A God in Ruins - Leon Uris [52]
All that was needed was a war to prove the thesis. It came along in good time.
It has been said that Jeremiah Duncan’s first words as an infant were “Semper Fidelis.” He became the first fighter pilot ace when he shot down five Japanese Zeros in a single day over Guadalcanal, but was shot down in turn and somehow escaped alive. An ace, but he could fly combat no more.
As a battalion commander in Korea, when he was advised that his men were surrounded, he said, “Good, that makes the tactical situation simpler.” Duncan led his mangled forces back from the Chosin Reservoir on the Chinese border to the sea in the dead of an icy winter.
In Vietnam he was moved from field command to staff to develop and improve new tactics against a tenacious and resourceful enemy.
Jeremiah Duncan’s chest bore a Congressional Medal of Honor, a Navy Cross, and three Purple Hearts. Known with affection throughout the Corps as Dogbreath, he now longed to retire to the Eastern Shore, where he had a big old house, a dandy fishing boat, and scads of children and grandchildren.
His wife of thirty years upped and died tragically in a house fire, leaving him devastated and debilitated. The Corps hung on to him to get him through his bereavement.
Jeremiah never got to the Eastern Shore. He ended up with a vague title as adviser to planning at El Toro Marine Air Base. There on the outskirts of Los Angeles, he worked another innovation, the lightning strike force.
The Corps, along with Bell and Boeing, was developing a hybrid aircraft—the SCARAB, that could take off and land like a helicopter, then fly like a turbo-prop. It was designed to carry twenty-some Marines with medical, electronic, and specialty personnel.
As was his wont, Jeremiah was soon bucking heads with the top brass. As a lady colonel inched into his life, he finally requested his belated retirement.
It was no surprise when the commandant, General Keith Brickhouse, a gnarly specimen not unlike Duncan, showed up at El Toro. With a name like Brickhouse, the general had a reputation akin to Dogbreath’s.
“So, it’s you and Colonel Dorothy, eh? Getting hitched, Jeremiah?”
“If the Marine Corps wanted me to have another wife, they’d of issued me one. Cut to the chase, Keith, but let me advise you in advance—after Nam it took me six months to be able to write my name. Who sent you, Keith?”
“The President.”
“Well, you’ve got my attention.”
“As well as Defense, State, Joint Chiefs, and the CIA,” Brickhouse continued. “I didn’t assign you to El Toro to play with the SCARAB by accident.”
“Any damned fool could tell you we had to develop a rapid-strike force. The SCARAB is interesting. Helicopter turned airplane turned helicopter and carrying more firepower than anything ten times its size, with the exception of nuclear weapons.”
“It’s more than that,” the commandant said. “Jeremiah, we’re heading into an era of an entirely different kind of warfare, vomit warfare.”
“Like?”
“World terrorism. We must get a leg up. This Palestine Liberation Organization is just the tip of a gigantic iceberg. Playing by no rules and operating covertly, they can multiply like roaches. Every dingy little organization with a beef will feel free to call themselves Heroes of God on Tuesday and blow up a civilian aircraft and rename themselves Liberation Unit Twenty on Wednesday and take a classroom of kids as hostages. The bad news is that the Warsaw Pact nations and the Islamic states are giving them sanctuary, training camps, money, diplomatic passports, weapons. Thus far terrorist activity has been outside of the States. At the moment there is no way we can make the American public believe we are not immune. But something’s going to happen inside America, and sooner rather than later. It’s up to us to have something in the ready.”
“Let me finish