Chapter 1

The early morning sunlight glinted blindingly off the silver wings of the huge jet as it cleaved a path toward the sun. Fittingly, the light reflected off the jet's wings poured through the small window next to me and lit up the silver paratrooper badge on my chest. I smiled as the drone of the engines subtly changed pitch and the nose of the Air Force C-141 transport dipped downward. The pilot was throttling back and shedding altitude. That meant he was starting his approach into Pope Air Force Base. Pope was adjacent to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, my ultimate destination. I was coming home after an intense combat tour in the Republic of Vietnam; back to the loving arms of my beautiful wife and sweet daughter.

The trip home had been excellent, even though we were flying in a cargo plane. There were about two dozen of us returnees on it, mostly Army and Marines, with a couple of Squids and one Zoomie, all of us in dress uniforms. We even had a civilian on the plane, an older gent dressed casually in tan trousers and a light blue Filipino type shirt. I didn't figure out his function until we landed. The rest of the aircraft was occupied by cargo lashed to shiny aluminum 463L pallets locked into the rail and roller system on the aircraft deck.

I ended up sitting next to the civilian. He was a kind and friendly man named Michael something or other, I never did catch his last name. He insisted on me calling him Mike anyway. Mike asked me about myself, and before you know it, he was listening attentively as I told him my story...

We were high school sweethearts, and we were the couple that no one could understand being together. Megan Stedman was pretty and popular; she was the sweet girl-next-door. She taught Sunday school and sang in the church choir. At school, she was on the pep squad and the A-B honor roll. Everyone loved her.

Everything Megan was, I was not. I was shy, introverted and a loner. I was one of the most intelligent students in the school, yet my grades were mediocre. If a subject interested me, I did okay in it, if not, I did just enough to squeak by. I was the classic underachiever; never living up to my potential. I was Jody (is capable of doing much better work) Jamison to every teacher I ever had.

Listen, that day early in our sophomore year when she sat down next to me in the lunchroom, I was just as shocked as the rest of the Robert E. Lee High School student body. I sat there like a lump, pretending my bologna sandwich was the focus of my universe.

"Ignoring me is not going to work, Jody Jamison," she said firmly.

Yes, Megan knew who I was, because in a school with only five hundred students, it was hard to be invisible, no matter how hard I tried. I raise my head and looked at her, my face in its normal neutral mask.

"Hello Megan, what do you want?" I responded curtly.

She regarded me steadily with those indescribably deep blue eyes for a second, then smiled warmly.

"That's better. Do you realize that we've been in the same geometry class for three weeks, and those are the first words you've ever said to me? That's okay, though, because we're talking now."

Well, actually Megan was doing all the talking, but I was suddenly focused on her every word. It took me months to actually believe that Megan really was attracted to me, but it only took me a second to fall in love with her. Megan's story, to anyone who wants to hear it, is that when she saw me sitting there that day, something told her that I was the man she was going to marry. Since she knew it was unlikely I'd ever approach her, she took matters in her own hands.

Megan didn't try to change me, but her presence in my life did move me more toward what people considered normal. Our relationship worked then, and works now, because Megan keeps us on the right path. I don't mean that she runs my life or anything like that. I just have enough common sense to leave anything requiring interpersonal skills up to her. I can't think of a single thing she ever suggested that wasn't good for me in the long run.

Megan's parents weren't as convinced of my potential as Megan was. Still, they trusted their daughter and let us date. I liked her folks, although her father intimidated me somewhat. Megan's dad was a State Police captain. Every time I walked in the Stedmans' front door, the first thing I saw was the captain's Sam Brown belt hanging on the coat rack. Tucked in the holster of his belt was this huge Smith & Wesson .357 magnum revolver. Stedman would always make a point of glancing at that pistol when he briefed me on when to have Megan home, or what he considered good conduct on my part. He never had a problem making his point to me.

I lived with my grandmother, Alice Jamison, because my mother died when I was seven and my father couldn't, or wouldn't, raise me. He moved out to California and started another family about the time I turned twelve. I flat out refused to go live with them because I wasn't about to leave my grandmother. To this day, I think she is the finest person who ever drew a breath. Most everyone who met her felt the same way.

Granny loved Megan from the first time I introduced them. The two of them seem to have some ESP connection when it comes to me. Granny would pick out a shirt for me, saying that Megan would like it, and Megan would rave about the shirt when I wore it. Things like that happened too often to be a coincidence. Megan's parents even treated me better after they met Granny J.

We graduated from high school in June of 1961, but we had to wait until I turned eighteen in November before we could marry. By then, I was working for the Georgia Power Company as an apprentice lineman. I scored high on the power company's aptitude test and Megan's dad put in a good word for me so they hired me, even though I was only seventeen.

On our wedding night, Megan Claire and Jody Lee Jamison invented making love. Oh sure, folks before us were doing something like it, but it was impossible for anyone to have ever done anything that felt as good or was as intense as when we did it. We were virgins when we tumbled into bed in our motel room in Palmdale, Florida, but thanks to a lot of reading and fooling around, we had a very good idea of what it took to remedy that. Had it not been for the very sweet woman who owned the small beach-front motel worrying about us, we probably would have stayed in our room making love until we starved to dead.

The January after our wedding, Megan started college at Valdosta State. I had promised her parents that I would not prevent her from going to college, since they were willing to pay her tuition. We rented a little place in town and settled into married bliss. I worked, she went to school, and we were incredibly happy.

Megan excelled in college and graduated in June of 1965. At about the same time, I completed the apprenticeship program and received my journeyman's card from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. Instead of an apprentice lineman, I was now a full fledged transmission line electrician and making good money. I wasn't crazy about my job, but I worked hard at it to put food on the table and a roof over my wife's pretty brunette head. Megan's degree was in Early Childhood Education. There was a shortage of teachers then, so she had job offers even before she graduated.

We had the world by the tail and our lives looked set. We were even talking about starting a family, when a little thing named Vietnam reared its ugly head. In July, my draft status changed and I lost my marriage exemption. The Selective Service Board switched to war time criteria so that married men were now eligible for the draft. My birth date had been drawn early in the December, 1964 draft lottery, so it was only a matter of time before I received my induction notice.

After a long heart to heart talk with my wife, and with some advice from my father-in-law, I enlisted in the Army on the first of August. My reporting date was August fifteenth. My reasons for enlisting were more practical than patriotic, as I felt that by enlisting, I'd have a better chance of controlling the duty I ended up with. I was not trying to avoid combat duty, but if I ended up in a frontline unit, I wanted to be something besides cannon fodder. I chose the Army because the sergeant at the recruiting station was honest and straight forward, and that impressed the hell out of me. I realize that's not the greatest of reasons for a decision that big, but it was reason enough for me.

I gave my notice to my employer on the day after I enlisted, and my supervisor graciously waived the two week notice clause of my employment contract. The business agent down at the union hall told me I would continue to earn seniority while I was in the Army, as long as I kept my dues current.

For those two weeks between enlisting and shipping out, Megan and I spent every moment together. The situation made our relationship stronger instead of putting stress on it. That's mostly Megan's fault, because she refused to have any negative thoughts about what I was doing. When it came to backing her man, Megan Jamison was Grizzly Bear fierce. As for me, there wasn't a hound dog in South Georgia half as loyal.

Megan drove me down to the Greyhound station at noon on August fifteenth. Both of us tried to be brave for the other. We clung together desperately as the bus's driver and passengers waited patiently for me to board.

Four hours later I was in Jacksonville. I spent the night at a contract hotel and at six the following morning, I was on a dark blue Navy bus headed to the Military Enlistment Processing Station. I spent the early morning taking the vocational aptitude test. In the afternoon, it was the physical exam, followed by a session with the guidance counselor. The guidance sergeant looked at the results of the tests and glanced up at me.

"These are some of the highest ASVAB scores I've ever seen, Jemison. You are qualified for any job in the Army. A month ago, I could have offered you twenty career fields to choose from, but today that's down to three. So what'll it be Jody, Infantry, Armor or Field Artillery?"

The sergeant handed me a job description of all three and I quickly eliminated humping cannon shells or being cooped up in a tank. 'So much for enlisting to get a better job', I thought, as I signed on the dotted line for a three year hitch as a light weapons infantryman.

I took the oath of enlistment and was herded with about fifty other guys out to a waiting Continental Trailways chartered bus. A sergeant took roll call and when he was satisfied everyone was on board, we hit the road in a cloud of black diesel smoke. We stopped at a road side HoJos in Waycross, Georgia, for supper, then motored through the night westward to Fort Benning.

I made acquaintance with a few of the men on the bus as we rolled through the Georgia night. We were a Heinz 57 group of blacks, whites, rich, poor, volunteers and draftees. Most of the fellows on that bus ended up in the same basic training company as me; about a quarter of them in my platoon.

As soon as I departed for basic training, Megan moved our possessions into storage and herself back home with her parents, so we could cut down on our expenses. Megan and I were savers; we squeezed our money tightly so we'd have some of it for the future.