Maxwell put his glasses back on.
“A what?”
“I had to go through my plebe year twice. It took me five years to graduate.”
“No love lost then for West Point, eh?”
“Not really, sir.”
“Then you won’t mind my saying that I believe the academies, as they are, may have outlived their usefulness.
They either need extensive revision, which the JCS and the academies themselves have vigorously resisted for decades, or they need to be abolished.” Maxwell abruptly changed the subject.
“You know the President is making a major policy speech about the MRA at Pearl Harbor?”
“Yes, sir.”
“He scraped the MRA through Congress,” Maxwell said. “Of course, with what just happened in the Ukraine and Turkey, he’s catching quite a bit of flack.” Maxwell sighed.
“There are some shortsighted people around. We’re pumping millions into the Ukraine, but the Pentagon’s solution is to pour billions into Hard Glass, a system most objective researchers say won’t work. Even the contractors admit they can’t guarantee a hundred percent protection.
We can’t guarantee a hundred percent solution in the Ukraine either, but it should prove cheaper doing it the political way. And it does have a higher probability of success.
“Of course, we’ve got to consider the jobs that are affected by Hard Glass. Those billions aren’t going into a vacuum, they’re going into our economy. Those millions into the Ukraine are going into a black hole as far as the people in Congress are concerned. Ukrainians don’t vote and they don’t contribute to PACS.”
Stewart had been in Washington long enough to have heard it all before.
Every clear-cut issue dissolved into a morass of special interests, many of which had little direct bearing on the issue itself. Sometimes Stewart wondered how the republic had worked so well for so long.
“I’ll be going to Hawaii with the President,” Maxwell said.
“Yes, sir.”
Maxwell’s back was ramrod straight and his eyes were now on the rows and rows of white grave markers.
“I served in Vietnam. I fought the war my country ordered me to fight to the best of my ability and tried to bring home in one piece the men who served under me. Those men who died at Pearl Harbor fifty-four years ago did what they were ordered to do. I have always followed legal orders. I ordered men on missions in Bosnia where they died; those orders came from the President. That’s the way it works.”
Maxwell tapped out his pipe on the palm of his hand.
“Do me a favor he said.
“Yes, sir,” Stewart automatically responded.
“Be careful and be very thorough with your Pearl Harbor check.”
Stewart blinked.
“Sir?”
Maxwell tapped the side of his closely cropped head.
“Humor an old soldier’s intuition. I’ve got a bad feeling about this whole trip and I’d appreciate it if you’d be extra careful in preparing for the President’s trip, particularly with regard to the military installations he’ll be visiting.”
Stewart nodded, “Yes, sir, I’ll do that.”
Maxwell laid a hand on his shoulder.
“Thank you.”
With that, he turned and walked into the chapel, leaving a confused Stewart alone on the chilly hillside among the graves.
Boomer drowsily awoke from an uneasy dream and turned over. He froze as the pain from his ribs shocked him totally awake. He gingerly swung his legs out and touched the floor before sitting up on the couch. He glanced out the window into the darkness and was surprised to see Maggie’s figure silhouetted against the night sky. She was wrapped in an old housecoat and smoking a cigarette, looking out at something.
Boomer carefully slipped on a shirt and slid open the glass door.
Maggie turned and smiled.
“Having trouble sleeping?”
“A little.”
“How’s your side?”
“Hurts like hell, but I’ve cracked ribs before. It just takes time to heal. As long as I don’t laugh too hard, I’ll be all right.”
“Not much to laugh about right now is there?” Maggie asked.
“No, there isn’t.”
“Sit down, relax,” Maggie said, pointing at one of the wicker chairs on the porch. A thermos was on the table along with a couple of mugs.
“Help yourself to some coffee.”
She settled into the seat, drawing her coat in tight around her frail shoulders.
“Ski’s told me what’s going on.
It’s a pretty sad thing.”
Sad wasn’t exactly the word Boomer would have used to describe the events of the past week. He remained silent and looked over the low lying ground sloping into the ocean. The Arizona Memorial was a bright block of white, lit by searchlights in the middle of Pearl Harbor. The International Airport was just coming to life as red-eye flights landed every ten minutes.
“Ski told me your father was killed in Vietnam,” Maggie said.
“My oldest son, Peter, died there too. Ski probably didn’t tell you that.”
“No, he didn’t. I’m sorry,” Boomer said.
“It’s strange. A generation either way, and we both lost someone in the same war. You know, my generation looks at that war differently than yours. For us it was this long, slow slide that didn’t make any sense. We grew up in the Depression and then went through the dark years of World War II. It was especially dark here in Hawaii where every day you could look out at the harbor and see how bad things were.
“Then things turned around. Coral Sea. Midway. Guadalcanal.
On through the islands. The war in Europe ended.
Then the bomb. No one questioned the bomb back then.
We were so tired of death and war. We just wanted it over.
And after what the Japanese did here, we weren’t exactly in the mood to be very sympathetic.
“After the war we all thought everything would be so bright and the world would be a better place. And it was.
At least it appeared to be. The fifties were wonderful, but there was a cloud over everything. The Cold War. The war in Korea. No one quite understood that war. The Red Scare!” Maggie laughed.
“It all seems so stupid now, but it was so real then.”
She lit another cigarette, then pointed with the glowing end at the harbor.
“But the question I’ve been asking myself:
“Was it real?”
“Boomer took a sip of hot coffee.
“Was what real?”
Maggie didn’t answer him directly.
“I get up every morning at four-thirty and sit out here for an hour.
I’ve been doing that for fifty-five years.” Maggie sighed.
“You know, some people claim Roosevelt knew we were going to get attacked on December seventh and he let it happen.
Did you ever hear that?”
Boomer nodded.
“I’ve heard it, but I never really got into it.”
“Oh, there’s been volumes written about it,” Maggie said.
“I’ve gotten into it,” she added.
“I’ve read all the books and even done some studying on my own. It bothers Ski that I seem so obsessed by it all, so we don’t talk about it any more.
“I was here when the bombs started falling. Ever since that morning I’ve never been asleep at dawn here in Hawaii.”
She paused.
“I wasn’t where I was supposed to be that morning.”
She glanced over at Boomer, who was still, his head cocked attentively.
“Ski told you my husband, George, was on the Enterprise and they were out at sea on the seventh.
We lived down there in Pearl City in a nice little house we’d bought about six months earlier. But I wasn’t in my house, in my bed, on the morning of the seventh. I was over at the bachelor officers quarters at Pearl in someone else’s bed that morning.”