Another voice spouted up, "Mister President, when were you informed?"
"The Commandant and a Navy doctor made the notification yesterday morning. We are Charlie's next of kin."
There were several more questions along this line, and then I was asked, "Will you be giving your son a medal?"
I sighed. I knew that was coming! "At the time the Commandant informed us that Charlie was wounded, he also informed us that Charlie's commanding officer had recommended him for a decoration. I am sure that Charlie will not be the only Marine who is decorated. I have nothing to do with the criteria for the awarding of decorations and medals, and will not be involved in that. As both the President and Charlie's father, I have to admit that if my son is to be decorated, I will be extremely proud to do so."
At that point Colonel Duvalier came over and took my place at the podium. He gave a brief description of the method the Marines used to determine whether a decoration had been earned and the process involved. The fact of the matter was that nothing he said mattered. There would be people who simply would refuse to believe that Charlie being given a medal wasn't a political move on my part. If Charlie were to die, they would claim I had sent him to his death to gain sympathy and win re-election.
I got back to the podium and took the bull by the horns. "I am perfectly aware that if my son were to be given a medal, there are plenty of people out there who will think he has gotten it because of who I am, and not what he did. Let me put it a different way, however. If Lance Corporal Buckman did act heroically, should he not be decorated because of who I am? I have to tell you, when Marilyn and the girls and I first saw that footage on Monday night, I thought for sure I was going to be giving somebody an award posthumously. We couldn't believe that Marine, whoever he was, wasn't killed saving those people."
"What was the First Lady's reaction?"
I had to smile at that. "I think you could say she was rather upset, as I was. That was her first reaction. Her second reaction, after we learned that Charlie would recover, was that she demanded to see him, like yesterday." I looked over at the Commandant and smiled at him. "I don't think I've ever seen a Marine general as nervous as when we told Marilyn the other day. I think he would have preferred charging into cannon fire, and I would have been right behind him!" General Jones laughed at that and nodded. "We compromised. I sent the First Lady on a tour of the Tarawa Amphibious Group. She and a few of your fellow reporters should be there later today. Now, while I am sure she is going to go see Charlie first, she is also planning on meeting with the sailors and Marines of the entire amphibious group, and to thank them and congratulate them all on a job well done."
There was another hooraw over that! How could I send my wife, when none of the other mothers could go? (We didn't have time to arrange it. We would be scheduling time to make sure everybody wounded would be able to call home, if they hadn't already done so.) Why didn't she take anybody else with her? (We didn't have time to arrange it. We already answered this. They kept asking anyway.)
Why should the American public pay for this personal use of taxpayer funds? The last question was the easiest to deal with. Jim Miklaszewski of NBC News asked it, so I put him right on the hot seat. "Mik, that's a fair question. The answer is that the American public won't be paying for it. I expect to be getting a bill from the Navy, and I'll have to pay that."
"You'll be paying it? It will cost millions to send Mrs. Buckman and a team of reporters to the middle of the ocean!", he exclaimed.
"Probably so. So now I have an assignment for you! At the end of this press conference you will be escorted somewhere here in the Pentagon, and somebody will figure out what this is going to cost. You are then going to report that number, and bring a camera crew over to the White House, where you can film me writing a check. That ought to be good for a few minutes on prime time, right?" I left him standing there open-mouthed and flummoxed. In fact, the Navy was going to have to scramble to figure this out, but it would get him out of my remaining hair.
The 'Monrovian Rescue' occupied a lot of news time, right through the weekend. By the next day Greg Kelly began reporting from the Lincoln and the Tarawa about the First Lady's tour, as well as a variety of stock shots of F-18s flying combat patrols over Monrovia. The patrols began flying as soon as the Lincoln got close enough to launch them with adequate tanker support, and proved highly useful in settling down the locals. By Thursday all the networks had managed to get broadcast teams to Monrovia, and Bismarck Myrick proved an interesting sight, showing up in khakis, a short sleeve shirt, and combat boots, wearing a Viet Nam era flak jacket open in the front (rendering it useless, but it made for good video) and a pistol at his side in a web belt. At one sticky point during the negotiations, he ordered a flight of F-18s to do a low flyover with the afterburners roaring, which busted a bunch of windows and calmed things down again. I always liked Teddy Roosevelt's comment about speaking softly and carrying a big stick, but it was a good idea to show the stick every once in awhile!
The Monrovia airport reopened the day before the gators were to leave. When it did, a lot of the refugees were shuttled to the airport, and rescue flights were sent down from Paris and Geneva to take people who wanted to leave to Europe. Not everybody did. Many people headed back to their embassies or wherever they started out. Either way, they left the ships, because they had several days of sailing to do.
Marilyn proved very popular with the Navy and the Marines! She has a sunny disposition at the worst of times, and is very good with individuals and small groups. As soon as the Navy saw her wearing that ridiculous Marine BDU, they scrounged up a set of enlisted coveralls and she rolled up the sleeves and legs on those. Marilyn's a good looking woman, and what she did to the front of those coveralls was quite interesting! As expected, as soon as she could get to the Tarawa, she went down to see Charlie, and they both called me from his hospital berth (or whatever they call it on a ship – squids have to do everything differently!) After that, however, she managed to tour each and every ship in the little fleet as they sailed back towards Norfolk. Gators, destroyers, cruisers – she even got loaded onto a helicopter and put in a sling, to be winched down onto the Alexandria, an Improved Los Angeles class attack sub, which then dived and took her down to show her submarine operations. If somebody didn't meet her, it was their own fault, because she seemed to be everywhere. She looked to be having a grand time cruising with the Navy!
The Sunday morning news shows focused on the Monrovian Rescue. Tom Ridge, Condi Rice, and Colin Powell made the rounds. This was the first 'foreign relations crisis of the Buckman Administration' (never mind that little thing we did destroying the Taliban and Al Qaeda) and we were on the hot seat. Despite the fact that approval for our response was in the high 80s, there were plenty of critics convinced that if they had been in charge we could have done it better, or without the Marines, or faster. A few other voices demanded to know why we had done anything; let the damn place go to hell, clear out our people only, and let the Europeans rescue their own people. Oh, and no matter what we did, we didn't show enough 'leadership' in the crisis. It's easy to criticize from the cheap seats.
One of the more interesting segments of it all was when Miklaszewski found himself escorted to the bowels of the Pentagon with a couple of Navy O-4s, who figured out the cost of flying Marilyn and the others out to the Lincoln, and then to the Tarawa, and feeding them for a week. He was presented a copy of the bill, and a separate copy was sent through different channels and I got it. Later, after Ari was questioned at a press briefing, he had to explain the rules about what the government paid for and what I had to pay for, and then reminded everybody that all of my paycheck went to the Red Cross, so I was a net loser on this.