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.
One of the more pathetic episodes was when a commentator on CNN announced that Charlie wasn’t actually the Marine who had been wounded, and that the Pentagon was faking the whole thing to make me look good and get a bigger budget. He had this on the basis of secret and classified reports that couldn’t be actually shared, and eyewitness testimony from sailors, who couldn’t give their names out of fear of reprisals. ABC and the Washington Post then commissioned a study using facial recognition software that analyzed video captures from the combat footage and compared it to pictures of Charlie, and proved it was him after all. CNN stopped pushing the theory, but refused to disavow their pundit.
It was the following Friday when the Tarawa was scheduled to dock in Norfolk. Marilyn had stayed with the fleet the entire way home, and I promised her that the girls and I would travel down to greet them. They were scheduled to dock at about 0900, and disembark not too long after that. Ari let the networks know and that was my schedule for the day.
Tom Ridge flew down with us. I was eagerly looking out the windows of Marine One as we flew over the gigantic naval base. It was the girls who saw the ship first, out their side of the helo, and I twisted to look at what they were pointing at. The Tarawa looked huge, but I knew that compared to the Lincoln and the other attack carriers she was a lot smaller. As we closed in and slowly dropped in for a landing, I realized that they had some sort of platform and podium set up down at one end of the deck, and that the deck was crowded with what looked like hundreds of sailors and Marines. I was dressed in relatively casual clothes, of slacks, sport shirt, and a sport coat, without a tie. The twins wanted to wear skirts, but I told them that they would be on a deck fifty feet up in the air, in a stiff breeze, and in front of a thousand guys. Maybe they wanted to reconsider? Molly said ‘Yes!’ and Holly said ‘No!’ and I ruled in favor of jeans and conservative tops.
We landed on the Tarawa in a small circle near the stern, and after the Sikorsky’s engines started winding down, somebody with big earmuffs on and some kind of jumpsuit ran out and the door to Marine One opened. I unbuckled and stepped out and down, to be saluted by a petty officer of some sort. I returned the salute, and he yelled over the noise, “Welcome to the Tarawa, sir!”
“Thank you very much!” I yelled back. I waited a few seconds for the girls to un-ass the bird, and then we followed the petty officer away from the helo and towards the bow. There was a pathway cleared through the crowd, and I waved to the crowd, which was cheering wildly.
I had requested that most of the formal honors I could expect were to be dispensed with. If we were to be picky, I needed a band playing ‘Hail to the Chief’, a bunch of ‘Ruffles and Flourishes’, sideboys, a boatswain’s mate piping me aboard, and God only knows what else. It was pretty ridiculous most of the time, especially for an informal visit to see some wounded Marines. During most of my troop and ship visits, I requested this stuff to be cut back. We worked our way forward, and as we got to where the platform was, I saw that there was a rope line set up to keep everybody back a few feet. On the platform were several Navy and Marine officers, and probably the shortest and bustiest Marine in the Corps. Marilyn was there in that silly outfit. Off to one side were several wheelchairs, and seats, and Charlie was there, but he was standing, a bit awkwardly, along with the others, several of whom were supporting each other.
For some reason that made me angry, that these wounded men were required to come to attention. I went over to them, and hugged Charlie and shook hands, but I said, “You should be sitting down!”
I must have said it sharper than I should, because Charlie answered, “Dad, if it was you, would you sit before the President?”
That took the wind out of me. My eyes popped open, and I responded, “No, of course not. Gentlemen, I meant no disrespect. Please, for my sake, have a seat. I’ll talk to you all again in a few minutes.” I nodded to my son, and then climbed to the platform, where the twins were already hugging their mother.
Marilyn I hugged tightly, lifting her off the platform, much to the cheers and laughter of the crowd. “I missed you!”
“Me too!”
I set her back down. I shook hands with everybody up there, and was quickly introduced, but thankfully I had been given a list of important names before we took off, and they all had name tags on. Then I was directed to the podium.