The Officer by Doug Beason

Author:Doug Beason [Beason, Doug]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Cadet, military academy, academy, Air Force Navy Army Marines, special operations, war fiction war & military action fiction military thrillers historical fiction historical thriller coming of age
Publisher: WordFire Press
Published: 2016-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eighteen

“Eve of Destruction”

The next day

0815 Monday, January 25th, 1965

United States Air Force Academy

Colorado Springs, CO

His honour rooted in dishonour stood,

And faith unfaithful kept him falsely true.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Idylls of the King,

“Lancelot and Elaine”

“Hey, Rod, can you come here for a minute?”

Captain Bobby Andrew, the department Exec stood in the conference room door with a worried look on his face. The department library filled one of the conference room walls. The other wall was lined with pictures of the faculty running back to 1955; blackboards covered the other two walls.

“Sure.” Rod looked up from inserting a letter from Colonel Whitney into the packet of information for next year’s follow-on course to Theoretical Mechanics 202.

He sat in the room with fifteen other junior officers, all instructors in Theoretical Mechanics. A half an hour earlier, Colonel Whitney had pulled out all the Majors and Lieutenant Colonels in the department, leaving the grit work of putting together the course handouts to the Captains. Rod briefly wondered if it had anything to do with the evidence of cheating he’d found the previous night.

But there was no mention of his telephone call to Colonel Whitney or of the note he’d delivered to the Commandant. Instead, he was cooped up with the rest of the company grade officers who weren’t teaching class, stuffing envelopes; busy work that didn’t require any thinking, unlike the last time he had been in the large conference room.…

In December he’d sat in this room right before Christmas, frantically grading the standardized Theoretical Mechanics 201 Final Exam along with the rest of the officers teaching the course. Major Forsythe, the course director, had sat at the head of the table, his jacket draped neatly over the back of his chair. Each instructor was responsible for grading a unique page of the final exam—nearly 300 pages of the same problems—so that they could give a standardized assessment across the entire class.

The instructors had written on the blackboard the status of how many pages they had graded; snack food covered a table at the end of the room. Each officer had been responsible for providing a portion of the buffet so the instructors wouldn’t have to break for meals, and could grade until they were finished. It had been an all-day marathon that exhausted him just thinking about it.

Now, five weeks later, back from Christmas break, assembling the course material was the intellectual equivalent of chewing gum for the mind.

Rod pushed up and padded out the door to speak with Bobby Andrews. Bobby stepped into the hallway as Rod approached.

“What’s going on?” Rod said. “Looking for me to fly another general back to Washington?”

Bobby rolled his eyes. “Not likely.” He motioned with his head for Rod to follow him.

Rod lifted an eyebrow at Bobby’s reaction. It was unlike the Exec to be in a reticent mood. He followed Bobby as they walked past his office. “Where are we going?”

“Dean’s conference room.”

Rod kept his face expressionless. So it’s begun. Rod had arrived early this

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