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Outside Fountain Hills, Arizona; 10:25pm
The truck’s headlights settled on an overflowing public trashcan, as it bumped the parking block.. The lights went out and the truck became silent on the moonless starry night - on the outside. Music could be heard from the inside through the rolled up windows. It was hard to tell what style of music was playing until the door opened, and Ron Halloway’s version of “Born to be Blue” slipped out behind the truck’s owner. The man reached in and turned the music off, and shut the door. He walked over by the trashcan and placed an empty coke can where little room allowed. Buttoning his jacket, the man put one foot up on the guardrail overlooking the Mesa lights. ‘So spread out,’ he thought, ‘almost twenty years ago, there were hardly any lights to block out the stars like this.’ He shook his head sadly. The whole metropolis grew sporadically in just a short period of time.
The man pulled his cell phone from the edge of his pocket and hit ‘speed dial.’ He looked at his watch as the other end of the line answered. “Hi honey,” he said, “I am almost home; I just had to make a stop. Where? The lookout area on Shea Boulevard. Just checking out the Mesa lights. What? Yes dear I will be there in about ten minutes.” He took his leg off the guardrail, and started pacing the length of his truck. “You still want me to stop at the Circle K? No?” He shifted the cell to his other hand and ear, “really? What about Megan, she called up too? Already left tonight? I knew this was going to happen…damn! I was in the first one, and…well you know.” He opened the door to his truck, “well let’s talk about it when I get home. I am on my way now.” He clicked his cell off and replaced it on his jeans. He shut the door.
The truck gunned back to life and the music can be heard from behind the rolled windows. The vehicle turned sharply on Shea Boulevard and was gone. All silence was restored to the look-out area once again.
***********************************************
After parking his truck in the assigned carport, the man walked around to his condo, which was an end unit. He opened the gate to the patio and put the Master lock through the latch. He opened the heavy screen door and the main front door and wiped his feet on the great room mat. “Kristi?” he called, “I am back from Dan’s.” A female voice was heard from upstairs, “I am up here Howard, how did your card game go?”
“We won two and lost three rounds.”
“Bummer! It would never have happened if you and I were partners.” Howard started up the stairs, “but you did not want to go tonight. Trina said she missed you and wants to see you over next week,” Howard said as he walked into the master bedroom. He saw Kristi’s folded naval uniforms on the bed.
She was a Lieutenant in the Naval Reserves, when not working her analyst position in the accounting department for a major hospital. In the reserves, Kristi was a Public Affairs officer. Howard met her when he was assigned to a helicopter training squadron in San Diego. She was on active duty at the time, and he was an enlisted person working in the squadron Public Affairs office. It was discouraged for an enlisted person to have a relationship with an officer; it was known as the military’s infamous fraternization policy. It was considered a ‘no-no,’ but many of these type of relationships were kept under wraps. Howard and Kristi were married shortly after Howard’s discharge from the service.
Howard picked up Kristi’s tropical white polyester shirt with the shoulderboards, “so when have you got to report?” The master bathroom door opened ajar, “I have to report to the USS Constellation CV-64 the day after tomorrow.” Howard with her uniform on the hangar, started to approach the bathroom door. “Don’t come in Howard,” Kristi said, “I’m on the toilet.” Howard walked back to the bed and tossed her apparel on the neatly folded pile of other uniforms, “whatever. Are you working for their public affairs department?”
“Yes,” was the answer, “ I have never been on a carrier before.” Howard sat down at the computer desk, “it is interesting; I will give you that. At least you will get to see the way I lived when I was on the USS Kittyhawk CV-63. They are the same class of carrier, and it is just the two of them for that class of ship.” Howard heard the toilet flush and running water in the sink. Then Kristi emerged into the bedroom wearing panties and a bra. Howard loved her freckly body and pixie face. She had shoulder length brown hair and slightly slanted hazel eyes. Howard found girls with freckles quite an erotic feature. Kristi came up behind him and started to massage his shoulders. Howard leaned back and closed his eyes, “I definitely needed that he said, “so where did Megan wind up going?”
“She is the aviation intelligence officer for VFA-137, the Kestrels. They are an…”
“F-18 squadron,” Howard finished, “I know. So you and Megan will be on the same carrier. She will be with the air wing though.”
“She is supposed to brief pilots before a combat mission.” Howard nodded, “Well so far nothing has happened in Iraq except a lot of talk and the UN finagling for a decision on whether we should strike or not.”
“What do you think we should do?” Kristi asked.
“Well for openers,” Howard replied, “we should move all 37,000 soldiers in South Korea back to the United States…”
“We are talking about this possible war with Iraq,” Kristi interrupted.
“ I am not finished,” Howard said with his index finger raised, “after removing a the leftover agreement from a war that is over 50 years old, we should have South Korea, Japan, or even China babysit the North Koreans and leave us out of it. As for the Middle East? Pull our troops back home and have Israel take responsibility for babysitting the countries there. Leave America out of it. To our allies that did not want to help us with building a coalition force, cut off their foreign aid and use that to pay for this upcoming war, and let them stand alone. They deserve it. There you have it - my professional military opinion in a nutshell.” Kristi nodded, “ so you believe we should wait until the axis unleashes weapons of destructive power on us.” Howard got up from the computer desk, “No not at all, we should pull America out of these little problems, so that we are not a ‘trip wire for everything that happens. But if they want to unleash destruction against us, they will pay the price.”
“And that is to nuke them?”
“Kristi, what most of you people in this country do not understand is sometimes we have to sink down to another country’s level to get a job done. It is not pretty and many lives wind up being lost. But I have been to countries that have to practice this, because there is just not any other way. We have it good in this country to the point to where we cringe if we have to sink to country’s level to let them know they have messed with the wrong bull.” Kristi started heading for the stairs, “an interesting opinion. I am going downstairs for a dish of ice cream, want one?” Howard shook his head, “had plenty of coffee and treats at Dan’s house.” He got up and headed into the hallway, “I am going to check on Emily.” Kristi stopped on the stairs and called up, “she might be asleep already. I want to remind you Heather’s daughter Jayne is in there too.”
“Where did Heather go to?” Howard asked.
“Her and Lana are in L.A. I will be back up shortly.”
Howard went into the guest bedroom , which served as their daughter’s bedroom. Emily was three and looked more like her mother with exception of the lighter brown hair and the blue eyes. Howard peered over Emily’s bed; she was sound asleep. He looked over at the other twin bed and saw Jayne asleep as well. Jayne was also blue eyed, but had blonde hair instead of red like her mother, Heather. Both of the children were sound asleep. Howard walked out of the room quietly and went back into the master bedroom. He sat back down at the computer desk to catch up on his email.
By this time, Kristi returned with a small dish of ice cream. She set the dish down on the nightstand and took her uniforms and placed them on the easy chair nearby. She crawled into bed and grabbed the small TV remote and turned on the small TV near the bed. Howard turned around in the computer chair, “ keep the volume down, both girls are asleep.” Kristi hit the volume button, and the TV was reasonably low. “When are you coming to bed?” Kristi asked.
“I will be done in a minute,” Howard answered. He sent his last email response and shut down the computer. He pushed the chair in and climbed into the bed with Kristi. He sat there a minute with a scowl on his face. Kristi turned to him, “ I know how you feel with my leaving for the war and all,” she put her arms around him, “but I hope and pray this will be a short war and we all return safely.”
“Amen,” Howard responded. Kristi put the empty dish on the nightstand and turned out the light. The only light burning in the room was a small tiffany style lamp with a blue bulb, which made the master bedroom a blue color. Howard rolled over to face Kristi, “you know I am against this war. I just wanted to make myself very clear without sounding like one of those peace freaks. My reasons for disagreeing with this war are for military reasons.”
“I know Howard,” Kristi replied, “you have mentioned it a dozen times.” She wrapped her arms around him and they both snuggled off to the land of dreams.
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