well.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Jake learned that this officers’ call involved more than half of the officers on the post, including not just department heads and unit commanders, but all staff and faculty, hospital personnel, officers of the TO&E units, and even those officers who had returned from overseas and were now at Fort Rucker awaiting further assignment. The officers’ call was held in the post theater, and every seat was filled.
“Gentlemen, the commanding general!” someone called, and all stood.
“Seats, gentlemen, seats,” General von Cairns said as he strolled briskly onto the stage. Walking up to the podium, he tapped twice on the microphone, and was rewarded with a thumping sound that returned through the speakers and reverberated through the auditorium.
“Gentlemen, I will make this announcement short and sweet. I will take no questions afterward because I have no further information. I’m afraid you will just have to hear the announcement, then wait and see where it leads.
“This morning I was informed by the Department of the Army that, effective within the next thirty days, there will be a seventy five percent reduction in force in both officer and enlisted ranks. In short, gentlemen, one month from now, three out of four officers and men throughout the entire army, will be gone.
The theater rang with loud shouts of shock and dismay.
“No!”
“What the hell is going on?”
“What is the cutoff? What if we are within months of retirement?”
“I don’t know that there is a cutoff,” von Cairns said. “There was no mention of it. And, gentlemen, I’ll be honest with you; I don’t know that there will be any more retirements. I know that those who are currently retired have not received their retirement checks for some time, now.”
“This isn’t right!”
“This is the president’s idea?”
“So I have been told,” von Cairns replied.
“What’s wrong with this man? Is he insane?
“This so-called president is destroying the Army. And with it, the nation,” Colonel Haney said.
“Somebody needs to drop-kick that foreign son of a bitch from here back to Pakistan!” a chief warrant officer said.
“Gentlemen, please,” von Cairns said, lifting his hands to request order. “I can only tell you what I know. And I know that this was soundly protested by the Department of Defense. By the way, disabuse yourself of any thought that the Army is taking this hit alone. Because this order does come directly from the president, it pertains to all branches of the service, active, reserve, and guard.
“I’m sorry, gentlemen, I wish I had better news for you. This meeting is dismissed.”
As the officers filed out of the theater, still stunned from the general’s announcement, Jake saw Karin standing with another group of nurses. He didn’t want to intrude so he started to walk away, but, seeing him, she hurried over to join him.
“That was quite a shocker, wasn’t it?” she asked as she fell in beside him.
“I’ll be one of the first to leave,” Jake said.
“What makes you think so? You have an exemplary military record, outstanding OERs, combat time, not only combat time but combat command time, with a Distinguished Flying Cross, Bronze Star, not to mention a Purple Heart.”
“Karin, I have not had a student in over three months, and I have not flown so much as one hour in all that time. I can’t see the Army paying me to sit behind a desk and drum my fingers. At least you have been kept busy.”
“True, we have been busy at the hospital, but eighty percent of our workload has been with retirees and veterans, and we heard that hospital service for non-active duty personnel is about to be stopped. Nurses don’t have any special protective status, and you heard what the general said. Seventy-five percent of us are going to be gone.”
“Do you have any patients depending on you, this afternoon?”
Karin thought of Colonel Chambers. She had cleaned and doctored his wound this morning, and he was resting comfortably when she left. She had no other patients who were at a critical stage.
“No, not really,” she said.
“Then don’t go back to the hospital. Take the rest of the day off and let’s go out to Lake Tholocco.”
“What? You mean now? Just leave?”
“Why not?” Jake asked. “What are they going to do? Kick us out of the Army?”
Karin laughed. “You are right. What are they going to do?”
Leaving the theater, Jake drove not to the lake, but to the post commissary. When he parked the car, Karin started to get out, but Jake reached out to stop her.
“No, you stay here and listen to music,” he said. “I’ll be right back out.”
“Are you sure? I know how you hate to shop. I’ll be glad to help you.”
“I may not want you to see what I’m buying.”
“Oh, a mystery? I like mysteries.”
Ten minutes later Jake came through the checkout line. When his purchase was rung up, it came to six hundred and fifty-two dollars.
“What, and no cents?” he asked with a sarcastic growl.
“We don’t mess with anything less than a dollar anymore,” the clerk replied with a straight face.
“Tell me something,” Jake said. “How do the lower-ranking enlisted personnel handle this?”
“They don’t. Since the one hundred thousand dollars everyone was given ran out, I haven’t seen anyone below E-6 in here.”
“Where do they go? As expensive as it is, groceries are still cheaper in the commissary than they are off post.”
“Tell me about it,” the clerk said. “I work here, but because I am a civilian, I can’t buy here. And the truth is, I couldn’t afford it if I could.”
Jake returned to the car carrying all his purchases in one sack. He set the sack on the floor behind his seat.
“I thought you were going to listen to music. What is that noise you are listening to?” he asked.
“Top Dollar.”
“That’s not music.”
“What do you call music?”
Jake punched a button to switch to a classical station.
“There you go,” he said. “‘Emperor Waltz.’ That’s music.”
Lake Tholocco is a six hundred fifty-acre lake located entirely within the confines of Fort Rucker. The lake officers’ club was at one time a favorite hangout for the young bachelor officers, but when the Army and the other branches of service did away with officers’ clubs, the lake club lost some of its cachet.
The lake was still a popular place to go though, with swimming, skiing, boating, and even fishing. There were also several rustic cabins around the lake in an area known as Singing Pines, and Jake pulled up in front of one of them.
“You have a key to this cabin?” Karin asked.
“Yes.”
“You mean you planned to come out here? This wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment thing?”
“Karin, you know me well enough to know that I plan everything,” Jake answered.
There was a beautiful view of the lake from the cabin, and, because none of the other cabins were occupied, there was a great deal of privacy.
Getting out of the car, Jake reached into the back to retrieve his commissary purchases.
