Jackie was tall, blond, and thin. As a young girl she had been awkward and angular, and since she was clumsy, she hated sports. Her ears back then had been too big, and she had always felt disproportionate. But as a teenager she caught up with herself and began to move with a newfound ease and grace. She grew into her features, and although not quite beautiful, she was attractive — striking even. Her parents had sent Jacquelyn, their only child, to the private Park Tudor School, where she excelled academically and dated very little. As she matured, she acquired a soft, ethereal presence that made her appear aloof and often made boys reluctant to approach her. Her grades and College Board scores were such that if her fami Ct iapply had not had the means, she would have attended college on an academic scholarship. When she came home for Thanksgiving her freshman year at Notre Dame, she told her parents she had met the man she would marry. They brushed it off as infatuation and inexperience. Still, they were concerned that this attachment would distract her from her studies — or, worse, cause her to drop out of school. Yet her first-semester grades reflected no such problem. Still, they were wary of this first boy in her life. Jackie’s parents did not meet him until later that spring.
They met Roark during a parent’s weekend at South Bend and quickly realized that this boy was a man, that he was courteous and polite to a fault, and that he was as much in love with their daughter as she was with him. While Jackie completed school and he completed SEAL training, her parents found themselves worrying that the separation might cause the relationship to end. The wedding took place a week after her graduation, followed by a reception at the Meridian Hills Country Club. Jackie was radiant, and the Navy groomsmen were just as handsome and polite as their new son-in-law. And they all wore the same shiny gold pin on their starched, white uniforms — the one they called the Trident.
When Engel returned to their small Coronado efficiency after his lunch with Nolan, he was worried about having broken the news of Jackie’s pregnancy to his chief. He was still trying to figure out how to tell her when she saw him and smiled.
“You told Dave, didn’t you?”
“Well, you see, he just sort of found out. I didn’t actually tell him.”
“And he’s the only one who knows, right?” she asked, knowing the answer full well.
He shifted from one foot to the other. “Well, it sort of went a little further than that.”
She came to him and they hugged. “Yeah, I know. Brothers by different mothers and all that.” They had stood in the kitchen-dining-living area for some time and just held each other. That afternoon they went for a long, easy bike ride together, their last for a while. Then they loaded the cooler in the car and headed for the platoon beach party.
The sun dropped behind the clouds before it dropped behind the ocean. No green flash tonight. The SEALs and the kids gradually played themselves out and began to straggle back to the food tables. It was a standard beach spread with chips, burgers, hotdogs, potato salad, and coleslaw. The other wives fussed over Jackie, and Roark moved from one table to another, taking a few moments with each extended family group. Dave Nolan was on the move as well. Their circuits converged when they reached a couple comfortably ensconced in two beach chairs on the edge of the group. Their kids were older and off doing what teenagers do on a Sunday night.
“Evening, Senior Chief. Hello, Mary. Good to see you again.”
“Evening, sir,” he replied. Then to Nolan, “How goes it with the Bandito, Jefe?”
“It goes well, Senior — even better knowing Cetty g that you’ll be with our detachment.”
Mary, sensing they needed to talk, pushed herself to her feet. “Think I’ll go and see what the girls are doing.” She paused, then gave Engel a hug. “I just heard the news, Roark. I couldn’t be more tickled. Blessings to you and Jackie.”
“Thanks, Mary. We won’t be long.”
They watched as she made her way over to a group of wives. Engel sensed that the collective mood of their ladies was much lighter than it had been during previous pre-deployment parties. Those rotations had been to Afghanistan or Iraq, with the prospect of certain and continuous combat. This deployment, with the task unit away from the active theaters in a contingency posture, held the prospect of probable engagement, but not the daily combat operations nearly all of them had known since 9/11. On this rotation, they would be looking for opportunities to get their guns in the fight. Currently in Afghanistan, as it had been in Iraq a few years before, the environment was target rich, and quite often, the fight found you.
The SEAL wives were for the most part bright, attractive, outgoing women and, in many cases, much more than the home half of a marriage. SEALs tended to marry women like themselves — capable, self-reliant, and independent. Many, including Jackie, were professionals whose income exceeded that of their husbands. Most worked until the children arrived. Some then became stay-at-home moms while others retained nannies and continued their careers. Yet because many SEALs and their wives shared the type-A gene, divorce rates were high — not noticeably higher now than before 9/11 but still high.
“Senior, I didn’t speak with you before I asked the skipper if you could detach in support of us. I hope you don’t mind.”
“No worries, sir. I’ve been to Southeast Asia many times, and before this deployment’s over, we’ll all probably be back out in WESTPAC with the rest of the task unit.” He grinned with some satisfaction. “It’s a chance to work a new area of operations. Other than that, I go where they tell me, just like you do. That much hasn’t changed.”
At thirty-nine, Senior Chief Otto Miller was older than any of the platoon SEALs and one of the older hands at Team Seven. He was also a legend in the SEAL Teams. As a platoon leading petty officer at SEAL Team Five, he had been badly wounded in an urban firefight during the Battle of Ramadi in 2006. His squad had gone out to rescue an Army patrol that was pinned down by insurgents. Early in the fight, his face had been raked by shrapnel, and a bullet found its way under his body armor and lodged itself in his spine. Yet he kept his gun in the fight, and his actions saved many lives in the beleaguered patrol. The bullet left him with permanent nerve damage and only the partial use of his left leg. He could have taken his Navy Cross and a substantial disability pension and retired, but Otto Miller was not finished serving his country. While he was still in physical therapy, he asked to have his Navy rating changed from Special Operator First Class to Intelligence Specialist First Class. Intelligence Specialists are among the Navy’s smartest sailors, and their rating is known to be one that demands a great deal of ability. Miller got his rating change, but he also had to pass the IS1 exam to keep it — no easy task for someone new to the Ce nlitspecialty. He passed the exam and then some, exceeding the scores of other more-seasoned sailors, specialists who had been working in military intelligence for years.
The ten years of continuous combat since 9/11 produced a good many wounded SEALs, men physically unable to return to duty. Not all of them handled it well. They had not joined the Navy and the SEAL Teams because they couldn’t find work or because college proved too difficult or to receive job training. They joined to become professional warriors. Once in the Teams, they entered this elite brotherhood and came to know the sometimes-narcotic thrill of special-operations combat. When their battle wounds forced them out of combat rotation, either they adjusted or they did not. Most got to where they were because they were goal oriented and success driven. The disabilities imposed by combat simply brought on a new set of challenges. A great many left the Navy and began a new life, usually with great success. Others, like Otto Miller, found a different way to serve in uniform. For a few, what they had come to know and what had been taken from them proved to be too much. They became the emotional casualties that every war produces.