Chapter 78

Flashback – Ben – leaving the base

Even though it was hotter than hell, I pulled my military skull mask up over my lower face in hopes that the nurses wouldn’t recognize me. It worked like a charm and I safely made it to the SURV docks without being accosted. I walked up to the officer in charge of the docks and reported, “Colonel Maggie sent me here. I’m supposed to be taken back to Lieutenant George and I believe he’s still at the hospital.

He took one look at my mask and laughed, “Hell that will scare the shit out of the towelheads.”

I offered, “It’s yours if you want it, I was just wearing it to avoid any complications with the nurses.”

He laughed even harder and said, “Hell you’re Sgt. Blaine - let me shake your hand.”

I asked, “What the hell did I do?”

The officer of the dock leaned closer and said, “We’d been trying to get the nurses in bed for months with no luck. You show up, give – I can’t believe the number – twenty of them a good banging and now it’s like they’re all hot to trot. So, you’re a fucking hero on this base. You want dock number three and thanks for offering, but why don’t you keep the mask.”

I headed over to dock number three, climbed in the SURV and it left immediately. I was happy as hell to be off the base again and hoped to not return anytime soon...

Flashback – Jack – Office work

I couldn’t fucking believe it. For being such a great officer, Colonel Maggie’s office was a fucking disaster zone! It looked like Dorothy and the tornado landed in the middle of her office and took up permanent residence. Colonel Maggie ordered, “Start on the pile over there and put them in the first file cabinet.”

I came up with what I thought was a brilliant idea: I began by picking up an armload of files and acting like they slipped out of my hands. Colonel Maggie didn’t even look up from her work as she continued with a new order, “Jack, you’re going to have to try harder than that to make me think you can’t do this work. Now pick up the mess you made and make sure each file is in the proper folder.”

Son of a bitch! How did she know? This time Colonel Maggie looked up at me and said, “Jack, I know you hate the idea of filing, that’s how I know you did that on purpose. Now don’t try that shit on me again or I will put you on latrine duty.”

Hell, latrine duty was the worst duty of all! I continued filing with a much better attitude. Colonel Maggie looked at her watch and said, “Good, the Corporal will be here with our lunch soon.”

About ten minutes later the Corporal showed up with three MREs. He began my apologizing, “Sorry, I tried to do everything Banzai did but they didn’t turn out the same.”

Colonel Maggie said, “Don’t worry son, anything is better than what that so called cook made today.”

The Corporal said, “Yes Sir, some of the Marines were already puking in the garbage cans.”

He handed out the MREs, I took a taste and praised his work, “Hey this is pretty damn good!”

Colonel Maggie tasted hers and added, “Yeah, I like what you did to this, good job Corporal.”

The Corporal looked at the ground and shyly asked, “Colonel Maggie, I really enjoyed making the MREs so I was wondering if it would be possible for me to try to cook a whole meal?”

I added, “Hell, he only has to do as well as the current cook and that’s not much.”

Colonel Maggie wisely suggested, “Corporal, why don’t we send you back to HQ and let you apprentice as a cook?”

He smiled and said, “Gosh Ma’am, you’d really do that for me.”

Colonel Maggie looked at me and asked, “Okay Sgt., where are those transfer orders?”

I knew right where they were, pulled one out of the filing cabinet and handed it to Colonel Maggie. She filled it out, handed it to the Corporal and ordered, “What are you waiting for? Get moving and make sure they don’t fucking keep you because I want you to come back here.”

He thanked her multiple times as he walked out the door, then she looked at me and said, “Well Shit! What are we going to do about an aide for you and Sgt. Blaine?”

I suggested, “Do you have another Corporal handy?”

Colonel Maggie replied, “Yeah, I have almost too many of them. I will figure one out for you and let you know who it is.”

I liked the hell out of this Corporal and I sure hope she found someone just as good.

Flashback – Masha – The next day

I was happy with the way Linda responded to the change in diet as the largest problem was the ‘hidden’ sugars in most of the American foods. I taught myself to be an expert looking for them. The easy part was that most of the ‘hidden’ sugars ended in ‘ose’: Fructose, Sucrose, Dextrose Maltose, but the tricky one was HFCS – High Fructose Corn Sweetener. The more I read about it, the less I liked it. While some scientists even claimed it was just like sugar, if you looked at the studies which found beneficial effects, they were funded by the people who grew corn that made the HFCS.

I went through the cabinets of food that Louise brought how and came up with two big bags of groceries for her to return to the store, I hoped she could get a refund. While it was convenient for her to do that shopping, until I could wean Louise off her sugar addiction I would need to do all the shopping. One of the things that amazed me the most was the baby food: No there wasn’t sugar in most of them, but the first and primary ingredient in most of them was water. I loaded up another whole bag of nothing but baby food. Linda would eat what we ate or I would teach Louise how to can our own baby food.

I decided to start dinner. Tonight we would have a roast with potatoes, carrots and little onions. Jack called it ‘Yankee Pot Roast’ and it was one of his favorites. Linda was down for her nap so it was the perfect time to start the meal. I cleaned and lightly seasoned the meat, put it into a big pan, cleaned all the vegetables placed them nicely around the meat, added some hot water and put it in the oven. In a few hours it should be great.

Louise should be coming home just about the time the roast was ready. I wasn’t sure if she was bringing Brenda and Gwen but if she did there was enough food for them also. I hoped she asked Michael today to help her move out of her apartment and into the house.

Linda began to coo so I knew she was awake. I slipped my head around the corner, she saw me and I said, Бу (boo in Russian). She giggled so we played this little game for a few minutes. I finally picked her up, changed her diaper (which was not nearly as bad now that she didn’t eat sugar) and took her into the living room. She pointed to the television and cooed but I replied, “No television for you, not until we read some books.”

I brought out some of her favorite books and we began to work on her language skill. Even though Louise had not given me permission, I had decided to teach Linda both English and Russian.

Finally we heard keys in the front door, Louise walked in and commented, “You two look like you’re having fun. Linda points at Louise and said, Mama.” Louise dropped everything on the floor, ran over and said, “That was her first word.”

I didn’t have the heart to tell her that Linda had been talking for about a week. Louise picked up Linda and smothered her in kisses, then she remarked, “What smells so good?”

I replied, “Dinner, we are having one of Jack’s favorite meals: Yankee Pot Roast.”

Louise looked a little guilty and asked, “Masha, I hope you don’t mind but Brenda and Gwen are coming over. I told them about the Taebo and they wanted to try it after dinner.