After a moment I continued, “I just try to stay focused on the mission, on my responsibilities. But at the end of the day I know it’s going to hit me. When you’re in command you can’t let anyone else see it so you lie in your bunk at night and let it wash through you. You accept the pain and the guilt and then you move past it. It’s especially hard if the decisions you’ve made have caused people to die—even if they were the right decisions the feelings are still overwhelming but you have to let it go. You never forget, but you move on. You honor the past by facing the future.”
Neither of us said anything for a long time. Finally, she squeezed my arm and whispered a weary, “Thank you.”
I finally fell asleep hoping with all my heart that she’d be ok.
Strangely enough I awoke the next morning feeling well rested. It had been a chaste evening but for me it had been a more intimate experience than any I could remember.
Without having time to think any of it through I heard something behind me at the same moment I smelled eggs and bacon. I sat up quickly and watched Julie finish setting out the food on my dining table.
She smiled somewhat sheepishly and said, “I’ve got to stop making a habit of falling asleep in your cabin.”
Even with morning hair and wrinkled clothes she was still beautiful.
I moved over to the table and we both sat down.
“I want to apologize,” she began. “I was feeling overwhelmed and I didn’t know where to turn; I didn’t mean to burden you with my troubles.”
“It wasn’t a burden,” I responded. “And you’re welcome to sleep over anytime,” I said lightly.
She smiled and we ate breakfast in relative silence.
“Do you feel better?” I finally asked.
After a thoughtful pause she said, “You know, I really do. I think I just needed someone that would listen. I think I just needed to feel really… safe.”
“I’m always here Julie,” I said.
“I know,” she softly replied.
Just then my door buzzed and I looked up to see Iron Jaw standing outside.
“Come in Mike,” I said.
The door opened and he walked into the cabin and over to the dining table.
“Good morning Major, Dr. Schein,” he said without missing a beat.
“Good morning Major Reynolds. Would you like some eggs?” Julie asked.
“No; I’ve already eaten, but thank you.”
“Well then,” Julie said. “Unless I can get you gentlemen anything else I think I’ll return to my cabin.”
We both remained standing until she’d left. After a moment Mike started talking about a new twist he wanted to incorporate into the training routines.
I jumped into the conversation, grateful for the distraction. If he would’ve asked me what was going on I wouldn’t have known how to answer.
The trip home was a long one but it went quickly because of the heavy training schedule. For the few civilians that had not been assigned to combat training I had tasked them with continuing their interviews and studies of Coridian technology and culture.
I insisted that we all come together once a week and share what we’d learned with everyone else. It was a way of preserving new insights into the Coridian world as well as giving the civilian combatants a chance to talk about what they were getting ready to do. It may sound cold but the more a person can talk about doing outrageous things in a normal setting the less abhorrent those things become. Militaries (and terrorists) around the world have used this desensitizing technique for as long as anyone can remember.
I didn’t take pride in doing this; I just knew it was necessary.
As a psychologist of course Julie new exactly what I was doing.
Curiously she didn’t question the ethics of it; she did however ask how I felt about manipulating people’s emotions like that.
I explained a leadership philosophy to her that had been drilled into me for years; and that I firmly believed in.
“Julie, my military training has included the study of leadership. I don’t claim to be an expert on the subject but I have tried to learn from some very smart people. For example, let me ask you this: What would you say the definition of ‘leadership’ is?”
One of the things I liked about Julie is that she was always up for an intellectual challenge. After thinking for a moment she responded, “Being in a position where other people have to do what you tell them.”
“Ok,” I replied. “That’s one type of leadership; it’s called Authoritarian or Rank-Based Leadership and the military and Corporate America are definitely based on it but there’s another type that’s more powerful...
“It’s called Influential Leadership.”
“This type of leadership is used by those that build churches or lead volunteer organizations or lead movements. There is no boss with rank or authority; people follow because they choose to. The definition of leadership that I believe in most is simply the word ‘influence’—and if you accept that then I have another question for you…”
She nodded for me to continue.
“I first heard a brilliant man named John Maxwell ask this question; What is the difference between leadership and manipulation?”
Julie started to respond but then paused in thought. I thought it was a great question and I remember the impact it had held on me the first time I’d heard it.
She finally answered, “One is good and one is bad.”
“Agreed,” I said. “Here is how I would say it though… There is no physical difference in leadership and manipulation—they are both exercising influence. The only difference is intent.
“For example; if I’m trying to influence someone to do something that benefits both of us and maybe others we call it leadership. If I’m trying to influence someone to do something that benefits only myself we call it manipulation.
“What we have to do to that Noridian ship and the people on her benefits all of Earth. I don’t like it and I don’t like having to teach and lead others in how to do it but I have no qualms of conscious. It has to be done.”
In retrospect, I think this conversation helped settle Julie’s mind as much as anything else we did. Maybe it helped her separate vengeance from the justified use of force. At any rate, the more I got to know her the more complicated of a person I realized she was—but it was a good thing. She was complicated because she had depth; she had depth because she cared about people and was more concerned with actually benefitting them than just making a good show.
We had a lot of similar conversations on that journey, many of them public and some of them private. Most of the conversations were punctuated with laughter—put a bunch of people in a stressful situation together and comic-relief becomes mandatory - but some of the conversations were sober. Whereas every woman I’d ever dated or flirted with required that we play the game and keep the conversations on silly or frivolous topics I found that Julie and I could easily talk about the important things in life. There weren’t any more sleepovers but I couldn’t help feel that we’d built a bond.
“Just because I won’t use a gun doesn’t mean I’m out of the fight,” Dr. Decker insisted.
He had approached me at the beginning of that incredibly busy last week before we reached Earth orbit. He was the only civilian that had flat refused to take part in the boarding raid of the Noridian ship and at first I thought he was just trying to assuage his somewhat arrogant ego by once again reminding me of how important he was, but it sounded like he had something else on his mind.