“Sir.” Miller took off and left me with my son and nephew. Jack Rottingen, Jr. was a little bigger and heavier than Charlie, and definitely took after his father. Both boys were tan and muscular, with that high-and-tight semi-shaved head look the Marines liked.
I shook both their hands. “Damn, you two look good. How was the cruise?”
“I’m glad to be home!” announced my son.
“Same here,” agreed Jack.
“Have you had a chance to call your folks yet?” I asked my nephew. I looked over at Charlie. “Your mother and sisters will be coming down as soon as school is out. We’ll grill something, if that’s okay.”
“Yeah sure,” he answered.
Jack said, “I called and left a message on the machine, but Dad must not have been home yet, and Mom must be at the hospital. We left a message to call you, if that’s okay.”
“Sure, no problem.” I led the boys towards the door. Opening it, I saw Mindy with my schedule in her hands. “Mindy, you’ve met Charlie before. This is my nephew, Corporal Jack Rottingen. I need you to do two things. Let housekeeping know Jack will be staying with us tonight, and cancel everything else for the day.”
“Welcome home, Charlie. It’s good to see you again. Nice to meet you, Corporal.” She turned to me and said, “Yes on one and no on two. OMB and the Council of Economic Advisers just got here for a meeting with you.”
I looked back at the two young men. “I sometimes wonder who is working for whom. Listen, I’ll join you as soon as I can. Charlie, show Jack around and get settled. We can figure things out when I get there.”
“OO-RAH!” was the reply, and they looked around and caught the eye of somebody who led them from the West Wing. I grabbed a few things and went to my meeting.
I can’t say as I remembered much about the meeting. I basically rubberstamped some plans to end the deficit and the recession. Military expenditures were much more in control on this go. We had ramped up certain items, cut back on some others, and the Coast Guard had gotten a major refinancing. On the other hand, while Saddam Hussein was still being a mouthy asshole, I wasn’t spending a fortune keeping him under control, and had no plans to invade. The Iraq and Afghanistan wars had cost us $200 to $300 billion a year all on their own, and none of that had been funded. In fact, Bush would have lowered taxes, and by some projections that would have created deficits of half a trillion dollars a year for as far as the eye could see.
Actually, most of my thoughts were on the two young men by now drinking beer on the Truman Balcony. Jack had already re-enlisted, getting a promotion from Lance Corporal (E-3) to Corporal (E-4) out of the deal. He was making the sounds of a lifer. Charlie was a Lance Corporal and was probably going to get the same offer in the near future. He still hadn’t decided if he wanted to go career or not. I was going to have to talk to him about that. Despite what I had told him about not interfering, that simply wasn’t realistic. It was much too dangerous to put him into a combat situation, not for his sake, but for the sake of those around him! In Afghanistan, for instance, if the Taliban and Al Qaeda knew that the son of the U.S. President was around, they would be making human wave attacks for the chance to capture or kill him, putting his entire unit into massive peril. Would he want to stay in knowing that for the rest of my term he would never be actually allowed to serve with his unit if they were sent into combat?
I was interrupted halfway through my meeting by a call from my sister, so I put her on hold and had the call transferred up to the Residence (“And if those two nitwits don’t pick up, call me back and I’ll go kick some Marine ass!”) Eventually I was able to break free from the meeting and head up to the Residence.
As I suspected, the two were lounging on recliners out on the Balcony, working on a cooler of beers. Jack was legal, Charlie not so much. He wouldn’t turn 21 until October, not that I intended to chew his ass over it. I grabbed a beer and headed into the bedroom to change, and then re-joined them. I was about to say something when we all heard the turbine whine and rotor flutter of an approaching helicopter. Marine One was bringing Marilyn, the twins, and Stormy in for landing on the South Lawn, right out in front of us. Technically, it isn’t Marine One unless I am personally aboard, but I have no idea what the call sign would be then. There are actually two type of helos flying for HMX-1, the Marine helicopter squadron assigned to carry me around. They flew either H-3 Sea Kings or, as was the case today, H-60 “White Hawks”, a fancy variant on the standard Black Hawks the Army used.
The women all disembarked and I could see my wife’s semi-amused look when the three of us stood up and waved at them with beer bottles obviously in evidence. She pointed at us to the girls and said something none of us could hear, but I was sure was snarky. They all came in, and a minute later pandemonium reigned for a few minutes. Stormy rampaged in and almost knocked over the cooler as she greeted us.
“Good Lord! This thing really is a monster!” commented Jack as Stormy tried to jump into his lap.
“I told you,” replied Charlie. “You just didn’t believe me.”
Marilyn said, “Starting without me?” as she picked up an empty bottle of beer.
“It was a long day. I earned this,” I told her.
“A likely story!” She turned to Charlie and gave him a hug. “Oh! I have missed you!”
“It’s good to be back, Mom.”
“You, too, Jack!” She hugged him next. “Have you talked to your folks yet?”
“Mom called a little while ago. She knows I’m here,” he responded.
“Well, tell me your plans and I’ll call her back. I haven’t talked to her in a week or two anyway.”
The boys looked at each other, and Jack said, “We’ve both got a couple of weeks of leave. We were thinking of hanging out here, or somewhere in town, and then going up to Rochester for a week. After that I need to get back to Jacksonville. As soon as my leave is up I transfer to Twentynine Palms, 1st of the 7th.”
“Huh. Twentynine Palms, that’s the middle of the Mojave Desert. Better take your suntan lotion,” I commented.
“OO-RAH! They also tell us it’s a dry heat, but I don’t know whether I believe that or not. Mom and Dad said they’d come out and visit after I get settled.”
I snorted at that. “Tell them to do it over the winter.” I looked over at Marilyn. “You might as well call Suzie and tell her the boys are safe but trying to drink Washington dry. We’ll fly them up on the G-IV when they want to go.”
She nodded. “If they fly up on Friday, I might want to take the girls up for the weekend. I haven’t seen your sister in months.”
“Fine by me. You two sort it out and get it set up. If it’s just you and the girls it will probably be okay. If I go it will turn into a zoo. Invite them down for a vacation sometime, too. We can put them in President Blue’s Room.”
Marilyn gave me a dry look. “Very funny.” Then she picked up the phone and got the switchboard to connect her to my sister.
The visit to Marilyn’s family had been a disaster at Christmas. The entourage surrounding me, and the security required, was simply beyond belief. You had to be present to understand it. It was far beyond what I had traveled with as the Veep, and light years beyond the private security I had used as a Congressman and businessman. Marilyn and the kids needed protection, but not like what went with me. It would actually be a fraction of the cost to fly Marilyn’s entire family to Christmas at the White House, compared to flying us to them. It affected everything, too. I couldn’t just drive over to Tusk Cycle to see my friends any longer, either. Leaving aside the apoplexy that the Secret Service would have if I wanted to visit a biker hangout, it practically shuts down a business when I make a visit.