I Shot JFK Read online

  When the advancing line put me abeam his clothing bag, I picked it up. I remarked to the person behind me, “I think the other line is faster.” I went to the back of the adjacent line, nearer the doors to the street with his bag. Self-absorbed, Oak Stick continued to verbally strut before the stewardess. I made the same move two more times until I was next to the street doors. Oak Stick was still oblivious. I confidently exited the hotel with the clothing bag and walked around the corner. I removed the name tag on the clothing bag. Then I reached inside the bag. With a kleenex, I pulled two buttons off the front of Oak Stick’s civilian suit and swiftly tucked the small bundle in my bra. I noted his black cadet shoes at the bottom of the bag were size 9. I approached a homeless man. I said, “I can give you this if you take it a mile from here and stay away until Monday. Deal?” I gave him the clothing bag and ten dollars.

  Oak Stick, have a great weekend without your clothes, I thought. And remember the No excuse, sir! when you don’t have your dress uniform for parade tomorrow! If you hurt my brother, you hurt me. I hated bullies. I wanted them to know karma.

  Passive aggressive was not my style, but I could not afford to implicate my brother in my vendetta. For that same reason, I did not send Oak Stick the note I wanted to write: “Ain’t that a window-closing stick in the gut. Love and kisses, Simon Turner.” Nor did I want Oak Stick to have anything tangible to mitigate his imminent punishment tours and demerits. As if West Point tolerated excuses!

  I never told Gunnar. He had a good sense of humor, but I feared he might once again say Oak Stick was just doing his duty. He also would have chided me about my possibly being caught going out the hotel door with the garment bag. I had been prepared for that eventuality: “I’m so sorry,” I would have said with mock shock. “It looked just like mine. Someone must have taken mine. Can you help me find my bag? This is terrible. This will totally ruin my weekend!” I might even have had to poke both eyes to generate “fragile” feminine tears.

  *****

  If you think I hovered at West Point, you’re right. I wasn’t the only one. Pinky, Douglas MacArthur’s mother, left her husband and family in San Antonio to live in a hotel near the United States Military Academy to be by her son while he attended West Point. I wasn’t a mother, but as a twin, I had heard the horror stories about harassment of plebes and the on-going challenge to have hope in a place of isolation and discouragement. For Gunnar’s plebe year, especially, I tried to keep a very low profile, keeping in mind Pinky’s presence brought extra grief on her fourth-class cadet son. Oh, and MacArthur — he went on to graduate first in his class and earn five stars as a general.

  Douglas was a great man, but I can tell you this: He was no Gunnar.

  College — Sophomore Year

  In the first week of June — “June Week” — Gunnar was “recognized.” After Graduation Parade, each upperclassman in his company walked down the line of plebes in the company area, shook the hand of each plebe, and exchanged first names. Some plebes braced until recognized; some stood at a more relaxed attention posture in anticipation. Gunnar officially became a “yearling,” a third classman — the lowest upperclassman. More important, he was no longer a lowly plebe. No more sitting up at tables eating square meals, closing upperclassmen’s windows before reveille, or “calling minutes” in the hallway before formation. No more bracing every time he exited his room or whenever an upperclassman came into his room. No more recitation of required plebe knowledge. No more having to request permission to double-time to avoid being late to class. He was officially a human being again — almost.

  I met Gunnar at La Guardia for our flight to El Paso International, where Uncle Walt and Aunt Cece would pick us up. Gunnar wore civilian clothes. He remarked how good it felt to get out of uniform. I had to remind him how eager he had been to don the cadet uniform in the first place. He had a jaded smile: “Time and place, Alex. Time and place.”

  I didn’t know what the drinking-age law was miles above the earth and crossing state boundaries, but the passenger ahead of us in tourist class stealthily handed back several miniature scotches to us. When the stewardesses were out of view, the distinguished looking gentleman turned around and shook Gunnar’s hand, “I overheard. Class of ’30 here. Congratulations! Hang in there, bud. You’ve knocked off the hardest year!”

  It was clear to me that the Long Gray Line, the network of West Point graduates and cadets, was held together by a common bond of experiences — including a lot of suffering. It was something of which I would never really be a part, a profound experience that I could only live vicariously. At some level, the twin in me felt left out.

  When the attractive stewardess wasn’t flirting with us, I asked Gunnar, “How does it feel to have completed the hardest year?”

  I had never seen such a grin on Gunnar’s face. “Great!” he spoke.

  “What’s the first thing you’re going to do in Alamo?,” I inquired. “Four years of high school there, I guess I can abbreviate Alamogordo, right? We’re almost natives.”

  “Alex, I’m going to get in Uncle Walt’s new red and white Edsel convertible …” He paused for dramatic effect. “And drive around the Rooster until I have to refuel — in Alamo.”

  I had to laugh. That central meeting place for high schoolers had imprinted on Gunnar’s DNA. He knew he’d run into old friends there from our high school years. There would be others at the Rooster feeling lucky they’d met the legend.

  *****

  In Alamogordo, Gunnar luxuriated in his newfound freedom. He stayed out until 3:00 AM most nights and awoke at 11:00 AM. He spent time with old friends, dated girls he had been too shy to ask out in high school, and played tennis with a West Point classmate. The two kept their visits after tennis short. They quickly realized that they involuntarily reverted to cadet jargon and Academy stories. That was too much like being back at West Point, which would come all too quickly at the end of four short weeks of summer leave.

  Early on, Aunt Cece asked Gunnar what she could cook in the evenings for him. “Aunt Cece,” he replied, “how about what I don’t want you to cook? I don’t want liver and onions. I’ll have those soon enough when I go back to school. I can only get that dish down with catsup. I can also pass on scallops. The ones at West Point always have sand in them. That association is too powerful for me. The texture is off-putting. And I’ll never get used to the garlic-mushroom gravy we get. Is that too restrictive?” he added.

  “No,” she laughed, “you know those have never been on the menu at our house.”

  “One other thing, since you asked. No orange marmalade at breakfast. Someone at the mess hall must have got a deal on that. I haven’t had any other kind of jam or jelly for the last five months. Other than that, our food is excellent. You know, we never get peanut butter. I’d like some of that!

  “Our deserts are too good. I love the Boston cream pie we get in the mess hall. It’s the best. I’m going to have to watch my weight when I get back to school. Eating at ease and having the luxury of getting seconds will make overeating too easy.”

  Gunnar, foodie-soldier.

  *****

  I went back to driving an ambulance for the hospital for the summer. I took every opportunity to question each emergency medical technician we had on duty. I knew the science, and they knew the protocols for treating patients. We learned a lot from each other. I brought coffee to the ER doctors whenever I saw a break in their schedules. I might have picked up that trick from Gunnar about knowing their “beverage preferences,” something he had had to know as a table “beverage corporal.”

  On weekend afternoons, Gunnar and I headed out of town about 10 miles to Dog Canyon to fire our pistols and rifles. Gunnar couldn’t wait to show me the Army’s “cheek-to-stock weld” technique of firing a rifle with the right cheekbone pressed against the top of right thumb — for right handers.

  After we shot up all of our ammunition, we pulled some Coca Colas out of the ice cooler. “Gunnar, you were alway
s a good shot. You are even better. You should be proud.”

  “Alex, then how come you’re still outshooting me?”

  “Come on, you beat me once,” I reminded him.

  “That was the day in seventh grade when you had a temperature of 103 degrees. You went shooting with Dad and me just to hide the fact that you were sick so you could go with me to see High Noon at the Highland theater that night. … Don’t worry, I don’t feel bad about not being as good a shot as you. No one in my class at West Point could beat you. You may be the best shot in the world. I do not exaggerate.”

  He went on to make me laugh when he described his marksman test to qualify on the M-1 during Beast Barracks. His squad leader rode him harder than anyone in the squad. As Gunnar was undergoing the test, his squad leader and the squad leader’s roommate continued to harass him — not usually done during qualifications. On one of the timed targets, shooting position was optional. Prone and squatting positions were known to be the steadiest for aim. Gunnar said to himself, I’ll show them. He proceeded to hit every target from the less stable standing position despite the upperclassmen yelling and jeering, “Get down!” He was proud that he qualified as “expert,” the highest category.

  “You know, I might have been channeling you, Alex. I couldn’t miss. I did have to sit up at supper that night — no food. But the defiance was worth it at the time. We had such little control; I needed to take some back.” In remarkable self-awareness, Gunnar went on, “When I’m an upperclassman, I hope I never have a new cadet or plebe like me!” That was pure Gunnar.

  *****

  We followed shooting with a late hike up Dog Canyon. The site was the battleground between the US cavalry and Apaches on several occasions. Passing one point called the Eyebrow, we could see how the defenders could easily ambush pursuers. Gunnar explained that a small force could hold off a large one there by holding the high ground in the box canyon. It was clear that boulders being rolled down from above gave defenders of the canyon a marked advantage.

  Using that advantage, in 1859, Apaches repelled Lieutenant Lazelle’s forces there. In 1878, Captain Henry’s forces experienced similar frustration. Not until 1873 did the cavalry succeed in the Canyon of the Dog. That year, Colonel Kit Carson led a successful foray against the Apaches. Gunnar approved Kit’s use of surprise and a pincer movement. The cumulative loss of cavalrymen was roughly one hundred men at the choke point. Despite a subsequent surrender of some of the Apaches, it was not until 1881 that the cavalry finally routed the remaining Apaches from the area.

  “Textbook,” Gunnar said. “The high ground is a great tactical advantage.”

  *****

  I knew he didn’t want to think about West Point on his first leave at home. However, when the time seemed right, I tried to see what macro-learning Gunnar had experienced in the past year.

  “Alex, I think I’ve learned a few things about group psychology. The continuous activity and pressure at West Point makes cadets like overstimulated rats in a maize. Cadets will laugh uproariously at what you would consider just silly. They are spring-loaded to pick up on any sexual overtone or undercurrent. Cadets tend to be jaded about a lot of things, giving rise to a lot of gallows humor. I worry that I won’t respond correctly to honest criticism when I am no longer a plebe because most of the correction I got as a plebe was whimsical and designed almost solely to rile me.

  “I definitely learned not to put an idea in someone’s head. Telling a suppressed group not to do something when you can’t control them is a bad practice,” he laughed. “Before the Army-Navy game an announcement was made from the ‘poop deck’ mid-supper that there would be no stacking of tables. You can guess what ensued right after the order. Traditionally, cadets will show their spirit by stacking mess hall tables one on top of the other as much as six tables high en masse. By the way, every cadet got an incontestable charge that month in his account for damage to the mess hall.

  “I think I learned a lot about getting through difficult times. Sometimes it was just getting through a short horrible experience. Other times it was making it through a long discouraging time like the dreary winter weather. I would focus on something pleasant to pull me toward the future — whether it was a stepping stone on the way to an objective or a reward beyond the objective. On forced marches, I fantasized about ice cream a lot. I knew I would get a pint of butter pecan ice cream come the weekend. I also reminisced about getting a Creamland chocolate shake back in Albuquerque, which reminded me I wouldn’t always be at West Point.

  “I’ve learned a lot about reframing. I guess you might call it some kind of self-adjustment of attitude. A couple of times on Saturday nights when I was marching back and forth in the barracks on guard duty I had time to think. I had a choice. Was this a futile exercise based on some backward-looking tradition, or was I working my way through college? At that moment, working my way through college quieted my mind. I stopped fighting what I had to do. I hope I can apply that in the future as I face down the inevitable.”

  Gunnar, philosopher-soldier.

  *****

  In his last week of summer leave, Aunt Cece asked Gunnar, “What do you still need to do this week to complete your short while remaining?”

  “I need to eat your fine Southwestern-style Mexican food every night. You know we never get good tamales, chili rellenos, enchiladas, tacos, or tostadas back in New York. I tried their version in Manhattan Memorial Day weekend. It was worse than Tex-Mex. I want authentic. I want hot!”

  “Done,” said Aunt Cece. “What haven’t you done, that you need to do?”

  “I need to pay Lt Col Stringer a visit,” Gunnar smiled.

  “What’s that about?” I had to ask.

  Uncle Walt laughed. “Lt Col Stringer is an Army officer who works at White Sands Missile Range. He lives in Alamogordo so his kids can go to school here. He dropped out of West Point for some reason and went through ROTC to get his commission.”

  “What’s the rest of the story, Uncle Walt. Come on,” I goaded. I knew there was more. I was preparing myself to read a patient’s non-verbal language when I became a doctor.

  “Well, after Gunnar gave his valedictory speech at graduation, Lt Col Stringer was sitting behind us and made sure we heard his words. When the principal announced where Gunnar was going to school, Stringer uttered, ‘He’ll never make it through the first year.’”

  I was on fire and burst out, “I’ll punch him out for you, Gunnar.” Uncle Walt admired my loyalty with a smiling nod.

  Aunt Cece chimed in, “That’s horrible … Can I help you!” All four of us were in hysterics.

  When the guffaws died down, Gunnar spoke, “Alex, revenge is a dish best served cold. I’ll casually drop in this evening to make small talk. Then I’ll ask for career advice. I will stay until I see him squirm or until I can’t contain my laughter, whichever comes first. I’ll let the hidden subtext do the talking.”

  I couldn’t resist saying, “I don’t get it!” — when I did. As Uncle Walt says, my sense of humor is as dry as the Sahara Desert — and sometimes as spiny as its cacti. I owed that to Gunnar.

  Bobby Darren sang “Mac the Knife” in the background on Uncle Walt’s new Gerrard record changer. Life was pretty good for two orphaned kids.

  *****

  The day before Gunnar was going back to West Point for two months of summer training at Camp Buckner, he exhibited clinical depression. His appetite was gone. Activity did not distract him from his mental anguish. I kept pushing coffee.

  “Alex, it doesn’t make sense,” he said. “It’s not as if I’m heading back to be a fourth classman, with all the restrictions and hazing that entails. Life will be better for me this next year. More freedom, food at the table, and some mandatory academic subjects I’ll like. I guess I can’t completely shake the memories of physical and mental pain, the states of loneliness and emptiness, and the sense of separation from pleasure I have felt there. The gray granite buildings are the appropriate color
.

  “I have to say my biggest disappointment is that the place is somewhat anti-academic. Oh sure, there’s lip service with the dean’s list and stars worn on the collar — awarded to the top 5% academically, but the bias is towards jocks. West Point worships sports, learned on ‘the fields of friendly strife,’ as Douglas MacArthur termed them. The overall culture rewards athletes more than scholars. I never forget that my primary purpose is to get a solid four-year degree. What gets me is that I didn’t just volunteer for West Point; I competed for it! Isn’t that some cosmic joke?”

  Uncle Walt spoke first, “Gunnar, I’m proud of you and your priorities. Never forget: Get a great education. Forget all that other stuff! And remember I can get you into MIT at the drop of a hat.”

  I dovetailed, “Gunnar, as your twin, “I have to say this. You are better than that place ever thought of being. You have great grades. You have the insurance money. You have a choice! You can get into any school in the country. I don’t like seeing you like this …”

  He cut me off, “Alex, I have to finish what I’ve started.”

  “Gunnar, no you don’t. There’s a choice. Mom and Dad wouldn’t want you adhere to a course of action that no longer makes sense. Quite the opposite.”

  “I know. Having that alternative keeps me sane. Remember the river of life that sweeps you down its own particular channel. This is mine. I’ll be a better man for it.” He forced a false smile.

  I thought I was talking to the Long Gray Line, not my brother — my wise words diluted by the 25,000 pairs of graduate ears. Meet the new Gunnar.

  As we drove Gunnar to the El Paso airport, I could tell he was still wistful for Alamogordo as Jimmy Clanton sang “Venus in Blue Jeans” on the local radio — already missing the sweetness of youth he would be foregoing at West Point. He gave me a knowing, weak smile that masked a hurting soul.