’t put down, but it really is. I found myself not wanting the story to end. It keeps you engaged, immersed, and entertained with each page.”

– Commander David R. McKinney, USN (Ret.), USNA ‘98

“This story is a tale of leadership; the characters navigate the gray areas where leaders will tread during their career. Frequently the tough answers are not easy to arrive at, and the author tells the story masterfully. Entertaining read and excellent plot that is hard to put down!”

– Colonel Jon Aytes, USMC (Ret.), USNA ‘90

“Great book! A compelling and realistic story of modern American warriors. A unique insider’s look at midshipman life and the ethical challenges facing leaders today.”

– Lieutenant Colonel Amy McGrath, USMC (Ret.), USNA ‘97, author of Honor Bound

“No Greater Duty is an instructive tale of leadership and integrity, told by an author who knows the topics well.”

– Major Nathaniel Fick, USMC (Ret.), New York Times best-selling author of One Bullet Away

“A masterful piece of work. The nation is ready for a tale of heroism and character, on the battlefield and beneath the ocean as well as the U.S. Naval Academy. I enjoyed every page.”

– Commander Ronald H. Reimann, Sr., USN (Ret.), USNA ‘61

“This powerful, expertly told story, rich with meticulous attention to detail, is an intensely compelling tale of integrity and moral courage that allows you to stand in the shoes and see clearly through the eyes of some of America’s most dedicated young men and women. Whether embedded in a Noncombatant Evacuation Operation (NEO) in Sierra Leone, in a tense standoff under the sea, or in the halls of the U.S. Naval Academy, this intriguing coming-of-age read deftly relates the very real hard ethical and professional decisions our service members face, and the deeply personal consequences our actions have.”

– Wendy Phillips Piret, USNA ‘93, MA International Relations, American University, Washington D.C.

“A timely and timeless read about the character-forging experience of military service. The intense combat scenes will keep readers turning to the next page. But the ‘moral’ combat scenes are equally gripping, and showcase the loyalty of our service members to each other on battlefields abroad and at home.”

– Major Frank “Gus” Biggio, USMC (Ret.), author of The Wolves of Helmand

DEDICATION

This story is dedicated to the memory and in honor of selfless service to country:

Colonel Vincent R. Kramer,

United States Marine Corps (Ret.)

1918-2001

Recipient of:

Navy Cross, Air Medal, Commendation Ribbon with Combat “V” (WWII Guadalcanal Campaign; China Burma India Theater; Korean War; Vietnam War)

Warrant Officer Mark A. Whikehart,

United States Army

1948-1970

Army Aviator and recipient of:

National Defense, Vietnam Service,

Vietnam Campaign and Air Medals

Killed in Action, 17 March 1970

PROLOGUE

Commandant’s Conference Room, Bancroft Hall

United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, MD

March 6, 2024 at 0845

Midshipman Alex Kramer, United States Naval Academy Class of 2024, stood at attention—eyes front, chin forward, and hands by his sides with thumbs closed and rested against his uniform pants. It wasn’t easy to try to stay calm and pay attention. He shouldn’t have been called here in the first place.

Mids rarely set foot in this room during their four years at Annapolis. And most of them couldn’t have cared less about a conduct hearing that didn’t involve them. Beyond a classroom discussion, midshipmen seldom paid attention to conduct mishaps. That is, until they were the ones caught breaking regulations.

But Alex Kramer’s case? His was different. He was different. Plenty of chatter floated around the Academy about his single situation. A recommendation rendered here would either uphold or tarnish the code he’d bled on a battlefield fighting for as a decorated Marine. No midshipman in the entire Brigade had ever performed under fire like he had.

Ahead against one wall were four flags posted in gold floor stands. From left to right, the flags in the colors of the United States of America, the Marine Corps, the Navy, and the Naval Academy hung with identical folds. Alex’s respect for the first two flags ran so deep that he had nearly given his life to uphold the ideals sewn as vibrant symbols upon their silk fabric. The other two flags? He’d tell you to ask him later.

A composed bearing disguised his cynicism. He was royally pissed off. They’re really going through with this? Because I saved a man’s life? The twenty-six-year-old midshipman’s throat felt like sandpaper when he swallowed. Where’s their goddamned honor? he shouted in silence.

Alex’s crystal-blue eyes aimed like lasers on the Marine Corps officer standing a mere few feet in front of him. Colonel Bruce Wettstone, the Deputy Commandant of Midshipmen, was in his mid-fifties and stood in uniform. The man’s square jaw and weathered face mirrored a lengthy career of military service. The colonel had arrived to convene a hearing not yet begun, and called for him to show no pre-trial bias. But the officer’s grim mouth, with its corners turned down, hinted that he’d already begun forming early opinions, and they weren’t good ones.

Looking over the colonel’s ‘chest candy’—his many service ribbons—Alex’s thoughts drifted back in time to First Platoon, Bravo Company when Gunny Westphal had lectured his Marines. “Service ribbons are your visible resume. We eyeball other Marines’ decorations like dogs sniffing each other’s asses,” the battle-tested gunnery sergeant had said. “An enlisted Marine without a good conduct ribbon says ‘conduct issue.’ Silver Star? One of them ribbons ain’t never missed by other Marines.”

Alex’s own service ribbons adorned the top row of his Service Dress Blue uniform. The deputy commandant would have to be blind to miss the midshipman’s Purple Heart alongside the nation’s third highest military decoration for valor, the Silver Star. Like Gunny Westphal had said, “That one ain’t never missed.”

The judicial inquiry had not yet begun and the mood was already unsettled.

All of the Naval Academy midshipmen in the room shifted restlessly from one foot to the other as they stood. They were witnessing a major military tribunal levied against one of their own who’d been decorated for valor in combat. Several Mids had been ordered to testify. Curiosity lured others to show up, having heard that arguments attempting to separate right from wrong could become hostile.

The leaden winter skies beyond the windows forewarned two things: snow in Annapolis and a cruel outcome for the accused.

Moments earlier, Alex had followed Colonel Wettstone’s authoritative entrance into the conference room. Everyone in the room, all naval service officers and enlisted personnel, had snapped to attention while the Marine officer stood erect and took his place behind a podium in the center of the room.

Careful not to let his eyes wander when he arrived that morning, Alex had known who would stand at attention on each side of the colonel. Right of Colonel Wettstone was the Commandant of Midshipmen’s lawyer, a Navy lieutenant from the Judge Advocate General Corps (JAG). To the JAG’s immediate right came Alex’s chain of command at the Academy, from lowest to highest in rank: Two classmates and 19th Company’s top midshipman officers. Next, Navy Chief Petty Officer Lisa Sorrel, 19th Company’s Senior Enlisted Leader (SEL). He liked the sailor and believed she was an excellent role model of maturity for midshipmen. He smiled to himself. The lady would have made a fine Marine.

Next to the SEL stood Navy Lieutenant Tara Marcellus, Alex’s company officer. Though she’d taken over 19th Company less than a year earlier, Alex had come to admire the good-looking lieutenant’s poise. She had even tolerated his occasional impatience, maybe because he was prior-enlisted and she trusted his maturity.

Alex had also noticed a few times that Lieutenant Marcellus seemed slightly guarded around male officers, yet more open with female officers and enlisted personnel at the Academy. As though an incident from the past set her on edge. Something was going on there, and he had wondered what it was the lady wouldn’t reveal.

Alongside Tara stood her boss, Navy Commander Ryan Griffa, the Battalion Officer. Alex didn’t have any particular opinion one way or the other about him.

The Academy’s conduct officer stood at Colonel Wettstone’s left. Navy Lieutenant John Pollard was an enforcer who reviewed allegations of misconduct among the 4,400-member Brigade of Midshipmen who got caught coloring outside the lines. His job didn’t win him any popularity contests. The Brigade Conduct Officer, a Midshipman First Class and classmate of the accused, was also present.

When Alex had entered the conference room, there were as many people present as there were members of the three fire teams of infantry Marines he had led into combat in West Africa in 2019. Five years had come and gone since the mission and firefight in Sierra Leone. But to him, it would always feel like yesterday. Images were sealed in his memory: Refugees mowed down by rebel gunfire like plastic ducks at a carnival shooting arcade. His blood-soaked hands holding Billy Whittington’s dismembered leg, nearly blown off from the IED explosion. Directing attack helicopters to rain their automatic fire down on enemy positions hidden in the high grass.

On that fateful day, bullets flew in every direction. Some Marines suffered grievous wounds. Alex was one of them.

At this morning’s hearing, he expected verbal bullets to fly. This will be a different battlefield. And Marines fight to win every time they’re called.

The Marine colonel behind the podium studied the accused midshipman standing before him. “Today is 6 March 2024. I am Colonel Bruce Wettstone, United States Marine Corps, Deputy Commandant of Midshipmen, United States Naval Academy,” he announced. “This hearing is convened to present charges of misconduct against Midshipman First Class Alexander Kramer, 19th Company, that occurred on 13 and 14 February 2024.” Colonel Wettstone did not remove his gaze. “You may stand at ease, Mister Kramer.”

Get on with it, Colonel, a tense Alex muttered silently.

“Midshipman Kramer, you have been charged with the following major-level conduct offenses,” the deputy commandant read aloud in an overly authoritative tone:

04.14—Unauthorized means of ingressing or egressing either Bancroft Hall or the Naval Academy grounds.

07.01—Intentional absence without authority from an academic class, military obligation, or formation.

07.06—UA after reporting for Taps.

The Administrative Performance and Conduct System manual states:

By pleading “guilty,” a midshipman acknowledges that the offense was culpably committed as alleged, that the midshipman is liable for punishment, and that he/she relinquishes the right to seek consideration, or to appeal on the issue of guilt or innocence.

The deputy continued reading from the statement of conduct offense charges leveled against Alex: How the midshipman had left the Naval Academy’s property grounds ten minutes before midnight on an unauthorized absence, or UA, and returned the following morning.

Present charges of misconduct against you. The very words burned Alex like a nasty rash. He listened without revealing any visible reaction. Being forced to suffer through a formal hearing that questioned his character disgusted him. I went back for a wounded buddy, another Marine—for the second time, he shouted in silence. You’re punishing me for doing my duty?

“The elements of your offense are set forth in the investigating officer’s report,” the deputy commandant said, poker-faced. “Based on the Preliminary Investigation Officer’s findings, the accused stated the reason for his unauthorized absence was, in his own words and I quote, ‘To stop a good friend and Marine, whom I previously served with in combat, from taking his own life’ end of quote,” he added. A condescending quality in his words turned heads inside the room.

You don’t know the half of it, Colonel, so better watch your step, Alex silently warned the deputy commandant. You’re judging my moral code now. The very code that had been embedded in Alex’s mind the moment he became a Marine.

Commandant’s Conference Room

United States Naval Academy

March 6, 2024

Standing to the side in Standard Dress Blue uniform with proper military bearing, Lieutenant Tara Marcellus focused on Alex, who was still at attention and now a Naval Academy midshipman, yet forever a Marine.

In the past several weeks, Tara had come to understand this unusual young man better than he might reluctantly admit to understanding himself. She’d already dealt with foes determined to question her duty, her honor. He had fought well against enemies who wanted to end his life on a battlefield. The Navy lieutenant was prepared to stand up for this single-minded midshipman if the morning’s judicial verdict went against him.

Her hazel eyes darted back and forth between Alex and the deputy commandant as they sized each other up. Had the colonel already assumed his high rank meant the cards he held guaranteed him a winning hand during this standoff? Probably. Guess what, colonel? You didn’t reckon on facing a midshipman who won’t fold his cards for anyone who questions his dedication to the uniform he wears, she thought.

The day Tara had told her mother she was applying for an appointment to the Naval Academy, the announcement had invoked an icy reception.

“Really?” Laura Marcellus had contested with suspicion. “You want to prove yourself in a men’s club that still has contempt for women?” Forty years had passed since women had officially become part of the Brigade of Midshipmen at Annapolis. Tara’s generation had heard the disturbing stories about the first waves of female midshipmen. Those women had been confronted with open hostility and seething contempt the moment they set foot on Academy ground. Male midshipmen’s caustic remarks had cut as sharp as a surgeon’s scalpel: You don’t belong here. Go home. You don’t have what it takes and you never will. Bitch. Legions of older Academy graduates were enraged about the newcomers, insisting women were unfit to serve on the front lines of military conflicts, period. Case closed.

But the women weren’t going away. Female Mids at the US Naval Academy had learned in a short time to take care of themselves. They’d watched each other’s backs and had drawn deep from a reservoir of unprecedented stamina and personal courage. The women stood their ground against relentless, even malicious opposition.

In late August of her first year, Tara had joined her classmates and submitted her six top service assignment preferences following commissioning in May. Firsties could select from twenty-four different Navy and Marine Corps service communities as forthcoming career choices. Tara was confident about getting her first choice: assignment aboard a US Navy nuclear submarine. Everything looked good. Her Order of Merit placed her in the top ten percent of the class. Her latest Aptitude for Commissioning grade had been an A, and she served as her company’s executive officer in the midshipmen chain of command.

One final test she had to pass, the admiral interview, awaited her desire to become a submarine officer. Despite a small case of stomach butterflies, Tara had earned the admiral’s approving nod when she pleased him with her composed demeanor and modest confidence.

“Midshipman Marcellus, wouldn’t you prefer the fleet, with more opportunities for women officers than aboard submarines?” asked a rear admiral with angular features behind eyeglasses resting on the bridge of his nose.

Tara nodded. “That’s true, sir. But I have sought to serve as a submarine officer since I was a plebe,” she had answered with self-assurance.

The admiral had smiled. “You have your mind set on this, don’t you, Midshipman?”

“I do, sir,” Tara had answered, her eyes bright and certain.

“The Navy needs more women who wish to serve as submarine officers,” he had responded with a favorable expression.

A week before Thanksgiving holiday leave, Tara’s smile beamed brighter than a lighthouse beacon when she received official word. The Navy approved her request to serve in the United States Navy’s silent service.

When Tara was still a midshipman, her mother had questioned Tara’s motivation to serve aboard a submarine someday. “You want to live underwater for months at a time?” she’d said with wide-eyed disbelief. But Frank Marcellus had spoken in Tara’s defense. “It shouldn’t matter if she’s on a submarine or a ship,” he’d said to support his daughter’s goal. “Tara can take care of herself.”

The Naval Academy constantly asserted that midshipmen must demonstrate the highest principles of personal and professional conduct and honesty. But we’re all imperfect, reflected Tara, even when we judge someone else’s integrity. This hearing would display the Academy’s disciplinary process as either neutral or leaning one way.

Lieutenant Marcellus looked at Alex for any visible reaction. Nothing. He didn’t even stir. She admired his stoicism. But the company officer also grew concerned about Alex’s potentially defensive reaction once the deputy commandant brought up the Preliminary Investigative Officer (PIO)’s detailed report, including recommendations from the conduct officer and the staff JAG. “You need to stay calm,” she’d warned Alex ahead of his hearing, “no matter what the deputy commandant says or does.”

Tara imagined Alex wanting to tell Colonel Wettstone where he could shove his hearing. She’d come to know the decorated midshipman well enough to expect he would absolutely defend his actions if push came to shove. Alex’s dedication to duty couldn’t be shaken by anyone, not even a Marine colonel.

Today was Alex Kramer’s judgment day. It was Tara’s too. Her path from commissioning to submarine officer and back to the Naval Academy as a company officer kept unfolding with unforeseen trials of conscience, including this one.

Contents

PART ONE

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

PART TWO

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

PART THREE

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 30

CHAPTER 31

CHAPTER 32

CHAPTER 33

CHAPTER 34

CHAPTER 35

CHAPTER 36

CHAPTER 37

CHAPTER 38

CHAPTER 39

CHAPTER 40

CHAPTER 41

CHAPTER 42

CHAPTER 43

CHAPTER 44

CHAPTER 45

CHAPTER 46

CHAPTER 47

CHAPTER 48

CHAPTER 49

CHAPTER 50

CHAPTER 51

CHAPTER 52

EPILOGUE

CHARACTERS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

GLOSSARY

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

CHAPTER 1

Arlington, 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.”

CHAPTER 2

Marine Recruit Basic Training

Parris Island, South Carolina

June 2016

A Marine Corps drill instructor (DI), Caucasian and tall with chiseled chin, acne scars, and flared nostrils stood ramrod straight at the front of the bus. He was ready to bring a heap of verbal shit down on the new recruits who just arrived at Parris Island. Tapered like slits, his eyes were ablaze with a wordless warning: You’re mine now, maggots.

“Get your cheese-dick asses off this bus now!” he thundered at them.

Alex leaped from his seat, joining jittery recruits piled up in the bus’s aisle who couldn’t move fast enough to satisfy the DI’s rapid-fire orders. He finally made it down the bus steps to the street, nearly pushed from behind.

Parris Island’s thick summer humidity smacked him in the face faster than his feet reached the pavement. It was a suffocating heat that felt like he was tied up in a soaking wool blanket and was struggling to breathe. Beads of perspiration broke out across Alex’s forehead, turning into lines of sweat that slid down both sides of his cheeks like rain streaking down a window.

“Get on the yellow footprints!” bellowed a Black Marine DI, a short man with thick, muscular forearms. Hands on hips with his eyes narrowed, he stared menacingly at recruits who stood beneath bright lamp posts under the darkness of night.

Alex joined the other sweating recruits who scrambled to find untaken sets of yellow markings on the pavement. Heels together, eyes straight to the front, thumbs along the sides of their trousers.

“You’re never bored at Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Parris Island, South Carolina,” roared the Caucasian DI. “And you have just taken the first step to becoming a member of the world’s finest fighting force, the United States Marine Corps.”

It was pitch-black beyond the lamp post’s glow. Alex’s eyes followed the DI’s index fingers stabbing the air like a machete. Left hand, right hand. He didn’t dare divert his eyes from anywhere but a point straight ahead in the darkness.

“Starting now, you will train as a team,” said the same DI. “You will eat, sleep, train, and live as a team. The word ‘I’ will no longer be part of your vocabulary.” Alex watched him pace back and forth, glaring at the new recruits. “From now on, the only words that come out of your mouth are ‘Sir, yes sir’ or ‘Sir, no sir’ when somebody asks you a question. Do you understand?”

“Sir, yes sir!” they roared back.

A recruit next to Alex raised a hand to wipe sweat away from his wet eyes. Alex was tempted to do the same until the DI was instantly in the recruit’s face, one foot too-close-for-comfort away from Alex. “Get your nasty face away from your hands, maggot!” the DI shouted. “Why are you eyeballing me?”

Alex felt spittle and the overpowering odor of coffee from the DI’s breath smack him at full force, and he wasn’t the one who raised a hand to wipe away sweat.

The start of Receiving Week at Parris Island was organized mayhem in assembly-line fashion. Still wearing their civilian clothes, recruits shuffled like androids into the barber shop. Barbers sheared the hair off so fast that some recruits walked away with missed patches of hair standing out on a completely shaved head. Alex looked down at his sheared blond locks on the floor when a DI was on top of him in a nanosecond. “Keep moving,” he roared, “that haircut ain’t making you any prettier, you nasty thing.”

With his head now shaved, Alex shuffled in line and grabbed a bag for “bucket issues” such as soap, shaving cream, razor, socks, underwear, towels, and other bare necessities. Next, he and the others tossed uniform gear into sea bags to include boots, ‘cammo’ blouses and trousers, T-shirts, and eight-point covers because Marines never called them hats.

A DI ordered recruits to dress in twenty seconds: underwear, then boot socks, then bottoms, then tops. Many still scrambled when he yelled, “Strip down and do it again!”

The squad bay he’d call home for the next twelve weeks lacked any personal identification except for Marine Corps symbols and words posted in different places. Organized rows of perfectly aligned metal bunk beds, two-foot lockers on the floor at each bunk bed, and wall lockers. It wasn’t scenery from a luxury hotel room on the French Riviera. More like a dressed-up penal colony.

After penicillin pills and anthrax injections at the medical unit, recruits returned to the four-story barracks and their squad bays, always holding up their sea bags, never letting them hang inches from the ground. “Put your stuff on your foot locker, then sit down and shut up!” one DI bellowed at them.

“Stand up straight! Get your eyeballs off me! Nobody cares about you, not even your mothers! You’re pathetic!” DIs seemed to love delivering their words with flying saliva. Alex wondered whether the Marine Corps had a special wing at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center outside Washington, DC where drill instructors went to surgically replace their shredded vocal chords. Then they’d return to the Corps’ two recruit depots ready to scare the living hell out of more recruits.

Next to Alex, a recruit named Bondurant sat atop his foot locker. Bondurant looked older than the average recruit. His hair was prematurely thinning so there wasn’t much to shear off in the opening and early frantic hours of boot camp. Alex sized him up. He was not just another wide-eyed teenager. Maybe this guy heard a call to patriotism or hearing the Star Bangled Banner gave him goosebumps. Maybe he believed the Marine Corps would hold a mirror up to his face and he’d find out in real time what he was or wasn’t made of. When the DI was momentarily out of earshot, Alex had heard Bondurant whisper to a recruit that he’d left college after three years in to enlist. Why? He could have applied for a Naval ROTC scholarship and earned a commission.

Alex stopped himself. Where do you get off judging another recruit? He hadn’t applied for an appointment to the Naval Academy like his father had wanted. Instead, he’d enlisted and wound up here just like Bondurant.

“Hey buddy, why’d you enlist?” Bondurant’s question interrupted the quiet squad bay.

We’re not supposed to open our mouths, Alex wanted to tell him but it was too late.

The last word was barely out of Bondurant’s mouth when, out of nowhere, a six-foot-plus DI appeared and erupted, “Who’s opening his nasty mouth?”

Innocent or dumb or both, Bondurant stood and raised his hand, “This recruit, sir—”

Alex braced himself. Oh shit, here it comes.

The drill instructor’s boot exploded against Bondurant’s foot locker, its contents flying across the deck. A bulging vein on the side of the DI’s neck looked like it would burst right through the skin.

Recruits learned right away never to call each other by their first names. Just “recruit last-name.” Nor could they speak to other recruits or all hell would come down on them. But DIs created their own names for different recruits. Nicknames went from harmless to downright crude. Recruits who wore glasses were ‘portholes.’ Another recruit from a farming family in Virginia was ‘cow turd.’ Alex’s name was ‘Navy brat.’ He figured DIs probably got wind of his father’s military status from a note tucked in his recruitment file.

“If you’re not good enough to be a Marine, then you should have enlisted in the Army or the Air Force,” a sneering drill instructor told recruits. “They’ll take anyone.”

All recruits walked on eggshells almost every minute of the day and night except when lights were out. Eyes aimed straight ahead while walking, running, or during drill instructions. Wakened every morning by a DI banging on a trash can and shouting loud enough to shatter glass.

With trim waistlines and muscular bodies, DIs never seemed to sweat even in the dense Parris Island humidity. Their uniform shirts were bedecked with colorful service ribbons from deployments in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, and other places as part of the Global War on Terrorism; GWOT. They came from every corner of the Corps: Infantry, Intelligence, Logistics, even Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD). They stood for an eternal principle of the Corps: every Marine was and is a rifleman first.

Recruits endured twelve weeks of constant mosquito bites, sunburned necks and faces, sand in their boots and scalps, and the DIs’ breath at their necks. They didn’t dare breathe a word of complaint.

Every time a recruit was sent somewhere, his ‘battle buddy’ always went with him. DIs drilled that principle into recruits’ heads: Protecting other Marines is a solemn trust. You’ll understand when someone tries to kill you on a battlefield.

On the Sunday afternoon of his third week, Alex scribbled off a note. “Hey Mom, all’s good here so far. Chow sucks but we eat anything they put in front of us because everyone’s always hungry. I’m starting to believe that being a Marine is cool. Maybe Dad will get on board with it someday.”

One morning following a three-mile run in high humidity and early-summer heat, a DI pulled Alex aside.

“Hey, recruit,” the menacing drill instructor said, standing a very uncomfortable three inches from Alex’s face. “Is it true your father’s an officer in the US faggot Navy?”

Alex suddenly felt the raw wound between him and his father split open again, and it stung.

“Yes, Staff Sergeant,” Alex told him, standing rigid at attention, eyes locked straight ahead.

“Why are you here, maggot?” the DI goaded. “Didn’t you want to be a pretty boy sailor like your old man? I bet that pissed him off.”

“I want to become a Marine, Staff Sergeant,” Alex answered, his words strong, beads of sweat forming along his forehead. He figured being a Marine had been among the most prized moments—the proudest—in Gerry Rourke’s troubled life. He wanted the same experience.

The DI took a step back and cocked his head, looking sideways at Alex. “Then prove it, Kramer. One chance is all you get to be a Marine.”

“I will, Staff Sergeant.”

“Oh yeah? We’ll see if you’ve got what it takes,” the DI said and walked away.

When the dramatic finale for every Marine recruit’s boot camp, the Crucible, got underway, Alex couldn’t wait. He joined all the other determined recruits, ready to be tested morally, physically, and mentally until they had each earned the privilege to be called a United States Marine. All of them wanted to start their traditional fifty-four-hour marathon where recruits marched forty-five miles, conducted military exercises, and overcame battlefield challenges together. Filthy, covered with mud, soaked in sweat, deprived of sleep, and eating only bare rations.

Alex finished marching the final stretch to a replica of the historic Iwo Jima flag-raising statue. He and other recruits stood in close formation with eyes straight ahead. They were physically spent and chock-full of pride.

“Good morning, Charlie Company!” called out a gunnery sergeant, standing atop the base of the replica Iwo Jima statue amid breezy winds. The early morning sun’s orange glow rose on the horizon.

“Good morning, sir!” the chorus of recruits thundered back.

“In a few moments your drill instructors will issue you the Marine Corps’ most respected emblem of honor: the Eagle, Globe, and Anchor,” the Gunny announced with a loud voice and spirited tone. “Think about those who came before you and the proud tradition you now join. You are Marines. Welcome to the Corps. Semper Fidelis, Marines. Always faithful!”

The platoon DIs moved down their squads’ assembled lines one recruit at a time. Gunnery Sergeant Kellerman, Alex’s DI, presented a hardened gaze that reflected a life dedicated to preparing young men for war. The veteran NCO handed Alex his hard-earned badge and shook his hand. “Congratulations and good luck, Kramer.” Kellerman’s words were barely audible but his intent clear.

“Semper Fi, Gunnery Sergeant,” said Alex. He tried to look serious but couldn’t resist a small smile. The DI saw it and nodded. Alex was a Marine now. He had arrived at Parris Island an individual. In short time there, he had become part of something greater than one. All of the recruits looked the same, thought the same, spoke the same because a fighting force had to operate as one team together or it would break down.

On graduation day before heading to the parade field, Alex took one final check of himself in the squad bay mirror. Basic training left him twenty-five pounds leaner than when he arrived. He was now a taut 175 pounds with a thirty-two-inch waist and in top physical condition. He smiled seeing himself in enlisted blue dress uniform with a scarlet stripe down the outer seam of each leg of blue trousers. Firm creases ran down his short-sleeve open collar khaki shirt, and a white enlisted Marine Corps cover sat on his head. “You did it!” Alex shouted and grinned at his reflected image.

He had excelled in so many areas of basic training that he graduated E-2, the uniformed military rank of Private First Class (PFC) in the Marine Corps. The majority of recruits graduated as E-1, or Marine Private.

David and Olivia Kramer waited with hundreds of other parents and family members on the parade field’s grandstands. After the final company of graduating recruits marched sharply under brilliant sunshine past the commanding officer and his staff, families and friends streamed down onto the parade field to greet their new Marine.