Chapter 8

It was late Sunday night before Kyle was back in Stillwater. He called his parents from the bus station and they came to pick him up. He was very tired, near exhaustion from having no sleep since the previous Thursday night. Preparing for the graduation ceremonies, packing, cleaning, polishing shoes and brass and of course, celebrating until it was time to go had deprived him of much needed sleep. His parents were delighted to see him but understood his need for sleep. He woke up about noon, fixed himself a small sandwich and then went back to bed. He joined his parents for dinner and at their insistence, telling them stories about each phase of his training. He saved the best part for last, and although he was certainly not a braggart, he was justifiably proud of his record and his medal.

His mother cried when he told them about the boating mishap and how he helped the other victims to safety. His father, always a conservative in view and beliefs, was a bit skeptical of Kyle's description of his actions until Kyle retrieved the citation for the medal from his duffel bag. Al read the citation aloud to his wife, but became to emotional and handed it to Kyle to finish reading to both of them. Once they had dried their tears and recovered emotionally, he told them about being called to see the Commanding General, and of their conversation. Finally, he told them that the Army was going to send him to college, all expenses paid. Rose did not know how to respond. She wanted to tell everyone in town, call the newspaper and give them a story, and send a letter to all her relatives. Kyle said that the Army had already sent information to the local paper about his award and that he had completed training. Al suggested that it was not necessary to tell everybody about the college thing; it just seemed to be bragging.

Kyle tried calling Stephanie, but she did not answer her cell phone. He tried the Meyer house and there was still no answer. As a last resort, he called Stephanie's best friend. All she could tell hm was that their family had gone out of town for something, and would not be back until the end of the week. She had no idea why or where they went, just that everybody piled in the car and drove off. So Kyle had nothing to do until the end of the week. He stopped by some of his former buddies, but they were all in college or had left town for other locales. He did stop by the high school on Wednesday, just to say high to his old baseball coach. Walking past the Administrative Office, one of the guidance counsellors, Mrs. Wilkins, looked up at just the right time to see Kyle through the door.

She called to him from her office, waiving for him to come back and join her. "You caused quite a stir around here the last week or so."

"I did?" Kyle was very surprised. "I wasn't even in town."

"Oh, I know where you were. First it was some Colonel from the Army calling, wanting to know about your grades, your activities, and your conduct. Then someone else called and wanted to know who all your friends were and where they lived and how to reach them. And then on Friday, some General called to talk to the Superintendent and told him that he was going to send you to the college of your choice and asked that we give you any support or guidance that we could."

"I didn't know."

"As far as I knew, you just went to boot camp. Pardon me for asking it this way, Kyle, but what the hell did you do?"

Kyle started to explain about his training, about his boot camp scores, about his marksmanship and then about the survival school. Mrs. Wilkins became more enthused as he continued his story. She was nearly giddy when he told her about taking over during survival and leading the men to safety. When he got to the part about the boat accident, he didn't think she would want to hear the details, so he just told her that three others were hurt and he helped them.

Mrs. Wilkins had been a counsellor a long time, and she immediately recognized the difference in tone and even his method of describing the events.

She looked him squarely in the eye, "Kyle, I was with you okay until this last part, but I know, as sure as I know my name, that there is more to this story. You didn't just 'help' them. Tell me the rest of it."

Reluctantly, Kyle told her more of the details. "Well, two of the men were badly hurt. They had broken bones, they were bleeding, and they couldn't swim on their own. One by one, I towed them through the water to what was left of our boat and pulled them up onto it. The third man had been knocked unconscious and was bobbing around, drifting away from the rest of us. So I dove back in and pulled him back with us, but we had to wait for a while because the sharks had smelled the blood of the first guys and they were all around the boat. I had to dog paddle with him until they left."

Mrs. Wilkins was in tears before he finished. "They should have given you a medal," she said to him.

"They did," he replied nonchalantly, as if it happened to everyone every day.

It wasn't more than fifteen seconds later when the Superintendent of the Schools walked into Mrs. Wilkins' office. He did not see that she had a visitor. "Mrs. Wilkins, the Army called about that Monson boy again. Do you know that they gave him a medal for something?"

"Yes, sir I did."

"You did?"

"Yes. Sir, This is the young man that you are speaking about. This is Kyle Monson. You need to hear his story."

Kyle repeated the entire story again for the benefit of the Superintendent who immediately wanted to hold an all school assembly to honor the local hero. Kyle would have none of that. There was no way he would stand up in front of everyone like that; he would be terribly embarrassed. All he wanted to do was to be able to see his girlfriend who just happened to be out of town all week for something. No assemblies, no parades, nothing like that. The Superintendent nodded that he understood.

As soon as Kyle left the Administrative Office, Mrs. Wilkins called her sister in law who was the assistant editor of the local paper. She told her the whole story of Kyle's dramatic rescue of the injured comrades, embellishing it slightly, and insisting that the paper write a big story about Kyle. Her sister in law was extremely interested in such a "good news" event and immediately dispatched a photographer to the Monson residence. With only the instruction to obtain a photo of Kyle, in his uniform, the photographer could not explain the what or why of the instruction; he was just doing what he was told to do. Trying to be accommodating, Kyle donned his uniform once again and allowed the photographer to do his job.

With a lead, three fourths of a story and the photo in hand, the editor Mrs. Wilkins was quite surprised to find a press release from the Ranger Public Information Office describing Kyle's medal and, as a courtesy to hometown media, a picture of the General pinning the medal on Kyle's uniform and a copy of the medal citation.