My
Journal
By
Harriman Nelson
~In
God We Trust~
20
“Sir?”
Sharkey asked from the lab’s doorway late this afternoon.
“I
thought I told you I didn’t want to be disturbed!”
“Yes,
sir, but the Flying Sub’s back from her trip to the closest inhabited landfall and
Ski’s bringing down all the mushrooms they could find. Frankly, we were
surprised any of the towns had fresh ones. Seems some folks grew their own. Anyway,
there’s some raw mushrooms, canned, dried, etc. Not much, but maybe enough for
your experiments.”
“Just
have Ski unload them over there,” I said, pointing to the far wall.”
“Admiral?”
Ski asked when he entered carrying just one battered cardboard box and began to
unload it where Sharkey pointed.
“You
really think mushrooms can eat radiation?” Ski added.
“Well,
it turns out from my research that some fungus can indeed consume radiation
rendering it harmless. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it sooner. I’m trying
make a fungal adhesive we can apply to our intercepts so that in flight, or on land,
or even in the sea, once contact is made with the enemy missiles, their nuclear
warheads and or fallout will be rendered ineffective.”
“What about the booms?”
“Any
explosive force should be relatively minor, limited to the rocket explosion and
debris, though I’m afraid I can’t stop some structural damage upon impact.”
“Doc Jamison,” Chip called over the PA, “Special medical deliveries via a Navy chopper.
You have to personally sign for them for Admiral Starke. I’ve piped him aboard.”
“Send
him down to Sick Bay where I’ll join him in minute.”
“Aye, sir.”
***
“I
can’t thank you enough,” I told my old friend as Will unloaded a crate of the
pink stuff Patterson had just delivered it to Sick Bay.
“The
least I could do,” Jiggs said as I signed the document.
“By
the way, how about staying aboard to help out with my experiments?”
“You
know I’d like that, but the SecNav might not agree to it.”
“Sparks?”
I asked via the wall mike, “Call the SecNav for permission to reassign Admiral
Stark to Seaview to assist me with my anti-nuclear experiments.”
“Aye,
sir.”
“By
the way,” Jiggs told me as we waited for a response, “Lee’s non-governmental MRI
has been released to the AMA...experts are examining it now.”
“Any
idea what they think?”
“Not
yet, but there’ve been rumors that clinic doctors think it looks perfectly
normal to them, except of course for previous damage to Lee’s optic nerve.”
“That’s
great news!” Patterson said.
“It’s
still a rumor,” Jiggs said, patting him on the shoulder. “But it gives us
something to hope for.”
“Yes,
sir.”
“One
problem, Harriman,” Jiggs said after Patterson departed, “even if the rumor is
fact, Amendment 25 still gives the acting president the right to question our
boy’s fitness to return to office. Calls Lee’s flight to save Lady Liberty
reckless. However, if the AMA reads the new MRI as markedly different from the
surgeon general’s, there will have to be an investigation. A comparative study.
Doctors do make mistakes, even the surgeon general.”
“Which
would give the president time to figure out a way to absolve himself from any
wrong doing if he was in cahoots with the surgeon general....”
“What?”
Jiggs and Will asked, confused.
“Now,
this is just between us three, but I spied on Lee’s hospital room. Don’t ask me
how. Anyway, Lee and Joe were thinking about using his prosthesis to spy on the
Oval Office and....”
“What?”
both asked, aghast.
“I
don’t know if they had a chance to set anything up or if they actually decided
to, because Lee was wearing it during their Mosquito flight. But after they
returned to Washington, Joe said something that makes me think they may have
managed a little spying. I’m just not sure how to ask him without him realizing
I spied on him....”
“Somehow, I don’t think he’ll mind,” Jiggs
said.
“Me
neither,” Will added. “Aren’t you going to have a swig of the pink stuff?”
“I
don’t need it now.”
“And
after all the trouble I went to getting it for you,” Jiggs laughed.
“Admiral
Nelson?” Chip’s voice came over the PA. “The SecNav has reassigned Admiral
Starke to Seaview.”
“Very
well,” Jiggs answered via the mike. “You can have the chopper return to the
carrier. Oh, I didn’t bring any gear with me when I was ferried by jet to it. I
hope you can accommodate me with a few things, toothbrush, clothes, and such.”
“No
problem, sir. I’ll have stores take some to your cabin. You’ll be in 3-A. And
welcome aboard.”
“Thank
you, Captain.”
***
Supper
had been Mac & Cheese, dessert Jell-O.
While I don’t mind either, I could just imagine how Lee would have
reacted to the meal. Too much Jell-O when he’d been a patient in Sick Bay. Of
course, I did know that his mother had on occasion combined it into a kind of
whipped salad with canned fruit to get him to eat it.
After
supper, Jiggs joined me in the Observation Nose for some post prandial Scotch.
“Breaking
news,” Sparks called out, turning on the monitors....
“...Earlier
today,” the CNN reporter said, “our office and those of our fellow news
agencies, received several phone videos
from attendees at today’s U.S. Naval Academy’s graduation ceremonies. But the
video owners, and all networks were issued ‘cease and desist’ orders from the White
House.
“...However,
just a few minutes ago, the Chief Justice rescinded that presidential order as
unconstitutional. We are free to share with you those videos, and no doubt some
of you have already seen them on social media.
“...One can only wonder but it’s a pretty good
guess that the president was afraid of the public reaction to what the surprise
visitor to the ceremonies, none other than former President Nelson-Crane, had said.
“...Nelson-Crane
had not been invited to the ceremony, but was allowed to address the graduates.
And after his speech he was invited by the superintendent to hand the brand new
ensigns their commissions. And so, we’ve limited most of our broadcast, several
videos combined for best quality, to the former president’s speech....”
We
watched as the academy’s superintendent was informed, just prior to the
ceremonies that they had a visitor and he looked to the right, surprised, and
pleased, and motioned Lee to the podium. Lee was wearing a black eyepatch, his shirt and
jacket accessorized with
a mini flag on his lapel, and Seaview’s insignia on his collar.
Visitors
applauded, and against protocol regarding a former president, the
superintendent, officers, and middies stood to attention and saluted. I suppose
they just couldn’t help it. Oh boy, was Sisemen going
to have a hissy fit about this. Oh, Lee had been saluted against protocol
before, but frankly nobody gave a damn about busting regs
in his case.
There
was Lee’s famous sunshine smile again, as against protocol himself he returned
the salute, (which made for another hissy fit by the president if anyone told
him that wasn’t strictly protocol either.) “As you were,” Lee was saying to the
officers and middies, and the crowd settled down.
“I
was in the neighborhood, and wanted to say a few words. Thank you, Admiral
Beecham for allowing it....”
Just
then an infant, garbed in a pink dress, her hair decked out with pink bows, screamed
and a woman quickly got up to take her away.
“No!
Please stop, Ma’am....”
She
did as she was told, confused and sat down.
“You
hear that?” Lee told the middies. “I ask that you remember that cry. An
innocent child. ‘That’ is the reason we put on the uniform in the first place.
To defend that child’s constitutional right to life, liberty, and the pursuit
of happiness. To speak as she wishes, to live as she wishes, to believe as she
wishes, and yes, even to decry the very government that seeks to defend her
rights.
“There
are those who have said, ‘why bother’ to waste taxpayers money, and risk the
lives of our armed forces to fight a conflict against the PR Alliance. ‘Better off
alive than dead’, they say.
“But,
I believe our rights and freedoms are so
firmly ingrained in the American psyche, that the loss of them would cause each
and every one of us to rise up again to demand, to fight, and even die for
them.
“Ben
Franklin called our new nation ‘the great experiment’. And so it was. And so it
still is. Ever expanding, ever blossoming, to protect us all with the freedom
to say what we want without being shot for it, the freedom within the law to do
what we want, without being forced into something we don’t want to do, and the
freedom to believe in a Supreme Being, or not, as our hearts dictate to us
personally.
“Without
these freedoms, which the PRA wants to wipe off the face of our nation and of
our friends and allies, we would no doubt rise up and demand them again, to the
death if need be.”
“It
won’t be easy to defeat an enemy like the PRA. But defeat it we must. When you
come to wonder ‘why bother’, and trust me, that will happen at times,
especially in the throes of battle, when you are wounded, or see your
companions die, and though I am loath to say it, some of you may very well not
live to see anniversary of this day next year or the years following, or even
tomorrow. But when you are plagued with doubt about continuing the battle,
remember this day and that innocent child’s cry. Not out of despair, or starvation,
or pain, but simply being a baby and that’s what babies do. Protected by those
who give a damn for the children, the innocents, and yes, even those you don’t
like who just happen to be fellow Americans.
“I
look out at you, and remember when I was sitting where you are now. Anxiously
waiting for whoever was speaking to finish so I could get my commission and go do
what I wanted before reporting to my first posting. And so I’ll close with
this, no matter your task, be it as a line officer aboard a vessel, in the air,
or as a support officer behind the
action, you are all equally essential, especially in a time of war.”
The
child chose that moment to cry again. Lee grinned looking over at it.
“Indeed,
remember this day, and a child, all children, all innocents, who are depending
on you to protect and defend them, to insure that they too will hold the
constitutional rights you have enjoyed, and pray God will continue to enjoy.
“Yes,
I know saying that was politically incorrect. A little thing called the
separation of church and state, but, as I’m a private citizen now, and have
even been forced from the Navy Reserve, I can say what I like. My constitutional
right. The same right that child will have.
“And
so, I use that right to say that I will pray God will watch over each of you
and bring you safely home. God bless you. And congratulations.”
The
middies and the audience erupted with applause. Someone in the relative’s seats
yelled out ‘Nelson-Crane for president!’
More
applause. Then the superintendent asked Lee something, to which he sheepishly
agreed and stood next to him.
“When
your name is called,” the superintendent said, “please come forward to receive
your commission, which will be handed to you by former President Nelson-Crane.”
“...And
so bypassing the two and a half hour ceremony,” the reporter said, “in which
Nelson-Crane had a few words for each of the new officers, we pick up where he
greeted the last midshipman of the class and what looked like a few extra words
before the new officer returned to his seat.”
After
a few words with the superintendent, Lee looked out over the sea of white dress
uniforms and smiled, then gave the one word the graduates were anxiously
waiting for.
“...Dismissed,” Lee said and the sky erupted
in the dress white covers tossed aloft by the new ensigns.
A
few handshakes with the officers on the stage followed, and with another smile,
Lee waved and stepped down from the stage, seeking out the baby and its mother
to thunderous applause and cheering.
“Harriman?”
Jiggs asked.
“Yeah,”
I barely managed, overcome with my boy’s eloquence and undrafted speech, not to
mention his greeting of the lady and baby, and to the crowd surrounding him.
“He
was the best damn president we’ve ever had.”
The
Control Room erupted with the bashing of consoles, cheers, and applause.
“All
right, all right,” Chip ordered. “Pipe down.”
“Chip?”
I asked after a moment, “What do you say to us making a slight detour?”
“Sir?”
he asked before he picked up on what I wanted. “Oh. Yes sir! O’Brien, set a
course for Washington D.C.”
“Aye,
aye, sir!” he acknowledged as the crew yet again showed their appreciation for
one Lee B. Nelson-Crane.
“Harriman,”
Jiggs asked, “what about your experiments?”
“Plenty
of sea and air space to do them before we’re close. Enough to give Lee that
little present he wants.”
~***~