“At ease, Corporal.”
“Sir,” Cass said.
“How is the corporal’s morale today?”
Cass sensed that the captain’s strange locutions and formality had something to do with keeping her at a distance and was content to play along. She liked Captain Drimpilski and sensed his frustration.
“The corporal’s morale is excellent verging on sublime, sir.”
“Very well. Here’s something that will send the corporal’s morale rocketing through the stratosphere and out into the far reaches of the galaxy.”
“The corporal can barely contain her enthusiasm, sir.”
“Try. It appears we have another codel inbound.”
“The corporal has no words to express her glee.”
Inwardly, Cass sighed. In her eight months here at Camp Bravo, she had escorted numerous congressional delegations (“codels”), consisting of a total of seven congressmen and two United States senators. The male congresspersons had all been quite taken with their attractive young army escort. (Cass looked very smart in her uniform and black beret.) One senator could barely take his eyes off her. He stared at her throughout a long simultaneous translation with grieving Bosnian war widows until finally one of his aides, evidently adept at the procedure, stepped in to obstruct his view and refocus his attention.
“Fact-finding,” Captain Drimpilski mused aloud, staring at the VIPVIS printout on his desk. “The fact is we don’t have any more facts left. We ran out about a year ago. Still they come in search of them.”
“Perhaps the congresspersons will marvel at the completion of the pouring of the concrete at the forward air base paving at Grzyluk,” Cass said. “I have the press release here. The corporal’s fingers are still warm from typing it. Pure Shakespeare, if the corporal is permitted to indulge in professional self-satisfaction. Sir.”
“The captain passed out several times from excitement in the course of reading it. He’s recommending the corporal for the Congressional Medal of Honor.”
“Eagles spin the way. Hooah, hooah.”
Captain Drimpilski blew his nose into a paper napkin. He had a head cold. Everyone at Camp Bravo had a head cold. The country had a head cold and was capable, historically speaking, of passing it on to the entire continent.
“This one’s a biggie,” he said. “Sits on the Imperial Overstretch Committee. He is not a supporter of our mission here. That’s a matter of record, not a personal criticism.”
“Understood, sir.”
“Jepperson, Democrat of Massachusetts. Good-looking type. More family money than God. Old family. He’s related to Uncle John Sedgwick.”
“Who, sir?”
“Look it up, Corporal. Civil War. A good Public Affairs officer knows his-her-military history.”
“General Sedgwick, sir? The one killed at Spotsylvania by the-”
“Yes, Corporal,” Captain Drimpilski said with a thwarted air.
“The corporal reads books, sir,” Cass said with a mildly apologetic air. “When off-duty.”
Captain Drimpilski went back to his VIPVIS form. “He’s related to someone else. Revolutionary era. It would appear, Corporal, that a veritable river of blue blood runs through the congressman.” He read: “‘Harvard.’ Where else? Didn’t the corporal go to Yale?”
“Negative, sir. Complicated story.”
Drimpilski continued with the briefing. “The congressman dates movie stars. Went out with what’s-’er-name, the rock star’s ex-wife, the one who is continually expressing her conviction that the United States should dispatch troops to every starving country in the world, while simultaneously denouncing U.S. military presence in every part of the world. Venezuelan-”
“Honduran, sir. Nickname of ‘the Tegucigalpa Tamale,’ if the corporal is not mistaken.”
Drimpilski stared.
“The corporal also reads glossy magazines,” Cass said. “When not composing Shakespearean-quality media advisories pertaining to our mission here. Sir.”
Captain Drimpilski said in a paternal sort of way, “Watch out for yourself, Corporal. Just…watch out.”
“The corporal will conduct herself in a manner befitting the United States Army, sir. Failing that, the corporal will engage the congressman in close-quarter combat.”
Most codels flew directly from the States into Turdje. On the way back, however, they typically stopped “to refuel” at Humphausen AFB, Germany, for the reason that there was a PX there that would make Wal-Mart look like a mom-and-pop corner store. There the codel could shop tax-free, with forklifts that would deliver their year’s supply of liquor and electronics onto C-5 Galaxy stratolifter cargo planes. They would fly on to their home districts with pictures taken with the troops. These they would post on their websites and send out in newsletters, accompanied by truly moving descriptions of what they had seen: “I have just returned from visiting with our brave men and women overseas, who are doing the hard work of spreading democracy and American ideals. And as I look back on this truly moving experience, I can only ask myself, Where do we get such men and women?” The last line was from the James Michener Korean War movie The Bridges at Toko-Ri, a favorite insert among Capitol Hill speechwriters, updated to include, “and women.”
“Congressman? Sir, we’ll be landing at Turdje momentarily.”
“Thank you, Sergeant.”
Congressman? Randolph K. Jepperson was tapping on his laptop. One of the nice things about being a United States congressman and flying about on military transports was that no bossy flight attendant told you to fasten your seat belt and put away your electronic devices. One time, on his way into the DMZ in Korea, the landing was hard and two officious senators got hurled against the bulkhead, to the quiet satisfaction of the warrant officer whose suggestion to them that they strap themselves in had been waved off.
Congressman Jepperson pecked away: “It is the general rule among policy makers to insist that America must never leave a mission unaccomplished, no matter how wrongheaded or ill thought through. Indeed, the more wrongheaded and ill thought through, the more imperative it is to remain and see it through to its dismal and inevitable end.”
He reread the paragraph, smiled, and thought, Not bad, old bean. It was an op-ed piece that he would send to The New York Times on his return from Bosnia. He knew that, really, he should wait to write it after his fact-finding mission to Bosnia. He hushed his offended conscience by making a deal with himself that he’d take out the sentences if he saw anything that changed his mind. (Not likely.) He closed the lid of the laptop as the wheels of the large cargo plane announced with a squeak and puff of vaporized rubber that he was now in the Balkans. Randy liked these jaunts. They were his foreign policy credentials, all part of the Grand Plan.
Randolph Kumberling Jepperson IV was a blue blood in a red meat business. His great-great-great-great-great-great-great-granduncle had signed the Declaration of Independence. The family referred privately to their ancestor as “G- 7” and to the sacred document as “the Dec.”
G-7’s great-great-nephew was the aforementioned General John Sedgwick, distinguished veteran of many Civil War battles, esteemed and beloved comrade of General Ulysses S. Grant, and now a Trivial Pursuit subject, owing to the peculiar circumstances of his demise. The family referred to him as “Elephant Man” or “Poor John.”
Randy’s great-grandfather (on the maternal Kumberling side) had been governor of Massachusetts in the 1880s. His paternal grandfather, Josephus Agrippa Jepperson, enlarged the already considerable family fortune by cornering the world supply of feldspar just as demand for aluminosilicate was peaking. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt appointed him U.S. ambassador to Belgium at an especially tense time in U.S.-Belgian relations. His intervention in the Fleming-Walloon crisis of 1938 proved critical. He donated the opulent Palais Feldspar outside Genk, with the stipulation that the Flemings and Walloons must stop their feuding, which he termed “surely the most pointless squabble in all Europe.” He was knighted by King Leopold III and received the title of Chevalier des Pantalons Blancs (Knight of the White Pants), one of the most sought-after honorifics in Belgium.