Harlan was a brave man. He spent twenty years defending our country. He was a lieutenant colonel in the United States Army, and in that time saw combat and smelled gun smoke. He paid a price, as all soldiers do, in frequent absences from home, frequent moves, and not enough pay for the responsibilities which were his. His love for his country was as great as his love for his family.
Harlan was proud, too. He was the first member of his family to ever go to college, and he ended up a professional officer. His wife was a nurse, and his children would all go to college. He knew the great leap he had taken but he was always proud of his family and background, and he always cherished the burden of making his family proud of him.
Harlan was funny. He was a guy you could sit down with and have a drink with, and we routinely did. When I went into politics he had more than a few pithy comments to make, and the longer I stayed in, the more fun he made of me. As I was telling Anna Lee the other night, if he'd lived long enough to see me become the President, he'd have died laughing and we'd all be back here anyway!
Harlan and I were friends, and we often talked, not just about what the kids were up to and what our favorite teams were doing, but about history and politics. I won't lie to you and say we agreed on everything. Harlan was a Democrat and I'm a Republican. Sometimes we'd get to chewing on each other pretty good. It didn't matter. In the end we would always come back to the fact that Army green wasn't red or blue, it was red, white, and blue. No matter what we would argue about, in the end we were both Americans.
And now we do what has to be done with all good men, we have to give him back to God, with thanks for letting us borrow him for too short a time. Harlan, your family will miss you, and your friends will miss you, and I will miss you. So, it's time to send you now to your final reward. I strongly suspect you're going to Heaven, but I might be wrong. I suppose there's a chance you might be heading somewhere south of there. Don't worry, though, because if that happens, when I get there we can bunk together again."
After the ceremony, I hung back with the other pallbearers (and a Secret Service detail, which everybody else stared at) and then helped carry the casket out of the church and to the hearse. I commented to Colonel Avery that Harlan didn't get the lightweight casket, which earned me a few laughs. From the church we went to the cemetery, and again I found myself carrying a casket. Thankfully I didn't stumble or drop him, since this was going out live and nationwide on television. Then it was back to Washington. We didn't even have time to do much more than hug Anna Lee and the kids, though I did have a chance to speak to Tyrone.
"Uncle Carl, can I ask you a question?"
"Sure, what's on your mind?"
He glanced over at his brother in his gray uniform. "When I get old enough, will you help me get into West Point, like you helped Roscoe?"
I crossed my arms and eyed the young man, and also glanced at his mother. She didn't look either pro or con, but she had been a camp follower for most of her life. "I'll give you a maybe on that. You need to qualify to get in, which means really good grades and a few other things. You've got a few years to go, but if you can qualify and you are still interested, look me up, and we'll talk. Fair enough?"
"Yes, sir!"
Anna Lee shooed him off and said, "Thank you." She glanced over at Roscoe, talking to some of his cousins. "Who'd have thought it? The first in his family to go to college, and he ends up with two at West Point? Harlan wouldn't never believe that!"
"Kick his butt on his grades.", I told her, then we all hugged and we took our leave.
We flew back to Washington quietly, both Marilyn and I wrapped in our own thoughts. I had known Harlan for over a quarter of a century. Had it really been that long? It seemed like just a summer or two ago that we had routed the Orange Army and fired 105s and done training jumps together. It was like I had said; we hadn't been black or white, but green. He was just too damn young to be gone!
The rest of the week was a combination of morbid fakery and diplomacy. Every day there was some form of ceremony, some short and some long, usually with the Bush family in attendance. I had a lieutenant colonel from the Military District of Washington following me around giving me instructions and timetables for what I had to do. My overwhelming thought every time I saw him was, 'We're paying an O-5 to do this shit?!' Every day it seemed like I had to give a different speech or memorial presentation, and Matt and Mike were working overtime writing them for me.
It got worse that day. Somebody decided to have some fun mailing anthrax to various government offices. Fortunately, I had remembered about this happening, though not the time frame, and I had given orders on 9-11 to start screening mail more carefully. Nothing actually got to any Congressional offices, though the Capitol mailroom ended up contaminated and four workers there eventually died. For some reason it seemed like it wasn't as bad this time as on my first trip through. Once again the press went into overload.
Meanwhile, foreign dignitaries were trickling in daily. Pretty much every nation around the world that the United States had cordial relations with sent either royalty or their highest ranking elected official or their head of foreign affairs. Many sent all of the above. From England we got Prince Charles and the Prime Minister. The Israelis sent their President, Prime Minister, and Foreign Minister. Unlike with JFK, we now got delegations from a variety of former or still Communist states, including the People's Republic of China. We also got delegations from a number of Arab and Islamic states, but not all of them. Meanwhile, back home, in a number of those countries people were still dancing in the streets.
I assigned Dick Cheney to handle most of these delegations. We were barely on speaking terms at that point, and we were now communicating through aides and assistants. I ordered him to divvy the delegates into groups. The people we liked and were important got to meet with me. The people we liked and weren't important got to meet him. The people we didn't like got junior flunkies, regardless of how important they were. That group included most of the Arab world. There was no way in hell I was going to sit down and break bread with the Saudis, not when almost all of the hijackers had been Arabs working for an Arab terrorist group. If they felt insulted, I really didn't care.
I ended up speaking to the powers-that-be of about a dozen nations. In most cases I was able to meet with them between ceremonies. Everybody wanted the new American President to visit their country. It was actually rather refreshing in a way, in that some of these places were actually places you would want to visit. George Bush had never sent me to Paris while he was alive, but now it seemed quite probable he would do so in his death.
Wednesday, after seeing the casket in the Rotunda, I was able to meet with Colin Powell in the Oval Office. I knew that some of the neoconservatives in the West Wing would report the meeting to the 'real' Republicans elsewhere, but I no longer cared. It was time to do some housecleaning.
"Colin, thank you for coming.", I said after he was ushered into the Oval Office. I dismissed the Secret Service escort and directed him over to a sideboard. "Coffee?"
"Allow me, sir. You?"
"I'll have tea. I never have been able to really stomach coffee. Now I don't have to.", I said, smiling.
I joined him at the sideboard and poured myself some Earl Grey from a silver tea service. Colin poured himself some Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee. The blend was supposed to be the most expensive in the world, and restricted to the Oval Office. It was ironic that I would never taste it. It was simply coffee to me, and made my stomach churn. We took our cups back to our seats in armchairs in the center of the room.