Chapter 4

Private First Class Alvin Shay, from Ames, Iowa, was officially pronounced deceased at 2250 hours. I escorted PFC Shay’s body to the Pathology Lab where blood was drawn to eliminate drugs or alcohol as a possible cause of the accident. From Pathology I accompanied the remains to the hospital morgue. Ironically, just two weeks ago I toured these same areas with my SOCoM Class. When the morgue attendant took possession of Shay, the medic who brought the gurney out to the helipad cut me loose and I made my way to the ER to check on Sergeant Hall.

I came through the hospital entrance to the Emergency Room, and it was easy enough to find Sergeant Hall because there was a medical convention happening in one of the treatment rooms. I stood in the hallway peeking into the room as the emergency room crew worked frantically to save his life. I stepped aside as a Staff Sergeant medic exited the room carrying a half dozen vacutainers of blood.

“You can’t be here, Specialist,” she said.

“I treated him on the DZ, and came in with him on the MEDEVAC,” I explained gesturing to my blood-stained uniform.

The medic nodded her head and said, “Okay, but stay out of the way.”

It took a couple of hours, but they managed to stabilize Hall. His list of injuries was extensive, and his prognosis was not good. I was out in the lobby to grab a candy bar and a cup of ‘Joe’ when I spotted a knot of soldiers around a crying pregnant woman. Hall’s wife, I guessed. It was a scene that I wasn’t about to intrude on.

I stayed in the ER until Sergeant Lester Hall was transported to the fourth floor Intensive Care Unit. Then I caught a ride back to the barracks from a medic getting off duty at seven the next morning. My night as a drop zone medic was a complete disaster; and, as I was to about to learn, it wasn’t over yet. I walked into barracks just as the First Sergeant was coming in from PT (Physical Training). Top was an old school Special Forces medic with twenty years of service. He stopped me in the entrance way.

“Rough night, huh, Pulaski?” he asked.

I nodded and said, “That’s for sure, First Sergeant.”

“It’s okay to be down when you lose your first casualty, son; and, if you are a good medic, it never gets easier. Now hit the rack but expect to not be in it long, because I’m sure someone will be here shortly to question you,” he said.

The First Sergeant was right, because just after 1300 hours a runner rousted me out of a nice dream full of hot red heads in miniskirts!

“You’re wanted down in the Orderly Room,” he said.

I groggily threw on a clean uniform and splashed a gallon or two of cold water on my face, and then I trotted down to the orderly room. When I went through the Orderly Room’s open door the company clerk pointed towards the conference room. I nodded and knocked on the closed door.

“Enter,” someone called.

I opened the door and saw a Lieutenant Colonel whose name tag read ‘Greer,’ sitting at the conference table next to my Company Commander. I was leery of most officers, but an unsmiling Lieutenant Colonel was intimidating to a rookie Spec Four. Across the table from the LTC sat Major Regina Hayes, and a Staff Sergeant. Both had notebooks in front of them and Regina had a small tape recorder. I snapped to attention and saluted the Colonel.

“Sir, Specialist Pulaski reports,” I barked.

The Colonel returned my salute, put me at ease and told me to have a seat.

“Specialist Pulaski, I have been appointed by the 18^th Airborne Corp Commander to investigate the death of PFC Shay. I have a few questions about the airborne operation you covered last night, but first let me introduce you to my team. This is Major Hayes, she is the JAG officer assigned to the investigation and Staff Sergeant Phillips is from the Inspector General’s office. His job is to take notes and act as a witness to the proceedings,” he said.

Then LTC Greer looked at Regina.

“Major Hayes,” was all he said.

Regina nodded her head and looked down at a form laying on the table. Regina was all business, and she scared the shit out of me by reading me my rights and having me sign a form to acknowledge she had done so.

“Am I in trouble?” I asked.

“Just a formality,” LTC Greer replied.

Turns out he had more than a few questions. He quizzed me for thirty minutes, often circling back to ask the same question from a different perspective. He was particularly interested in the fact that I’d seen the actual collision between the two jumpers through the night vision device. I had to repeat three times the fact that Shay was the one who ran into Hall. He asked me why I thought that.

“Shay hit the ground first with Hall’s feet caught in his suspension lines. I saw a gust of wind hit the lower jumper, he started to oscillate and cut underneath the other jumper. His canopy got tangled with the upper jumper’s feet. Both canopies partially collapsed, and they started falling like a rock. When they hit the ground, Hall landed on Shay and that’s the way we found them,” I explained.

LTC Greer thanked and dismissed me with the caveat that the inquiry team might call on me again.

I went back to my room but couldn’t sleep, so I took a chance and called Elaine. I lucked out and she was out of class for the day. She knew immediately that something was wrong, so I told her about how being unable to save PFC Shay was weighing on me. She commiserated with me over his death, and just talking to her made me feel better.

At exactly 1700 my phone rang. So, you know it was Captain ‘Punctuality’ Jordan, right? She and Elaine should write a book!

“Oh My God, Johnny! Regina told me what happened. Jesus, that’s terrible. Are you okay? Do you want to talk about it?”

Although I was feeling down, I replied that I was fine. I was a member of the Ranger Regiment what was I supposed to say?

“That was a stupid question, of course you are down. Are we still on for tonight? I’ll understand if you need to be alone,” she said.

“No, being with you is exactly what I need. What do you want to do, Babe?”

I heard her take a breath.

“I want us to spend the weekend together. I am protected now, and we can make love with nothing between us. It will be the first time for me without a condom, and the first time with someone I actually care for,” she said.

That was unexpected! This day had been a long time coming and it was just the thing to take my mind off the drop zone debacle.

“I’ll pack my bugout bag. How soon can you get here?” I asked.

“I’m already here, so get your butt in gear,” she replied.

I got my butt in overdrive, and in fewer than five minutes I was sitting in her passenger seat.

“That was quick,” she said.

“I’m a motivated trooper,” I replied.

She laughed, threw the car into Drive, and floored it. We screeched out of the parking lot as if we were escaping from a bank robbery. I noticed right away that there was nothing between her big Hazel eyes and me.

“Where are your glasses?” I asked.

“Contacts,” she replied, “I’m trying them out for thirty days. What do you think?”

“I think you have beautiful eyes, glasses or not,” I said.

We made the trip to her place in record time. When we arrived, the house was empty.

“Regina went down to Charleston to visit her family for the long weekend. It was a last-minute thing, so I didn’t know about it until it was time to get you. I was so excited I forgot to tell you.” Becky explained all in a rush.

We were barely in the door when she grabbed me in a torrid lip lock. I was hot to trot until instead of jumping into bed, Becky headed for the bathroom.

“I’m going to take a shower, I’ll be back in a few minutes,” she said.

Women, right? One minute she’s all over me and the next she disses me for her shower massager.

I was sitting on the couch with my shoes off channel surfing for sports on their big screen when I heard Becky clear her throat. I looked up and there she stood in the doorway wearing a red and white babydoll nightie and a sultry smile. I jumped up, made a caveman grunting noise and stalked towards her. She squeaked and dashed towards her bedroom, me hot on her trail. We were both laughing as she tumbled onto the bed. She watched me with big eyes as I set a new world record for getting naked.

When I was standing next to bed in my birthday suit, Kong waving in front of me, she sat up and reached for the hem of her babydoll top.

I wagged my finger at her.

“Uh-uh,” I said, “that’s mine to do.”

She nodded, hopped off the bed and stood in front of me with her hands up in the air. I Peeled off her top and admired what I’d uncovered. Becky was slimmer now and had some definition to her abs. Her breasts seemed slightly smaller, but they hardly sagged at all, she would easily pass the pencil test. I dropped to my knees and pulled her lacy panties down her toned legs and then sat back on my heels to admire her. Becky had a sparse brown bush that had been trimmed away from her nether lips. It was an extremely attractive look on her.

“Turn around,” I said.

I think this was the moment she’d been waiting for because she pirouetted like a ballet dancer and struck a hipshot pose. Becky did not have a small ass, her hips flared out from her narrow waist, and she had an unblemished ‘bubble butt.’ Her uniform hid that Kim Kardashian ass when she was on duty, and she wore loose trousers and long baggy sweaters when she wore civies. She looked over her shoulder to see my reaction and then she swiveled her hips like a hula dancer. True to her promise when we first started dating, now a quarter would absolutely bounce off her butt. Her glutes looked as if she could crack a walnut between her cheeks.

“You look amazing! How did you get in such good shape in four months?” I asked.

She turned back around and told me.

“I was a dancer and gymnast when I was younger, up until my butt started blossoming. I have always stayed in shape. I just got lazy in the last year. I was concentrating on my job, and I let myself go. Meeting you galvanized me to change that. You made me see there was more to life than my career.”