William Johnstone - Phoenix Rising

“Say what you want about yourself, Colonel, but don’t ever feel that you have betrayed your country in any way.”

“I notice by the lack of a ring that you aren’t married. But do you have a young man?” Colonel Chambers asked.

“I do,” Karin said. “But he wouldn’t mind at all my having dinner with you.”

“Ohh,” Colonel Chambers said. “Darlin’, when a pretty young girl says she will have dinner with you, and then says in the same breath that it won’t matter to her beau, that’s when you know you are getting very old.”

Karin laughed, then leaned over and kissed him on the forehead before she left.

Environmental Flight Tactics

Jake was sitting at his desk reviewing the new curriculum, lesson plans, and objectives, as well as a new SOP, wondering what he could come up with next to keep the men busy. Sergeant Major Clay Matthews tapped lightly on the door to his office, then pushed it open.

“Major Lantz?”

“Yes, Sergeant Major, come on in,” Jake said, pushing the written material to one side. “Have a seat,” he offered.

“How are the new lesson plans?” Clay asked.

“They are good,” Jake said. “They are surprisingly good. I just wish we could get the training going again so we could implement them. What’s on your mind?”

“I thought you might like to know that I have everything on your list that you asked for.”

“Including fuel? Jet fuel, I mean. I know you got the gasoline last month.”

“Yes, sir, I got the jet fuel.”

“I’m impressed,” Jake said. “How did you do that?”

“I had General von Cairns sign for a fifty-barrel emergency reserve.”

“And you convinced him to do that?”

“Not exactly,” Clay said. “Turns out that Specialist Roswell, who works down at HQ, can sign the general’s name as well as the general can. He signed an 1195 for me.”

“You didn’t tell him what this was about, did you?”

“No. I convinced him that I was going to sell it on the black market and give him half the profit.”

“I don’t know, Sergeant Major,” Jake said. “If there is no sale and he doesn’t get his share, it could cause us some trouble.”

Clay shook his head. “Not really, sir,” he said. “First of all, he’s not going to be able to say that he signed the general’s name without getting himself in a lot of trouble. And secondly, I have already sold fifteen barrels for five thousand dollars per barrel. I’m going to give Roswell the entire seventy-five thousand and tell him that’s half.”

“So, we have thirty-five barrels left?”

“No, sir, we have fifteen barrels left. I told the POL sergeant that the general had really only requested thirty barrels, but I changed the number. That way he could have twenty barrels to do whatever he wants with. That expedited the operation and it also kept him from making any telephone calls back to the general to verify the requisition.”

Jake chuckled. “I’m glad you are working for me, instead of against me.”

“I would never work against you, Major,” Clay said. He smiled. “I might be a thief, but I am a thief with honor.”

“I can’t argue with that, Sergeant Major.”

“Oh, and I got a desalination device. Hand pump, not power. I figure we may not always have power.”

“Good move,” Jake said, just as the phone rang. He picked it up. “Environmental Flight Tactics, Major Lantz. All right, thank you. I’ll be right there.”

Hanging up the phone, he ran his finger down the scar on his cheek for a moment. “That was the general’s office,” he said. “He’s issued an officers’ call. I hope it’s not . . .”

“It has nothing to do with our scrounging, sir,” Clay said. “It is something else. Something entirely different.”

“Do you know what it is?”

“Yes, sir, I think I do.”

“What is it?”

“I’d rather not say, sir,” Clay said. “I think you should hear it from the general himself.”

“All right, I will,” Jake said, standing up and reaching for his black beret. “You did well, Clay. You did damn well.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Jake learned that this officers’ call involved more than half of the officers on the post, including not just department heads and unit commanders, but all staff and faculty, hospital personnel, officers of the TO&E units, and even those officers who had returned from overseas and were now at Fort Rucker awaiting further assignment. The officers’ call was held in the post theater, and every seat was filled.

“Gentlemen, the commanding general!” someone called, and all stood.

“Seats, gentlemen, seats,” General von Cairns said as he strolled briskly onto the stage. Walking up to the podium, he tapped twice on the microphone, and was rewarded with a thumping sound that returned through the speakers and reverberated through the auditorium.

“Gentlemen, I will make this announcement short and sweet. I will take no questions afterward because I have no further information. I’m afraid you will just have to hear the announcement, then wait and see where it leads.

“This morning I was informed by the Department of the Army that, effective within the next thirty days, there will be a seventy five percent reduction in force in both officer and enlisted ranks. In short, gentlemen, one month from now, three out of four officers and men throughout the entire army, will be gone.

The theater rang with loud shouts of shock and dismay.

“No!”

“What the hell is going on?”

“What is the cutoff? What if we are within months of retirement?”

“I don’t know that there is a cutoff,” von Cairns said. “There was no mention of it. And, gentlemen, I’ll be honest with you; I don’t know that there will be any more retirements. I know that those who are currently retired have not received their retirement checks for some time, now.”

“This isn’t right!”

“This is the president’s idea?”

“So I have been told,” von Cairns replied.

“What’s wrong with this man? Is he insane?

“This so-called president is destroying the Army. And with it, the nation,” Colonel Haney said.

“Somebody needs to drop-kick that foreign son of a bitch from here back to Pakistan!” a chief warrant officer said.

“Gentlemen, please,” von Cairns said, lifting his hands to request order. “I can only tell you what I know. And I know that this was soundly protested by the Department of Defense. By the way, disabuse yourself of any thought that the Army is taking this hit alone. Because this order does come directly from the president, it pertains to all branches of the service, active, reserve, and guard.

“I’m sorry, gentlemen, I wish I had better news for you. This meeting is dismissed.”

As the officers filed out of the theater, still stunned from the general’s announcement, Jake saw Karin standing with another group of nurses. He didn’t want to intrude so he started to walk away, but, seeing him, she hurried over to join him.

“That was quite a shocker, wasn’t it?” she asked as she fell in beside him.

“I’ll be one of the first to leave,” Jake said.

“What makes you think so? You have an exemplary military record, outstanding OERs, combat time, not only combat time but combat command time, with a Distinguished Flying Cross, Bronze Star, not to mention a Purple Heart.”

“Karin, I have not had a student in over three months, and I have not flown so much as one hour in all that time. I can’t see the Army paying me to sit behind a desk and drum my fingers. At least you have been kept busy.”

“True, we have been busy at the hospital, but eighty percent of our workload has been with retirees and veterans, and we heard that hospital service for non-active duty personnel is about to be stopped. Nurses don’t have any special protective status, and you heard what the general said. Seventy-five percent of us are going to be gone.”