Chapter 14

The kids were growing like weeds and somehow, around Mick’s fourteenth birthday, the word got out among the local girls, that he had a huge cock and that his twelve year old brother was bigger.

Suddenly we had girls all over the house. Mick tried to keep Rory on the straight road, but his little brother had older girls around him all the time. Mick, Rory and I had several long walks in the woods, and we explained the facts of life to Rory. We also set down some rules for him, like I’d done for Mick a few years earlier. First, Rory needed to respect girls. Mick and I explained to him that just as girls had things that boys wanted, namely tits and pussy, the men in our family had something that girls wanted, namely money and big dicks.

We taught him about girls who would trap him with sex and those who would love him for who he was. We taught him to be cautious with his affections. We taught him about rubbers as well. I told him about some of the horrible things that happened to soldiers in France because of venereal diseases. I might have over-exaggerated stories about guys dicks falling off from rot, but it had the effect I wanted.

We also taught him, and this was backed up by his grandmother, that a girl who had sex before marriage wasn’t necessarily a bad girl. Girls liked sex as much as boys, but they weren’t allowed to admit it for fear of being labeled a slut. A boy was a stud, a girl was a slut. It was the man’s duty to not talk about his girls and thereby saving their reputations.

In the end, we tried to teach both the boys to find girls who loved them and whom they could love and then go for it. Once you find the girl you can trust and love, live your life with her to the fullest. He’d seen his mother and I acting all lovey and naked. He understood that love and trust were the keys to our relationship.

It only took a couple of months for him to get it. Mick had a girl drop him because he wouldn’t have sex with her. He had a girl ignore him because he was always surrounded by girls and she didn’t want to get a reputation. He really liked her, and that was his first experience with heartbreak.

Our daughters had a bit of an easier time. Between Patty and my mother, the girls had great, if a little bawdy, role models. Many years later, I found that my mother had told the girls a very little about her life as a whore. She let them know how much fun and pleasure was to be had from sex with a special someone and she warned them of the dangers of boys and men who just wanted to get in their pants for the fun of it.

Betty and Amber were two of the most level-headed kids I’d ever seen. Betty was her mother’s twin in looks, but Amber was so much like my mother it was scary. Betty was proper and focused, while Amber was unabashed and bold. Both had developed their female attributes when they were ten or eleven years old and drew their own amounts of attention from boys. Boys who were too forward, were punished with sharp elbows and kicks to their brand new, just dropped testicles. Boys who were polite and proper, probably got more than they were expecting.

In 1933 things got worse worldwide and Patty moved all of the Foundation’s funds that were in gold into silver. Many countries went off the gold standard, and gold and the US economy continued to fall. With that also came a huge drought in the US Midwest. Crops were wiped out, farms failed, the banks holding their loans failed. People began runs on banks, pulling out their funds and causing more banks to fail.

Patty was running the Foundation for the long run and although we were dented, we didn’t break. And in 1937 things began to look up for us. Patty’s move to silver turned out to be an ingenious move. Other countries in the world who had been on or moved to the silver standard in their currency were doing very well. We went along for the ride.

However, the world was far from getting better. Italy had invaded Ethiopia. China was invaded by Japan. Spain was fighting a civil war. And then on September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland with an army they weren’t supposed to have, using weapons that weren’t supposed to exist. Poland’s allies stood back and did nothing, so Russia moved in and took over the Eastern parts of Poland claiming that country no longer existed.

Britain and the rest of the Commonwealth declared war on Germany and my good son Mick, now seventeen years old, began to understand that the US was going to be pulled into this war. We went for a walk in the woods.

“Dad, if the US enters this war, I’m going to want to enlist.”

“Why?”

“Grandmother says that the O’Dell men don’t walk away from fights with bullies. Germany sure seems to be the biggest bully on the block.”

“I agree with your assessment, but having served, let me tell you this, don’t go into it thinking about glory and honor. You are going to see friends standing next to you one second and then be a smoking hole the next. You will see men do things to other men that you would never dream of in your worst nightmares. You will be trained to kill. You will not be trained to injure or wound, but to kill, or you will die.

“I have heard from friends still in the Army that the Germans have machines that send the art of killing humans to horrific levels. And I’ll tell you right now the only way this war is going to end is when the feet of soldiers are attacking the Germans on German soil. Tell me, son, how hard would you fight, what would you do to an army attacking Boise or the cabin? That’s what you will face if you live that long.”

Mick looked at me with an expression that I wasn’t expecting. I was expecting horror, shock, even fear. But there I saw the look of the boy who had fought the three bullies who had picked on a small boy he didn’t even know.

“Dad, they have to be stopped. I don’t want to be speaking German in a few years.”

“Let’s go and talk to your mother.”

Mick entered West Point with the first class he was eligible for after turning eighteen. His strength of character was noticed by those who knew that he was the son of a man awarded the AMH. Those who assumed that he was riding his father’s coat-tails soon found their hands full of a tough young man who backed away from none and stood by his friends. The phrase many heard after contests in boxing, wrestling, shooting and any other field of competition was “O’Dell is not to be trifled with.”

His graduating class was accelerated two years earlier than normal because of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and because of the recent surrender of over 70,000 troops in the Philippines after the Battles of Bataan and Corregidor. Like many in his class he sat and listened to General Marshall give a stirring graduation speech, with hopes of going to the Pacific to get the Japanese.

Instead, 2^nd Lieutenant Mick O’Dell was assigned to a unit in England. It was a small unit and it was working in conjunction with a British group he had never heard of. They were called the Special Air Service or SAS. He was disappointed to hear that they were a new group, only a year in existence. And, apparently, they weren’t even a combat group! At least that’s what he thought.

When he arrived on station, he and a small group of Americans were greeted by a British Lieutenant Colonel.

“Stand easy, gentlemen. I am Lieutenant Colonel Aubrey-Smythe. And yes, it is pronounced ‘Leftenant’ for the benefit of you Yanks and I expect you to pronounce it as such. You are here because your country has no experience in the secret waging of a war. A single man with a plan and a weapon can save hundreds or thousands of lives. In the course of your assignments with us, you may fight, you may run and hide, you may kill dozens or slit a single throat from behind. You may just hide and listen and gather intelligence so those who make plans to win this war can put us in a better position to do so.

“Your instructor will be Warrant Officer Rickly. Listen to everything he says. Everything he tells you is essential to your success and survival. Do any of you have questions?”

None of us did.

“Very well. Please follow the Corporal to your quarters. Warrant Officer Rickly will be waiting for you. Dismissed.”

We saluted, he saluted, and with that I was officially attached to the SAS. We followed the Corporal to an old brick structure that looked like it had once belonged to a castle. He took us to a room with seven beds.

“Pick one. Stow your gear. Keep things neat.”

He turned and stood by the door just as a very thin man with a huge bushy mustache walked in. The insignia on his sleeve was unfamiliar. This must be our Sergeant, the Brits usually used three stripes just as in the US Army, but this man only had an insignia on his sleeves.

“Gentlemen!” He said in a loud voice immediately gathering our attention. “I am Warrant Officer Rickly. Most of you are Americans, some are Canadian. In your countries Warrant Officer is equal to a Master Sergeant. For the next seven weeks I will be your instructor. Not to be insulting, but I will speak slowly until I am sure that you understand proper English. This is your home, treat it as such. I will not be screaming and yelling at you like raw recruits, because you are all either experienced combat veterans or highly ranked graduates of West Point or Annapolis. But I will teach you in a firm tone. If you fail in your mission, many will die. I don’t want that on your conscience.”

“We will gather in the officers’ mess at 05:30. After breakfast, at 06:15, you will go through orientation on unit structure and purpose. Then we will have lunch in the officers’ mess at 11:30. The afternoon will be a tour of the facilities and a familiarization with the standard issue weapons for this unit. We will pause for tea at 16:00 and then you will be issued your uniforms and given instructions on the proper way to wear it. Dinner will be at 18:30. This evening will be devoted to getting to know your British teammates. They will be trying their utmost to be impressed by you. Questions, gentlemen?”

“Warrant Officer?” I asked.

“Yes, Lieutenant...?” He paused, not knowing my name.

“O’Dell, Warrant Officer. Michael O’Dell, I am called Mick.”

“Yes, Mr. O’Dell, you may address me as Warrant Officer but you may also simply address me as “Sir”. How may I help you?”

“I was in class only a few weeks ago. I try to keep up with things, but I’ve never heard of the SAS before. Are we going to be learning to fly?”

“Lieutenant, you are going to learn a great many skills. I will not go into them here and now. If you have further questions after the orientation at 06:15 please feel free to ask, but I think you will find the orientation to be quite ... informative. Any other questions?”

He paused for an instant, obviously not wanting any more questions.

“Good, seeing none, I suggest that we go to the officers’ mess and get you a meal before you turn in. Get to know each other.”

With that he saluted, we returned it, and he left the room. I looked at the beds, single beds, no bunks like at school. I set my duffel on the closest bed, claiming it for myself. However a rather large man set his duffel next to mine.

“I think I’d rather have this bed. Do you mind?”

I sized the man up. Bigger than me in height and weight. His eyes were sharp, but I doubted if the brain behind them was as sharp.

“Well it seems that I had my duffel there first. Now if you can give me a reason why I should move, I’m willing to listen.”

“Because I want it, little man. That and I think we should take beds from front to back based on dick size.”