CHAPTER 64
For being on leave this had been the hardest week of Captain Paul Jacobs’ life: ten funerals in five days. Each one buried in his home town. One more to go, but this one would be different. The funeral service for Navy Lieutenant Tiffany Grimes was held in the lower level Bethlehem Chapel of the Washington National Cathedral. The entire crew of the Massachusetts and Lieutenant Grimes’ family had been flown in to Washington D.C. by the U.S. Navy.
As the Navy Blue Jackets Choir from the Great Lakes Naval Training Center sang The Navy Hymn, the words took on a very personal meaning for Jacobs.
He had never been a religious man. He was always confident in himself and especially the command of his submarine and its ability to dominate the conditions of the ocean in which it operated. Through all of the drills, exercises and war games, he never imagined the dire circumstances that not only took the lives of his men, but initiated the supreme sacrifice of one woman so that he and the rest of his crew might live. He still felt stunned and shaken by what had happened. By all rights, he and every member of his crew should be dead and his submarine should be lying, crushed on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, and yet he was here, along with 148 other members of his crew. They were alive, while she was not. He didn’t know what inspired her to do what she did. He wouldn’t have even thought of it, let alone had the inner strength and courage to do what she had done.
The end of the service dragged him back from his own deep thoughts and into the present world. They followed the Marine Honor Guard out the west entrance of the Washington National Cathedral under the flags of all fifty states and on to the white block surface where the long line of black cars waited for them. The flag-draped casket was carefully loaded into the back of the long black hearse while the rest of the people were guided to the waiting black limos.
The procession moved down Wisconsin Avenue NW, left to Pennsylvania Avenue NW, right at the traffic circle, south on 23rd Street, to the right around the back of the Lincoln Memorial, right again to the Arlington Memorial Bridge and into Arlington National Cemetery.
When the procession came to a stop the members of his crew walked swiftly and lined up in two rows, one on each side of the path that led from the hearse to the grave site. Seeing what was happening, the Marine Honor Guard stood at attention and waited. When the lines were complete, the Marine Honor Guard removed the casket from the hearse and began their slow, measured walk. Each step of the Honor Guard, deliberately taken, paused for an instant in mid stride before commencing the next step. As the casket of Lieutenant Tiffany Grimes passed, each member of his crew slowly lifted his or her white-gloved right hand, saluting her as she passed, and slowly returning to attention as she moved on.
Her home-town minister said a few words at the grave site and closed with a prayer. Jacobs stood across the grave site from Lieutenant Grimes’ mother, who stoically sat watching her daughter’s casket. Her husband and three sons, all in uniform, sat next to her. Jacobs was startled by the rifle shots from the seven sailors, each one fired three times for the traditional 21 gun salute. The sound of Taps being played for the eleventh time this week was more than he could bear, the tears running down his cheeks. The Marine Honor Guard lifted the U.S. flag from the top of the casket and folded it in crisply practiced motions. Once completed, the Sergeant of the Honor Guard approached Mrs. Grimes and bent forward in front of her.
“On behalf of a grateful nation, it is my honor to present you with this flag,” he said as he handed the folded flag to her.
The President of the United States had been the last to arrive for the ceremony and rose, with his Secret Service detail behind the minister. He came forward and Mrs. Grimes stood holding the folded flag in front of her, as he came to stand and face her. He held a black presentation box in his hands.
“Mrs. Grimes, I am so sorry for your loss,” he began. “While the details of what your daughter did remains classified, let me say that I have rarely seen such a display of courage and bravery in my term as president. It is, therefore, with great honor that I present her with this country’s highest recognition of her strength and courage.” He opened the presentation box, removed the star shaped medal with the bright blue ribbon and laid the Congressional Medal of Honor on the folded flag. “Your daughter stands tall among the heroes of this great nation. You should be very proud of her, just as I am.” He reached out and lightly gripped her arm for a moment and then turned and left.
Jacobs wasn’t sure of what he could say, but as the crowd of people was starting to disburse he approached Mrs. Grimes. She stopped and turned to him as he stood silent before her. She glanced at the name tag on his uniform.
“You must be her Captain,” she said, a smile finally forming on her face.
“Yes, Ma’am,” he replied.
“She wrote to me a lot about you.”
“She did?”
“Oh, yes. She told me how you guided her, acted as a mentor to her, and supported her as she struggled to find her place in your crew.”
He looked down at his shoes, his face reddened by her comment. “Ma’am, I…”
“Captain, I didn’t raise my daughter to be a wimp,” she stated.
“She never was, Ma’am.”
“Please call me Joyce,” she said. “I know it’s all classified, and I don’t need all of the details, but I want to know how my daughter died, Captain. They won’t tell me anything. But I know they don’t hand out Congressional Medals of Honor for ordinary things.”
“No Ma’am, they don’t.”
“It’s Joyce.”
“Joyce, all I can really say to you is that it was no ordinary thing.”
“I want the truth, Captain, was she in pain when she died?”
He hung his head and took a deep breath. “Joyce, no one would ever want to die the way your daughter did. The submarine was sinking — all of us faced certain death in a matter of a few minutes. But she chose to do what she did to save the lives of the rest of her crew. She did that with a courage and inner strength that I have never witnessed in my entire life. I don’t believe I would have been able to do what she did.”
“Then I raised her right,” Joyce Grimes said.
“Yes, you did, Joyce. She was the best person I have ever known.”
“Thank you, Captain. That’s what I needed to know.”
They continued to talk as he walked her to the limo. They said their good byes and both headed back to their own lives, each irrevocably changed by the incredible act of one young woman.
CHAPTER 65
Saturday was just another workday at the Pentagon. Rear Admiral Paul Jacobs finished and encrypted his report to Senator Elizabeth Bechtel, the new chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. She had managed to become part of the loop in covert military operations. How she had managed that, he didn’t know. He just saw it as part of her career path that would probably culminate in the White House.
He checked his watch. He was running late, which wasn’t that unusual, but today was a special day for him. He had promised her he would be there. The man in the dark suit was standing next to the door in his office being as patient as he could be.