Chapter 9

"What do you mean he's staying with me?" asked Claudia Strangline. Her level of hostility had gone way down when she first got someone from the Soldier Family Assistance Center on the line. They were very polite. "If my brother was staying with me, would I be calling you to find out where he is and if he was all right?" Her voice rose almost an octave as she delivered the last sentence.

"Ma'am, our records show him on convalescent leave at the home of his next of kin. That's you ma'am. You are Claudia Strangline, right?"

"Yes," she said helplessly. "I'm his next of kin, but he isn't here."

"He's been gone from Walter Reed for almost two weeks," said the woman on the phone. "If he hasn't arrived in Boonville by now, something must have gone wrong."

"Boonville? I'm not in Boonville!" said Claudia, exasperated.

"Ma'am, I'm reading your address right off his DD Form 93, and it's filled out in his own handwriting. It says you live in Boonville, Missouri."

"Boonville?" Claudia thought her head was going to explode. "Give me the address," she said.

"I'm afraid I can't do that, Ms Strangline," said the voice, which sounded much less helpful suddenly. "That information is protected by the privacy act."

"You can't give me my own address?" asked Claudia, acidly.

"Ma'am ... whoever you are ... if you're really his sister you should know your own address."

The line went suddenly dead.

Claudia hitched up the papoose sling that draped across her front, holding little Tony. She had brought him with her because he was her son, and Bob's nephew, and because she was breast feeding. She had expected it to be difficult to get through the gate at Fort Riley, but nothing could have been simpler. All she had to do was show her driver's license. She didn't even have to say why she had come. It was so easy that she took the chance of asking how to get to post headquarters. She was delighted when the gate guard not only told her how far it was, but gave her a photocopied map with the route and building number on it.

She was further surprised to find abundant parking spaces right next to the building she was looking for, identified as Headquarters, Ft. Riley and 1st Infantry Division.

But most surprising of all was the response when she told a young man with a single dull brass bar on his collar why she was there, what she had been through so far, that she expected answers, and that she wasn't leaving until she got them. He simply smiled and said someone would be with her in a moment. Then he offered her a comfortable chair and made a telephone call.

Ten minutes later a young woman in uniform came to get her and took her to an office. There was a gruff looking man with a little silver hair surrounding an otherwise bald head sitting behind a desk. He rose as she was ushered in.

"I'm Command Sergeant Major Beck," he said, smiling and holding out his hand. "Won't you sit down?"

"Are you as important as a First Sergeant?" she asked, hesitantly. "Bobby always said if you want something to really happen you have to talk to the First Sergeant."

The man smiled. "I'm kind of like the First Sergeant for the whole post," he said. "If I can't help you, I know somebody who can. Why don't you tell me why you're here."

So she did. She told him the whole story, about her disastrous pregnancy, and losing touch with Bobby because of it, and how he had no one else, and had been injured and sent to Walter Reed, and somehow someone pretending to be her had spirited him away to Missouri, and how the Army wouldn't help her find him. He listened without asking any questions. When she finally ran down he said "Do you happen to have any identification with you?" Her mouth set, and he held up a hand. "It would help me help you," he said.

She handed him her driver's license and Tony began fussing. "I need to feed him," she said apologetically.

"By all means, don't let me stop you," said one of the most important and powerful men at Ft. Riley, Kansas.

She had chosen this particular papoose rig because she didn't have to take Tony out of it to nurse him. She simply leaned forward, to get a little room to work, and unbuttoned her blouse. A flip on the cap of her nursing bra exposed a nipple and when she leaned back, Anthony latched on and started noisily sucking. The man behind the desk was frozen, poised with the phone halfway to his ear, and she realized he'd watched the whole process. She blushed.

Beck came unfrozen and started speaking into the phone. He asked for various people, and then used Bobby's name and rank several times.

"No, I don't have a social," he said. "How many Hickories can there be? He's got to be Big Red One. That's who's deployed. No, I don't want you to call me back. I want you to find it now, while I wait."

He put his hand over the lower part of the phone. "They're working on it now," he said. "Would you like something to drink?"

"I'd kill for a Classic Coke," she said.

"No killing necessary," he smiled. He pushed a button on the front of his desk and the girl in uniform popped in through the open door.

"Couple of Cokes, Cassie," he said. "You want ice?" he asked Claudia. She nodded and he turned back to the girl. "Me too," he said. She vanished. He became more alert and listened into the phone.

"What's the leave address?" he asked. He wrote something down. "Hold one," he said into the phone. He looked at Claudia. "You're right. He's on leave in Boonville, Missouri, listed as the address of one each sister, with your name. I sense a problem here." He went back to the phone. "Look at our file copy of his DD 93. Who's on it? Is that the only name? What address is listed?" He listened and looked at her driver's license again. "Bring me that 93." He listened. "No, I do not want a faxed copy. I want our file copy ... in my hand ... ASAP. In fact, bring the whole personnel file." He hung up.

While he had been talking the girl had appeared with two glasses full of ice cubes, and two red cans of Coca Cola. She had opened one and poured it for Claudia. The other she set on Beck's desk, unopened, beside his glass. She disappeared again.

Now he opened the can and poured before looking at Claudia.

"We'll figure out what happened," he said. "There seems to be a discrepancy between his leave address and your address in Arkansas."

"Oh!" she said, wide eyed. "We don't live in Arkansas any more. While I was in the hospital with Tony, here, my husband got a promotion and we had to move to Kansas City. I haven't gotten my license in Kansas yet."

"Really," he said, his voice dry. "Actually, I'm rather glad you've been tardy about that, because your license and our copy of his emergency notification card are the only things that are agreeing on anything right now. If your license had your new address on it, things would still be at the preliminary stages."

Bob was intelligent enough to know that if this had even a prayer of working well, he needed to go through the bureaucracy. It was for that reason that, when he was stopped by school security, he said he needed to speak with the principal. He'd allowed an hour of extra time, both because he knew there might be delays, and because he had nothing better to do with it. In any event, if he got no cooperation, it would allow him to adapt, improvise and overcome any obstacles on his mission. When asked what the nature of his visit was, he simply said that he was an Iraqi vet, had gotten some Any Soldier mail and wanted to talk to the principal about it.

He was mildly surprised to find that the principal was a woman.

"Hello," she said, beaming at him. "I'm Judith French. What can I do for you?"

He explained about Miss Miller's second grade class, and the letters they'd written. He explained that he'd been injured, and that his traumatic brain injury had robbed him of the memory of the letters themselves. He explained about his recovery.

"And now you want to meet the children," said Mrs. French.

"Well ... yes ... but that's not actually why I'm here," he admitted.

"You said your injury gave you amnesia," she said.

"Something like that," he said. "I was told that I wrote to each child at one time or another, but I can't remember that."

"And who told you this?" she asked.

He started to say "Julia." He got out the first three letters, in fact, before he stopped. "Um ... Miss Miller," he said.

"She wrote you another letter?" Mrs. French raised one eyebrow.

"She was worried about me when I stopped writing. She sort of came to find me at Walter Reed," he said. He wasn't sure how much to say about events. He didn't know, for example, what Julia's excuse for missing school had been when she came to see him. The last thing he wanted to do was get her in trouble.

"So why, exactly, are you here, Sergeant Hickory?" Mrs. French leaned forward.

Bob's eyes darted away, but came back immediately. It was do or die, so he did.

"I asked her to marry me," he said softly. "She said I had to ask her at seven minutes after two today."

"I don't understand," said Mrs. French.

"She said it's crazy for me to want to marry her ... that things have happened too quickly since we met. But instead of saying no, she just said I'd have to ask her at seven minutes after two today ... while she's in class."

"And she thought you wouldn't do that," said Mrs. French, smiling widely.

"Apparently," said Bob, a little uncomfortably.

She sat back in her chair. "Suppose you ask her, today, in her classroom ... and she says no."

Bob sat there. "I won't give up," he said. "I love her."

"Yes, I rather suspect you do, Sergeant," said the woman. She picked up her phone and punched a couple of numbers before speaking. "Tom, could you come in here please?"

A man, possibly in his early thirties, came into the door. He looked at Judith, and then at Bob, and then back to Judith.

"Tom," she said, smiling, "This is Sergeant Hickory, recently serving in Iraq until he was injured and sent back to the States. I think Sergeant Hickory is what happened to Julia Miller."

"Really?" Tom looked very interested.

"Sergeant, this is Tom Whittaker, my vice principal, here at David Barton. We have noticed ... shall we say ... a rather stark change in Miss Miller's behavior the last few weeks." She looked at Tom. "Sergeant Hickory is here asking our permission to propose marriage to Julia ... in her classroom." She looked at her watch. "In thirty-nine minutes."

Whittaker's eyebrows rose. "Thirty nine minutes?"

"It's a long story," said French. "He'll require an escort, of course."

At the exact same instant one man said "You mean I can do it?" while the other said "You mean you're going to let him?"

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Any Soldier

Lubrican

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