Chapter 141: Funerals

After that, I left the podium and exited out a side door. There wasn’t going to be any schmoozing in the aisles tonight. Once outside the chamber, I sent somebody in to find the Commandant of the Marine Corps and ask him to see me for a minute or two. I smiled as I considered that. Once upon a time if a senior officer ‘asked’ me to do something, it was really an order. Now I was the one doing the asking. My, how Second Lieutenant Buckman had grown up.

Marilyn and the kids showed up about a minute before the Commandant did. I knew when that happened because suddenly Charlie’s eyes got wide and he came to attention, making his sisters stare at him briefly. I twisted to look to my right and found the Commandant also coming to attention. I chuckled and said, “As you were, the both of you.”

“You asked to see me, sir?”

“Yes, thank you for coming over, General. I appreciate it. This really concerns my son, Charlie.”

Charlie’s eyes bugged out again and he coughed out a squeaky, “Me!”

The Commandant chuckled and said, “Settle down, Lance Corporal.” He turned to me and asked, “What can I do for you, sir?”

“Two things, really. First, we need to get the Lance Corporal back to Camp Lejeune tomorrow.”

He nodded and turned to his aide, a full colonel. “Set that up, please.”

There was a mumbled, “Sir”’, in response.

“Secondly,”, I continued, “I simply want to make sure that you, and through you the Marine Corps, understands that Lance Corporal Buckman is to continue being treated as Lance Corporal Buckman. I mean no disrespect, but I know it would be tempting for some officers to change his assignments or how he is treated because of who his father is.”

I received a smile at that from the General. “Understood, sir, I will take care of this.”

I then turned to Charlie and said, “Charlie, I can’t promise that people won’t know who you are or who I am. This is the best I can do. As for anything else, you’re a Marine, and I expect you to suck it up.”

My son came to attention and barked out, “Aye, aye, sir!” which made me roll my eyes and the Commandant chuckle.

“General, thank you for your time. I’m sure I’ll be talking to you soon,” I ended things.

“Of course, sir. Thank you.” He shook my hand, and then reached out and shook Charlie’s hand before heading out.

I turned back to my family, and saw that Marilyn was standing away slightly, her cell phone to her ear, and one hand over her other ear, so she could hear the conversation. She had a look of horror on her face, and tears were forming. She looked to be in shock, and she hung up the phone and stared at me. “What’s wrong?” I asked.

“It’s Harlan! He’s dead!”

“WHAT?”

“That was Anna Lee. She’s been trying to reach us but couldn’t get through the switchboard. She finally found a number for Tusker and Tessa and got a number from them. It’s Harlan! He was at the Pentagon Tuesday. He’s dead!” She began crying.

The blood drained from me. Oh God, but my sins were piling up fast! “Sweet Jesus!” I exclaimed quietly.

I led the family over to a bench on the side of the hallway and sat down with them. Marilyn and the girls were crying, and Charlie was muttering curses under his breath. Several people were staring or trying to get my attention, but I ignored them. I pulled out my phone and turned it on and called the switchboard. A minute later I was talking to Anna Lee.

“Anna Lee, it’s Carl. What happened?”

“Carl, it’s Harlan. He was at the Pentagon when ... when ... they just notified us. They couldn’t ... couldn’t ... Oh God, Carl! How could this happen? He was just going over there to meet somebody!” she wailed.

“Where are you at? Are you at the house? When can we come over?” Marilyn reached out and took my free hand and nodded at me.

“We’re at the funeral home. We’re just about to leave and go home,” she told me.

“We’ll meet you at the house.”

“Thank you!”

I hung up and slipped my phone back in my pocket. I stood up and helped Marilyn to her feet. She was no longer crying, but her eyes were puffy and wet. The kids looked confused and hurt. They might not have been as close as Harlan and me, but they had played with their children and been on vacations with them. I turned to the nearest Secret Service Agent and said, “Change of plans. We are heading over to the Buckminster residence in Alexandria, not the Naval Observatory.”

He looked shocked and said, “Mister President, we can’t...” Then he stopped as he saw the look in my eyes. “Yes sir, understood.” He began speaking into his mike. “Jumper is on the move, diverting to...”

Jumper was my Secret Service codename, taken from my time in the 82^nd. I recalled when it had been assigned to me that it was a name taken from one of Clancy’s books. Marilyn’s codename was Jelly Jar, after the jams and jellies we made together, and it irked her to no end. I had damn near died laughing when I first heard it. The kids were Biker, Trouble One, and Trouble Two at my suggestion. They liked their codenames.

There had been some plans to go over to the White House at some point and meet some people, but it wasn’t anything that couldn’t be put off. The Buckminsters had bought a split level in a fairly typical upscale suburban development in Alexandria. Anna Lee had commented to me at the time that it was the first place they had lived that she didn’t have to plan for their next move. We had a convoy of lead and chase cars and my limo and a dummy limo to act as a decoy. When we got there, a lead car had already arrived and ‘secured’ the area. With my luck they had probably shot the neighbors. The Secret Service had a level of institutional arrogance and chutzpah beyond anything I had ever run across.

After we got out, I ignored my protectors and simply walked to the front door and knocked. An agent was already inside, and he opened the door, and looked around, then allowed us in. Anna Lee and Mary Beth were sitting on the couch together, and Tyrone was off to the side. Marilyn immediately sat down next to Anna Lee, and they hugged. The twins sandwiched Mary Beth between them. They were just a year or so younger than Mary Beth, who was a college freshman at Virginia Tech. Tyrone was still in high school, a freshman or sophomore, I thought.

Tyrone was the only one by himself, so I went over to him and reached out and shook his hand. Charlie followed along behind me. Tyrone was like a robot, moving on remote control. I went into the dining room and grabbed a chair and brought it back and sat down next to him. “Tyrone.” He didn’t say anything or even look at me. I put my hand on his knee and nudged him. “Tyrone, Earth to Tyrone.”

Tyrone smiled and turned his head, and then got serious again. “Sorry about that, Uncle ... Mister ... what do I call you now, Mister President?”

I chuckled at that. “Whatever you want, Tyrone. If you want to call me Uncle Carl, go ahead. If you think you’re too old for that, just call me Carl. I won’t mind. Tell your brother and sister the same thing.” He nodded at that. I looked over at the sofa, where all the women were crowded together hugging and crying. “I’m not ready for that. Where can we talk?”

“Yeah. Let’s go in the family room.” Charlie and I followed him down a half flight of stairs into their finished basement. He plopped down on the couch, and I sat down in an old armchair next to him. I sent Charlie off to find a few cold cans of Coke. “I don’t know which is worse, the not knowing for the last few days, or the knowing, now,” said Tyrone.

“Tell me what happened, Tyrone.”

“I mean, it was just a normal day. Dad said he was going over to the Pentagon to meet some people, and then after lunch he was going back to his office, but after the plane hit, we never heard nothing. Mom tried to call him but had to leave him a voicemail and he never called. He never came home, and we couldn’t get anybody to answer our calls when she called over there. A cop showed up today and told us!”

“Oh, shit!” I muttered quietly. “What’d he say?”

“Oh, man, it was awful. He said they had a body, with Dad’s wallet and identification, at the morgue. He wasn’t a soldier anymore, so they had the police tell us,” he answered.

“Oh, shit!”

“I mean, he wasn’t rude about it or nothing, but ... I mean, how do you tell somebody something like that? Do you have to take lessons or something?”

I shrugged. “Yeah, in the Army you do have to take lessons in it. They have special teams to do that.”

“Man, that must suck.”

“I don’t think I could do it, Tyrone,” I told him. “Have you guys gotten in touch with Roscoe?”

“Mom called, but they’re on lockdown. She left a message with somebody.”

I sighed. “Maybe I can do something about that. Let’s go talk to your mom.”

Roscoe Buckminster was a first-class cadet at West Point, what everybody else would call a senior. Roscoe had wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps in the Army but decided to apply to West Point. Since their official address of record was still in Mississippi, when Harlan had asked me for a little help, I spoke with one of their Senators and did a little horse-trading for his appointment. It was routine Congressional back scratching, but the Buckminsters were suitably impressed. It wasn’t a college lifestyle I would have enjoyed, but Roscoe seemed to like it.

We went back upstairs, and I found the girls were off in Mary Beth’s room and Charlie went in search of them. I sat down next to Anna Lee and said, “Tyrone told me you tried to reach Roscoe, but they were locked down. Did you ever reach him?”

“No. Can you call him?”

“You bet.” I wasn’t terribly surprised. When we went to DEFCON 3, they locked up the military bases, and by definition West Point was a military base. They had probably issued bazookas to the cadets and told them to man the wire. I looked around the room and found my Personal Assistant, Mindy, and waved her towards me. Mindy had been my assistant since my Congressional days, had followed me to the West Wing when I became the VP, and was still with me. How she had managed to do all that and get married and have two kids at the same time was a most impressive feat of time management! Now she was back at work, even though her mother had just died, probably as a matter of personal therapy.

“Grab a pad and pen and start taking some notes.” I pulled out my cell phone and called the switchboard. “Get me the Superintendent of West Point, or if he’s not there, whoever is in charge. Call me back as soon as you can.” I flipped the phone shut and said, “As soon as they call, we’ll get you on the line with Roscoe. Mindy, we’ll probably need to make some arrangements to get him back here.”

“Thank you, Carl,” Anna Lee said.

“Did you and Harlan ever talk about where he wanted to be buried?” Marilyn and I had decided on a small public cemetery in Dulaney Valley. Since I wasn’t Catholic, we couldn’t both be buried in a Catholic cemetery. “I can make arrangements for Arlington, I’m sure.”

She shook her head. “No, Harlan wanted to go home. He wanted to be buried at the family plot in Buckminster.”

“Fair enough.” Just at that, the phone I was holding buzzed. I flipped it open. “Hello?”

“Lieutenant General William Lennox, sir. How can I help you?”

“General, thank you for calling. Are you still on lockdown there?” I asked.

“No sir, but we have been conducting drills and inspections. Is there a problem, sir?” he asked.

“Yes, I’m afraid so. You have a cadet there, a first-class cadet, Roscoe Buckminster. We just discovered his father was at the Pentagon when the planes hit. I need to speak to him, please.”

“Yes, sir. Give me five minutes and I’ll get him.”

“Don’t say anything to him, General. Let me do that. Afterwards, I’ll need to speak to you again.” I could hear the phone being set down, so I handed it to Mindy. “Keep an ear on that. When you get somebody, I’ll take it. Thanks.” She took the phone and nodded and moved away, to sit at a dining room table.

It took a little over five minutes, but not by much. I had no doubt that I had just initiated a world class goat rope at the Military Academy, which would have been funny any time but now. Who was this Buckminster kid? Where was he? What was he doing there? Get his ass in here! NOW!

I simply sat there quietly, with Tyrone to one side, while Marilyn and Anna Lee commiserated with each other. I gathered one of the problems was a snafu with the switchboard. They had recognized Harlan on my list of Anytime Anywhere callers, like the Tusks, Marty, Brewster, Suzie, and most of Marilyn’s family, but somehow had missed Anna Lee. I would have Mindy check on that. I was jolted out of that reverie when I heard Mindy say, “Please hold for the President of the United States.” She came back to us and handed me the telephone.

I wasn’t sure if I was going to be speaking to the General or Roscoe. “Hello?” I said.

“One second, Mister President. I have Cadet Buckminster here,” answered Lennox.

There was a bit of phone shuffle, and then Roscoe’s clear tenor came through. “Cadet Lieutenant Buckminster!”

I glanced at his mother and decided it would be better for me to break the news. “Roscoe, it’s Carl Buckman.”

“Yes, sir, Unc ... Mister President.”

“Roscoe, I have some bad news for you. Your father was at the Pentagon when the plane hit. I’m sorry, son, but your dad didn’t make it.”

I caught a hitch in his voice. “Dad ... he’s...”

“Roscoe, I have your mom here. Hold on.” I handed Anna Lee my phone and then sagged back into the cushion. There is no good way to do this. Some people simply can’t do it. They can’t say the words. I remembered back when Mark and Lauren had their accident on my first go, and lost their oldest girl, Nicki. Gabriel was my boss at the time when I was running Cooperstown and got the job of calling me, and through me, telling Marilyn. He literally couldn’t say the words, but kept spouting things like,

Gabriel: ‘Nicki had a bad accident.’

Me: ‘How bad?’

Gabriel: ‘Bad!’

Me: ‘How bad?’

Gabriel: ‘Real bad.’

Me: ‘Gabe, how bad?’

Gabriel: ‘Bad.’

It took me about a half dozen or more tries to get him to say the words, that Nicki was dead. He simply couldn’t do it. It would have almost been funny if it wasn’t so horrid.

I sat there with my thoughts as Anna Lee cried and talked to her son, and then she handed the phone back to me. I picked it up and held it to my ear. “Hello?”

“It’s General Lennox, sir. You asked to speak to me.”

“How is Roscoe, General?

“He’s a bit in shock. As soon as we hang up, I am going to speak to his tactical officer and get some of his friends to be with him,” I was told.

I wasn’t sure what a tactical officer did, but it wasn’t important. “General, I don’t want to upset your applecart, but I assume you have some procedure for compassionate leave in a case like this.”

“Yes, sir. We’ll figure something out and try to get him home tomorrow. If he can’t fly, we’ll get him on a train to New York, and then he can get a train from there.”

“The airports will be opening again tomorrow, but I’m not sure when he’ll be able to fly. Just get him to the nearest airport tomorrow and I’ll get a plane there. I’ll let you talk to my assistant about that. Hold a second.” I held out my hand and gave the phone to Mindy. “We can send my G-IV to pick him up. Fly him back here and then we’ll fly the family to Mississippi as needed. Figure it out with the General.”

“Got it.” She took the phone.

I turned to Anna Lee. “We’ll get Roscoe back here. After that, we’ll get you and the family and Harlan back home. Call me when he gets here. If you can’t reach me, call Marilyn. We’ll give you Mindy’s card, too.”

“Thank you.” She gave me a funny look. “You’re really the President, aren’t you? If Harlan was here, he would be laughing his ass off at you right now.”

I snorted out a laugh of my own. “He’d have died from laughing too hard, and we’d be back here anyway! He never did have a good thing to say about politicians after he spent time with me on Armed Services!” I shook my head and smiled in remembrance of him.

“I know you’re going to be really busy, but if you could come to the funeral ... I mean, I know that you can’t do that stuff now, but maybe call us that day,” she asked.

“Call us when you have the details. Give me a day’s notice and I’ll see what I can do.” I told her. The Secret Service was going to hate it, but if I could swing it, I would.

We all went over to the Naval Observatory and went to bed. I didn’t bother listening to the late-night television. I was heartily sick of the 24-hour news stations trying to come up with one more piece to yap about. By now the conspiracy theorists were claiming that I had managed to do all this, because I was a secret member of a terrorist group, so that the Muslims could take over the world. If they only knew how right they were (although not in the details!) If it was important, somebody could wake me up. I went to bed thinking about my actions this last week. Was I right or wrong? I had tried every way I could to avoid this, yet here I was.

Saturday, I went into the office and found that things had been moved into the Oval Office. The Bushes were still up at Camp David. I had a visit from the Commanding General of the Military District of Washington, the guy who owns all the ceremonial troops around the city. The Army runs state funerals, which is what the memorial service for George was going to be. They had dusted off the funeral service for JFK, and then started editing it, since it’s real hard to bury somebody who ain’t around to bury! Kennedy had lain in his casket in the White House for twenty-four hours, and then a horse drawn artillery caisson took the casket to the Rotunda of the Capitol. After twenty-four hours of laying in state in the Capitol, in an even bigger march back to the White House, then on to St. Matthews Cathedral, and then on to Arlington.

Thankfully, I didn’t have to make any decisions on this. The General had been in touch with President Bush at Camp David and gone over a plan with him. We would basically use the Kennedy funeral plans, only with an empty casket. It would lie in state, first at the White House for a day, then another day at the Rotunda in the Capitol, and finally be transported to Arlington for interment on Thursday. Eventually it would get a perpetual flame like Kennedy’s. I called the Bushes at Camp David to go over some of this with them. I talked to the first President Bush several times, and I called Laura at one point Tuesday afternoon during the mad scramble. Now I was able to speak to Barbara as well, though the twins were still too broken up to speak.

It was rather maudlin and grotesque, I thought, but I really couldn’t criticize. We did have to make a change, though. By late Saturday morning, Roscoe was linked up with his family, and by that evening they were all, including Harlan in his casket, in Buckminster, with plans for a Sunday viewing and a Monday funeral. Anna Lee had asked us to attend the funeral and speak for Harlan. At that point I called Josh and informed him of my plans. Now I had to write a eulogy for Harlan on my own and let the Secret Service and the 89^th Airlift know what was going to happen. They would hate me for this!

The President of the United States doesn’t just go somewhere. Security is simply crazy! The assholes who want to kill him are numbered in the thousands or more. When he flies off to someplace, it’s not just him but an entourage of hundreds of people. For instance, my flight to Jackson for Harlan’s funeral (the closest big city to Buckminster) would involve the following. An advance team of Secret Service agents would head down a couple of days before to scout out Jackson and Buckminster. The local cops would be called in and informed about what was happening and what would be required. The Secret Service got first call on all resources. If the locals were chasing a crazed serial killer and the Secret Service wanted the manpower, the serial killer would be left on the loose.

I wasn’t planning on staying overnight, but if I was, they would find a room and set up security. That would probably involve agents investigating every employee and guest of the hotel and checking his or her name against various watch lists of local wackos. Rooms would be cleared out, reservations would be cancelled for other guests, and service deliveries would be investigated. Dozens of agents might be involved.

Prior to Air Force One showing up, one or two C-5 Galaxies would arrive, carrying the armored limo and a bunch of armored Chevrolet Suburban security SUVs, known as ‘War Wagons’. Fuel would be bought for the planes, tested for safety, and then stored in tanker trucks with armed guards around it. Helicopters for local flights might be ferried in or packed into the C-5s for reassembly on site. Doctors would be present. In some places food and water are brought in. This was all choreographed to look seamless - the Big Man flies in and things are ready to go. Mind you, this was for visits to friendly places. If I was going someplace unfriendly, it was worse! Then, it would all be packed up and leave for the next trip to someplace else.

It could be worse sometimes. George Will once reported that when George Bush came to his house for a dinner party, advance teams of agents descended on his neighborhood and ordered his neighbors, under pain of arrest, to leave their yards and go inside their houses and stay there. It was insane. As a result, the President is practically a prisoner in the White House. There is a reason they have a movie theater in the White House - it is incredibly difficult for the President to get in a car and take his wife to the movies otherwise! It’s cheaper to build him a theater than it is to go out on the town.

It isn’t this crazy for the Vice President. He’s just another spare part, nice to have around when the machine breaks. Otherwise, one is as good as another. There had been plans to get rid of me and bring in somebody more docile, or smarter, or more bloodthirsty. Now I had to get my own spare part lined up.

On Sunday, Marilyn and I took Marine One up to Camp David. I had never been there before. The Presidential Retreat is a rustic cabin complex up near Thurmont in the Catoctins. That I wasn’t invited before was due to two factors. First, Presidents are pretty picky about who goes there; they tend to think of it as their personal playground. Second, I was not on the favorites list with Bush and his closest people. He might have to put up with me in Washington, but not up there. Once there it was the first chance we had to see the Bush family since the tragedy. Everybody was present, George H.W. and Barbara, Laura and the girls, and most of the other kids and grandkids. George told me that they would stay up there until the Thursday ceremonies, and then go back to Texas. Laura and the girls wouldn’t be coming back to the White House. I replied that we wouldn’t move in until after the ceremonies. There was no point in being rude about it. I did have a chance to talk to Jeb and a few of the older grandsons, some of whom seemed interested in getting into politics on their own. This family was the Republican version of the Kennedys, though without all the drama.