Cold War

CAPT J B BARONOWSKY JR. TO REPORT ASAP BUT NOT NLT 0800 FRIDAY 23 JULY AT SELFRIDGE AFB FOR IMMEDIATE AND INDEFINITE OVERSEAS DEPLOYMENT STOP ADJ GEN USAF.

“What the f—” he cut himself off just before he offended his mom and Patty. “They can’t do this to me!” he protested as he read the text again and again. Yet even as he protested, he knew they could and had done it to him.

“What is it, J.B.?” Patty asked.

“What does it say?” Stan echoed.

“Jesus Christ!” J.B. swore, and his mother reproached him sharply.

“Mom! You don’t understand! These are orders to report to Selfridge Air Force Base by 8 am tomorrow morning.”

“For your reserve duty? I thought you couldn’t be called up until—”

“They can call me up anytime they please! And it’s not reserve duty — it’s an overseas deployment.”

Exclamations of disbelief erupted on all sides. Patty snatched the telegram out of his hand to read it for herself. As soon as she’d absorbed the text, she started protesting hysterically. “This can’t be! It’s insane! That’s less than 24 hours away! And what do they mean by ‘overseas’ and ‘indefinite’? There has to be some mistake!” Patty’s tone rose in key and volume with each sentence. “You have to call someone and get things straightened out!” she ordered her fiancée. “If you explain to them about our wedding —”

J.B. cut her off. “The Air Force couldn’t care less about my wedding or my job! If they want Capt. Baronowsky back in uniform and flying some gosh-darn airplane, then nothing else matters to them.”

“But you can’t possibly go!” Patty wailed.

“You want me to be in jail on our wedding day?” J.B. shot back at her, then turned away, clenching and unclenching his fists. 

“I’m gonna call my dad,” Patty declared. “I’m sure he’ll know some way to get you out of this.” She ran up the steps and into the Baronowsky house, brushing past J.B.’s mother.

But Patty’s call didn’t change anything. Her Dad said he’d “see what he could do”, but nothing could be done before 8 am tomorrow. With Patty getting increasingly hysterical and venting her anger on everyone else, Barb agreed to take her home in J.B.’s car so J.B. would have time to pack. His dad insisted he was well enough to drive him to Selfridge AFB although it meant getting up at 4 am and leaving the house before dawn. 

J.B.’s mom spent most of the night ironing his uniform shirts and trousers and then got up at 3 to make a batch of chocolate chip cookies that she wrapped in aluminium foil. In the eerie artificial light of the kitchen, J.B. hugged her goodbye while his father backed the car out of the garage. His mother was teary-eyed. “I don’t see how they can just yank you out of the middle of your life and send you overseas when there’s not even a war on. It just doesn’t seem right,” she complained.

“That’s the army way, Mom,” J.B. told her with resignation. “Duty comes first. Things are pretty tense in Europe, and my guess is we’re deploying a couple of bomber squadrons to England to remind the Reds we can hit them if we want. I’ll send a cable as soon as I know for sure, but meanwhile, don’t worry too much. This is just sabre-rattling. No one is going to be shooting at me.”

His father honked the horn softly and J.B. grabbed his duffle bag and went out the kitchen door. He flung his kit into the back seat and slipped in beside his father. Once they turned onto the highway, the monotony of driving on the near-empty, straight road put J.B. to sleep. He didn’t wake up again until his dad shook him. “We’re almost there, son.”

J. B. sat up. The gate to the base was just a few hundred yards ahead of them. “Thanks for bringing me all the way up here, Dad.”

“What choice did I have?” the elder Baronowsky growled. “You’d have been AWOL otherwise, and I don’t need a son in jail!” But then he stopped the car and looked over at J.B. as he added, “Glad I could help, Son.”

J.B. got out, removed his duffle bag from the back and went around to the driver’s side to shake hands with his dad. “No saying how long I’m gonna be gone, Dad, but don’t let the newspaper talk of war scare you. We’ve got the bomb, and the Reds don’t. We just need to underline that point by putting some more hardware on the Continent. The Reds aren’t so dumb that they’re gonna start shooting at us. I expect this will all blow over in a couple of weeks. Bottom line: I don’t think there’s anything to worry about — except Patty’s rage about the wedding being postponed.”