Chapter 26

Sunday was a great day as the whole family relaxed and enjoyed life. We had a very nice morning, getting some early exercise by swimming and splashing in the pool. Tina had to go to the hospital after breakfast, but she told Lisa and me before she left; "I need to talk to you two. I'm still thinking about everything we did down south and as positive as I am that what we did was for the people's good, I'm having trouble putting it into the proper slot. We need to talk about it this evening if we can."

I hugged Tina and told her, "We'll go somewhere private this evening and talk about it. Until then, focus on what you do for your patients at the hospital. We'll talk tonight."

Lisa gave the tall, slim, girl a hug as she left the house to go to work.

When Tina had left, Lisa said, "She didn't have much preparation for what we did. I should have realized that she would go with us and be a part of what we did, but didn't consider that she would later have second thoughts about it and worry. You and I both know that what we did was necessary, and we probably kept hundreds of their countrymen from dying at the whim of those people. We might have to get her some counseling. We'll try to talk it out with her, but she hasn't had the experience we have."

"I've almost put her through a basic training program, followed by a lot of the scout training the pilots are required to do, Chuck. She didn't have any problems with it, and I kept the chat up about enemy dying that I'm sure is designed to help a soldier's head."

I responded to Lisa, "You crammed that into just a few weeks over a period of time, instead of months of intense conditioning. We'll talk it out with her to see how she does."

I told Lisa, "Take a cart to the patio and pick up Bonita and Lizzy. We'll play around in the studio for a while before lunch. I'll get our equipment out of the closet and do some tuning."

Elmer was in the control booth staring at one of the big monitors when I walked into the studio. He waved me over and said, "You'll want to watch the whole thing at one time, but this is the end of the video for the troops. I want to get it pressed and send some copies off to the General. We have a huge list of troops who want a DVD mailed, and I've just finished putting it up on our new military site for troops to download. I've posted it on iTunes and You Tube, so anyone who wants a copy can have it. It's really pretty good. I'm going to include some of it on the first commercial release that's almost exclusively you and Lisa."

"That's great, Elmer. Lisa has gone to get Lizzy and Bonita so we can play around a little. I doubt we'll do anything worth recording, so you don't have to hang around."

"I have mixing to do today, so I'm going to be busy. I have the other controller set up ready to go in case you guys end up doing something neat."

The three women came in and Lisa exclaimed, "You've already been here for at least fifteen minutes, and you haven't tuned the first guitar. What have you been doing?"

I pointed at Elmer and told her, "Go listen to what he has to say while I get some of our stuff out."

Bonita and Lizzy helped me bring guitars and a bass out. I grabbed a tuning module and worked on Lisa's SG. I tuned her acoustic, and then mine, when that was done. I finally tuned both of our Fenders, my SG, and my good bass.

Lisa came from the control room excited that the music from the USO tour was on the web. She said, "Elmer is going to show the video while we have pizza tonight."

Bonita was standing in front of a keyboard that Lizzy was sitting at. The little Mistress of Music was holding a handful of music staff paper. With a smile, she said, "I have some of Chuck's music that he didn't finish. I think I've finished it the way he would have. Lizzy and I played around with them and we want you to work with them too."

Who knows how many tunes I created? I left a lot of it unfinished because I had something else come to mind. While I was going through the music, I realized the one I was now looking at had lyrics I had written for it, but had never finished the music. "There should be another typed or handwritten sheet that has lyrics for this one, Bonita. I think I called this 'Missing you'."

Bonita had the big old salesman's sample case jammed with my music and paged through it until she pulled a sheet out from the case. She looked at it then handed it to me. "That looks like it might match the music. Is that it?"

I nodded as I read the words. Lisa was looking over my shoulder, so I handed it to her so she could read it.

Lisa looked at me and asked, "Who were you in love with when you wrote this? My goodness, it's as if you were mooning over some girl."

"It was actually because of the lack of a girl that I wrote the music and lyrics. I really wanted to date and have a girlfriend, but my family wasn't that popular around town, and I was almost too interested in music to do anything except play."

Lisa stood up, kissed me on the cheek, and said, "I'm going to sing this one, but I think we should do a duet."

Lizzy said, "Nita and I practiced doing backup vocals for this one but without words, just crooning. Let's play it a couple of times to see what it sounds like all together, and then add the real vocals."

Bonita and Lizzy sounded more mature every time we were together. I hope music wasn't taking away from them being little girls. I should check on how well they're doing in school to see if the intensity they brought to their music showed in their schoolwork as well.

This one had my usual bass lead in that some bassist would say was excessive or showing off, but what can I say. I was probably fifteen or sixteen when I wrote this, and I was a bassist who loved to lead with deep tones.

We went through the piece, and I suddenly remembered where I had stopped as I recognized where Nita's writing began. We worked with it a few times through, and I kept changing something here and there until it felt like me again. Bonita grinned as she played a dual lead guitar with Lisa.

We were just about to begin with the vocals when Marion and Virginia came in. They wanted to do something, so we had them get their acoustics for some rhythm fill and backup. Bonita gave them some music, and had them go through the backup vocals with Lizzy a couple of times as she played the keyboard.

Lisa grinned at me because the kids were taking the studio over. It was apparent when Bonita turned to me and said, "Now lead us in, and this time we'll do it with vocals."

The piece was perfect. I'm not sure how Marion and Virginia were able to pick up the flavor the piece wanted, but the twins did the backup vocals like pros, while Lisa sang lead.

We did it all the way through, and then did it again without pausing. I could see Elmer listening through his headset with his eyes closed. That was usually a good sign.

We finished with Lizzy and Bonita nodding at each other. Bonita said, "Now that's a good piece of music. Should we record that and sell it? It's not very bluesy, but it's a great ballad. We'll have to think about it."

I began picking on my Fender because I heard a riff in my head that had the Fender sound. I did the theme that was in my head three or four times, then took it for another sixteen bars to lead into something that was pretty solid. I was hoping Elmer was getting this as I might not remember exactly what I was playing. This was good solid blues that wanted to be played.

Lisa picked up on the theme and was able to fill in with some extemporaneous fills and riffs that really made the piece sound good. I called out to Elmer when I thought the main theme was complete. "Let me get my bass and do a sound on sound. I like this and I think it's going to be good."

I heard Lizzy's voice say "No shit", but I didn't say anything to her as that would just encourage her. We needed to watch our language around the girls and kids.

The bass add-in was easy, and made the piece begin to come alive. A little B3, some rhythm backup, and this would be a good one. It was then that I began to hear words to the theme. I walked into the control booth and used Elmer's laptop to begin writing the words that were in my head. The lyrics flowed through my fingers to the laptop screen. When it was complete with a good hook, I pressed 'print' to get a hard copy of what I had written.

Elmer was shaking his head and said, "Why the fuck do you want to run around the world chasing bad guys, if you can do this in an afternoon?"

I smiled at Elmer before saying, "One gives me the will and ability to do the other. This is what I was like as a teen. My life was mostly music, but I couldn't get others to have the same amount of interest in it that I had. That's how I ended up in the Marines. They had the passion for making a Marine like I had a passion for my music. It was a perfect outlet for me. I had convinced myself that a life in music wasn't doable, so I became a Marine."

"You are the music man now, Chuck. A couple of these a year and you would be set for life. I hope you keep letting it out so I can brag to my grandkids that I knew you when you were a creative fool."

I took the lyrics out to the girls and hollered for Elmer to play it through for us so we could read the lyrics and listen to the theme at the same time. Bonita stood by me with her fists on her hips after we had all mouthed the lyrics with the music. She said; "It's just not fair that you can so easily do something like that. You played something, expanded it, and then wrote the words to go with it. How did you do that?"

"Bonita, Honey, it's in you, too. All you have to do is keep listening to those tunes you have in there. You know, between your ears. You've created some neat stuff for the Lucky Lady group, and then modified them over and over to make them even better. You've got it, but you just don't have the experience yet. Be patient, my Mistress of Music, because you will be outperforming me very soon."

Lisa told us, "Look at the time. I only wanted to play in the studio until lunch time, but it's almost four now. Let's put our stuff away and go to the patio for Sunday pizza and wings."

Lizzy and Virginia both said, "Yeah, I'm hungry too."

Elmer and Bonita had a conversation and he gave her a copy of something. He reminded us that he was going to play the USO tour this evening. We walked to the house and found it locked up, with no one home. We took a big cart to the patio.

Bonita was using the microphone at the bar almost as soon as we were inside the patio and had greeted everyone, to say, "Lizzy, Marion, Virginia, Lisa, and I watched and listened to Chuck creating a piece of music that is really good just a little while ago. He added a theme after he played with it a little, and then completed it while we listened. He had the rest of us do some background, and added his bass to give the piece more flavor. The really remarkable part was that he suddenly went into the control room to use Elmer's laptop. Chuck came out waving a piece of paper in just a few minutes, and had Elmer replay what he had recorded as we read the lyrics while listening. Well, he had Marion, Virginia, and Lisa sing the lead together while Elmer played the music one more time. I'm going to play what was created only an hour or so ago. I want to be able to do this one day."

Kathy came over to me and kissed my cheek. "Do you see what you did all those years ago on that trip to Alaska and Hawaii? That kid has never been the same. It's your fault and you'll be paying for it the rest of your life."

"That reminds me, Kathy; how is Bonita doing with her school work? Is it suffering because of her interest in music? I worry about her and Lizzy."

"Never fear, Chuck; those two learn quickly and do their homework before grabbing an instrument. They know that they have to do well in school to keep getting the lessons for all the instruments they want to learn to play. It's good that you're interested in them doing that too."

Everyone on the patio listened to the creative cycle that I had just gone through at the studio until we played the piece through with the vocals. I impressed myself by how good it was. I wish I could always be in a studio when those tunes flowed through my head.

Elmer walked in and hollered, "I have the USO show DVD to show everyone. You all have to watch this, as it was my first time in combat and there is a scene on here that some of you will really like. You know what it is, but you haven't seen it yet. I'll put it on all the TVs at once so we can all see it. Listen to it, too, because Chuck, Lisa, Tina, and Jane gave some great performances."

The beginning of the DVD was us loading equipment on the G550 before heading to Afghanistan. I'm not sure how Elmer got that recording, but it showed all of us, including the General, getting on the plane. The next was the General introducing us at the first show, including him making me show my stalk. That had brought a laugh then, and did again on the patio. Lisa and I played some exciting blues from there. The video began showing some of the bases and the men at the shows. One scene showed us loading onto a helicopter, and a good shot of Elmer's face as he pointed to the door gunner. Each of the scenes like that was separated by another good piece of music that Lisa and I played and sang, along with the girls singing backup. The scene when JJ and Val were in front of the camera was neat, and I could see Kathy and Sal react. Both of them had been denied leaving the service prior to this tour. It wasn't right, but trained, experienced men were at a premium. Sal had mentioned that he thought Val would be approved for separation at the end of this tour.

The video continued, and the next scene showed a Humvee taking a hit from an RPG. It also showed Chuck and Lisa helping the men from the Humvee and getting the vehicle moving again, following another Humvee with the cameraman, and being chased by a pickup truck full of robed attackers. The video clearly showed Lisa and Chuck hanging out of the Humvee windows, firing at the following attackers. It went on to show how they caused the truck chasing them to veer off to the side and turn over, and then how Lisa and Chuck climbed into the helicopter and went flying off with the door gunner firing and Chuck feeding rounds to the gunner.

The video showed the remaining concerts and flights all the way to the return landing in Japan, and then their introduction at the first concert there. The video was a classic and would probably be a highly downloaded work. The last scene had the General, in full dress uniform, thanking me, Lisa, and all our people for the gift of their talent to the men and women on the battlefield. That was a great closing.

Lisa leaned over to me and said, "I'm impressed. I had no idea Elmer could produce something like that. The man is a magician."

We didn't realize it, but Elmer was sitting behind us and said, "Yep, I'm the magician, alright. You do the work, and I record it on video and on disk. We're a team."

Tiani and Frieda came over to me and sat on each of my knees. Tiani told me, "Don't do that. That was too scary. You and Lisa are too important to us for you to do things like that."

Frieda hugged us both and whispered to me, "Now that I have a man and a woman, I don't want to lose either of you. Please be careful, and like Tiani says, don't do that."

Lisa had watery eyes as she hugged the tiny Tiani, followed by kissing Frieda. The rest of our women came to where we were sitting and surrounded us with more of the same comments. Aunt Etta was smiling as she said in my head, "You are your father's son, alright. It's stuff like what we just saw that made so many of the men from that family so jealous. Your father was always standing up to anyone who took advantage of someone."

Lisa must have become aware that others could easily talk to her and sat up looking around. She looked at me and I could hear, "What? I'm hearing so many lately, and it's your Aunt Etta who is now so clear."

Mercy boomed into our heads, "So you now have to practice listening to all of us. You already talk and listen to Chuck, Lisa, now do that with all of us. You know you have the gift, use it to keep you two happy, healthy, and safe."

Lisa sat back with her eyes closed knowing that she didn't use the gift enough to really know how to use it. I looked out over the folks on the patio and could see Trixie and Dixie looking at us and smiling. I think the mentalists were playing with Lisa and me.

We ate some of the great wings, including some of Sal's sister's specially treated ones. Lisa put some wings, pizza, and a couple of small calzones in one of the boxes and we went to the house to wait for Tina. She wanted to talk to us, and we needed to be ready for that, in addition to feeding her.

Tina hugged both of us when she arrived and said she needed a shower before she did anything else. She was mumbling about what a horrible and bloody day it had been.

Tina came from the bedroom with shorts and a tank top on, but also wet hair. She gave us more kisses before going after the food in the pizza box. Lisa found a Coke for her, and I sat back with some iced tea while watching Tina eat.

She said, "You never get a chance for lunch on the weekends. I'm supposed to be the GYN resident, but they constantly use me to patch up holes and cuts because I've been through the ER rotation so many times. I guess this weekend has had more violence than normal. We had three gunshot wounds and four stabbings, along with a couple of violent beatings. We're not sure if some of them will live."

Tina looked at Lisa and me and said, "You know, the people we did in were people who do stuff like I treated today. They hurt innocent people for trying to feed their families and even for the most minor resistance. I knew what it was for, and why, when we did what we did, but I kept thinking later that I might be trying to be playing God by the way I wasn't giving them a chance to repent, to make amends, or to change their ways. The guy who shot the waiter and just waved to have the body dragged off was what made me want to do them all. I've been crazy thinking about everything, and I think I should probably stick to saving people when I can, and not be a part of deciding the fate of those horrible people. Don't be mad at me, Chuck. I feel we did what was right for the people they mistreated, but I don't feel right about deciding whether they live or die. You and Lisa are told of the horrible things these people do to others and each other, but I don't want to do that any more unless I have to in order to save one of us."