Chapter 21

Friday, May 24

What a day; the sun is shining, the birds are singing, and its graduation day. I go from being a sophomore to a junior and Suzie graduates to being a sophomore and transfers to my school. The only sad part is that Sam graduates and goes away to college. I'm really going to miss her.

Brenda has taken up with David Smith, now. Ned had helped him a lot this last semester, and his shyness is almost completely gone now. I hope Brenda is happy. I know I still love her, but that week of her snubbing me has really dampened my ardor for a while. Well, that and her continued indifference to me. I will have to see what happens next semester or maybe later this summer. I have taken my driver's test and passed the first time through. Now I can drive with an adult (well, a person over 21 anyway) in the car. Of course, I have been doing that with Aunt Barb and Judy for most of the last four months. I even asked Sam if I could drive home a few times. Anyway, summer vacation starts tomorrow; actually after this afternoon's ceremonies are done. I am not going to miss Sam walking across that stage. I think that since Brenda snubbed me, Sam and I have become much closer. We have dated several times since the prom and Jack is even warming up to me.

Just over a month before I see the guys and gals up in St. Louis again. A lot of the women I have never seen before. Not really, I saw what their sweethearts saw in their minds, but that may not be a true picture of what they really look like. It will be interesting to see if there are any differences. I have tomorrow off from work and Sam and I are going to a movie tonight. My dad is chaperoning tonight. All four of our parents have pulled chaperone and driver duty for the two of us.

Saturday, June 29

The dates with Sam were great, I seem to be falling more in love with Sam than I did with Brenda. Brenda is better, but still not what I would call 100%. She has not talked to me at all since graduation over a month ago. I guess that chapter of my life is closed to me now. I have also been dating Kathy Fletcher and Gail Porter. I even went to lunch with Kamari once. Boy, I can hardly wait until Wednesday gets here. I am so excited about the trip to St. Louis. This is only the second time I have flown, and it's the first time for Suzie. We will get to see so many things on the way and once we are there, too.

I sent the badges, laminator, and corner cutter to the hotel by FedEx earlier this week, so they should be there for Nathan. Shawn Pace said they would be checking in on the 2^nd as well. He got the whole week off too. I asked if he was happy being an instructor, and he said he never felt happier, except for when the Air Force said he could stay in until he retired. He did say he was up for promotion for Master Sergeant in September. He thought he had a good chance of making it in the first go around.

8:00 AM, Thursday, July 4^th

Wow, yesterday was a real treat. Most of the flight up was clear and I got to see a lot of the landscape. When we got to the airport, there was a limo driver with a couple of names on a board, Roberts and Donnelly. We got to meet James and his fiancée, Jessica Northern. We all six rode to the hotel in the limo. I introduced James to my family and he introduced Jessica. We talked about how much fun this trip was going to be. When we checked in, we were told to go to Conference Room B and check in with our group. That is when we were issued badges, had our pictures taken, and itineraries were handed out for the core members and other members. The Pace family was manning the sign-in table. Then it was off to the rooms. We actually had a suite with two bedrooms, and a lounge area between them, when you first came in. A bedroom and bathroom was off each side and the view from the lounge and bedrooms was of the river, and you could see the arch from the balcony. I was sure we didn't reserve these, so I would have to talk to Nathan about this. I saw our family was scheduled to man the sign-in table from seven til nine that night. Each family, or two families, had the duty until noon today. Then the tours would start after the buffet breakfast at 9:00 AM. We will have our core meeting at 6:00 PM tonight and the regular meeting would be at 6:00 PM Friday night. Of course, there was the banquet starting at six on Saturday night as well.

There was an informal get together in Conference Room B behind the sign-in table area that started at six last night. The hotel had set up a folding panel screen around the back of the sign-in table area and there were soft drinks, beer, and wine. There were also some finger foods; you know small slices of meat, cheese, celery, carrots, and broccoli with a nice ranch dip. There were crackers to go with the meat and cheese. There was a really good restaurant in the hotel too, so we could have catered food for our meetings or banquet. Man, it was so nice to see the guys and how they had gone on with their lives. Bill Gage did get to go to work for the helicopter section of S&S; he said he was real happy. When Jonnie saw my name tag, she automatically assumed I was Angel Bob, but was unsure how she knew. I explained that I was Angel Bob's first healing, and since I couldn't even begin to pronounce his name, he decided to use my name instead. I was introduced to her husband, Jean Claude. I said, "Frog, it's so good to see you, I have heard a great many nice things about you. Welcome to the family of the healed by the Angel Bob and welcome to the bigger family of the AOS."

"Bob, it is a pleasure to meet someone so close to my wife's heart. I guess she can now associate you with the one entity that saved her life from dejection and misery. I understand that you and Nathan made a big difference in her life. I thank you for that."

"Yes, I talked to her a few times and we became very close, even without meeting until now. But even still, I feel that I know her quite well."

I introduced my family and we talked for a while. I saw Jim Dooley wheel in on his power chair, with his wife, Stephanie. I waved Jim over and walked to meet him part way. Jim had his prostheses on and once I got close to the chair, he stopped and had Stephanie hold his hand. He moved the foot rests aside, stood in front of the chair, saluted me, shook my hand, then pulled me into a hug.

Jim whispered in my ear, "Bob Roberts, my hero. You are the reason that I am here today, I have an excellent job, I married my sweetheart, and my father thinks I have been blessed by the little people. I know who you are and I don't care. I will keep your secret forever, but I do owe you a huge thank you for all that you have done to make my life what it is today. Steffi knows too, and has promised to never reveal what she knows."

Jim stepped back and sat again. It was Stephanie's turn to hug me real hard, and as she kissed my cheek, she whispered, "Thank you so much for Jim." There were tears in her eyes as she stepped back to be by Jim's side. I led them to our group and introduced them to everyone there. Before too long it was our turn to man the sign-in table so we excused ourselves and went to work.

We only had about three couples due to come in while we manned the table. They were: Thomas and Ellie May Dewayne from Georgia; Capt. Beverly Newman and her brother, Todd Wilder; and LCDR Patricia LeBlanc and her boyfriend, Capt. Thomas Collins. After my dad looked at the schedule of who was due in and when, he sent me back to mingle with the people in the back area. He said it was more important that I mingle with everyone and that the three of them could handle the sign-in. I thanked him and left to join my friends.

It was funny, but I had either e-mailed or talked on the phone to every one of these people, well mostly the men. Most of them knew me as a friend of the Angel Bob, or in Darrell's case, a friend of the Angel Dave. Even so, as young as I was, I was not slighted in the least. I even got inquiries about young Lisa. I said that she was unable to make this first one, but that I would try to talk her parents into letting her and her family come to the next one. Overall, it was a great get together.

Today there was an organized tour of the city taking in the Gateway Arch, the riverfront, and downtown, featuring the jazz clubs and famous restaurants; that would all happen starting at 9:00 AM this morning. There was also a riverboat tour set for Friday afternoon. We could also get a bus to take us all down to the St. Louis Zoo, which was supposed to be quite good. I think that was tentatively scheduled for Saturday sometime. We still had time to get downstairs for the city tour. Mom was saying that I had to quit dawdling and get a move on.

2:30 PM, Thursday, July 4^th

That tour was great, we saw a lot of stuff and if I remember even half of it, I will be good. There were about a dozen jazz and blues venues in and around the city. Who would have thought that a bunch of rednecks from Texas would like blues and jazz, but believe me it's popular in Texas. Yeah, I know it's a dying genre, except in certain parts of the south and Midwest, but music doesn't have to be universally popular to be good. One of the blues legends, Stevie Ray Vaughan played a lot in Austin, Texas. I have all his albums on CD. The man was a legend around Austin; he even got to play on Austin City Limits with the legendary BB King.

[Austin City Limits is a PBS program that is syndicated all over the US. BR]

There are still a couple of jazz and blues clubs in Austin. I know most people think that Texans are either C&W or classic rock fans, and the young kids listen to pop, hip-hop, and all the other popular genres, but we are an eclectic group of people, probably a real cross-section of the whole country.

Anyway, Dad and Mom hope to go to one of the clubs tonight with a bunch of the other regular members of AOS. They have hired a minibus to take them down there. Suzie will stay with me or up in the room, she hasn't decided yet. I think Suzie has kind of taken Michael, Amber, and Brie Pace under her wing as they are the only other young people on the trip.

Nathan had already talked to each of the core group to ask if their significant other could be trusted to be in the core meeting. Only two of them have been left out so far, Ellie May Dewayne and Jessica Northern. Ellie May is a gossip and Thomas didn't want her to know anything about what he can do. Jessica is not yet married to James Donnelly and he is unsure of her allegiance to him in this matter. Maybe Thomas would later be sure of his future wife's commitment. So the core meeting tonight would be Nathan, Michele, Thomas Dewayne, James Donnelly, James and Stephanie Dooley, Herman Draper, Sean Fuller, Jamal Johnson, Melvin and Sue Ann Corte, Jonnie Boudreaux, David Fletcher, Harlou Stevens II, Kathy Howard, and me. Yes, Kathy the Hellslinth from the moon, had decided she needed a last name to fit in with everyone, so she chose Howard. That would make 17 of us.

I did ask Jonnie if Frog could join us. She was still unsure about that, so after our tour of the city this afternoon, Nathan, Jonnie, Jean Claude, and I sat down in the lounge of our suite, mainly shooting the bull and asking Frog about his adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan. He told us a lot of stories about what transpired since Jonnie left for the states. While this was all going on, Nathan and I were looking around in Jean Claude's mind to see where his loyalties lay. After Nathan and I agreed, Nathan asked Jean Claude point blank,

"Frog, you don't mind if I call you that, do you?" Frog shook his head no. "We have a very important question for you, so think long and hard before you answer. Jonnie was involved in a super secret operation while she was in the hospital back here. This operation was so secret only 15 people know of it, and were the only ones in on it. It was an impossible mission, one where we weren't even sure we could do it, but we had to try. Now the things we did on that mission are so crazy that most normal people would lock us away and throw away the key. We accomplished the mission, needless to say, but it is what we did and how we did it that is the crazy part. Now, my question to you is this, can you keep a secret that if told, would immediately destroy 15 people, one of which is your wife? Many more people would be hurt by this, as those 15 people have families that would be affected as well. That is our problem, now it is your turn to think about what all that I have said"