What We Inherit by Jessica Pearce Rotondi

Author:Jessica Pearce Rotondi
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Unnamed Press
Published: 2020-05-14T16:00:00+00:00

I read this and feel the erratic beating of blood against the walls of my grandfather’s grieving heart. I imagine my mother at twenty-six, picking out bridal flowers while her parents pick at stacks of paper about Jack.

In the end, my great-grandmother’s passing and Mom’s wedding aren’t enough to stop the Air Force. My grandparents drive the 1,800 miles from Pennsylvania to Texas, high blood pressure and hemorrhoids and grief be damned, to arrive by nine A.M. on the twenty-seventh. Every word uttered in that courtroom is preserved, typewritten on yellow paper that my mother stuffed into a closet beneath the sealed box of her wedding gown.

I picture my grandparents holding hands as they entered the vastness of the “Taj,” the administration building and pride of Randolph Air Force Base, with its 170-foot central tower sparkling Air Force blue and gold in the sun. They have to pass murals commemorating the valor of B-17 bombers like Ed’s in World War II and Air Force legends in dress blues before entering the courtroom, where they come face-to-face with a formidable row of Air Force brass. All three of Jack’s military-appointed jurors had served in Vietnam. One was even a former prisoner of war who shared Jack’s Christian name.

Colonel Jack Tomes flew F-105 aircraft out of Takhli, Thailand, and was shot down on his forty-sixth mission over North Vietnam on July 7, 1966. He was one of the “lucky” ones my family had watched returned to U.S. control as part of Operation Homecoming six long years ago. Of all the jurors, surely it’s this Jack who knows the value of hope. Beside him is Colonel Lawrence F. McNeil, an A-1 pilot who flew missions out of Nakhon Phanom Royal Thai Air Force Base from ’69 to ’70. The third juror, Colonel Henry Viccellio Jr., spent over ten years in Southeast Asia and flew more than 240 armed reconnaissance and rescue missions. If Ed has any chance of winning the day, it is to appeal to these men as fellow soldiers who know what it means to be shot at from the sky.

My grandparents are shown to their seats up front, where the small fan blowing hot air around the courtroom barely reaches them. Streams of sweat are already dampening Ed’s collar, the measurements grown wider in the three years since he retired from the Pennsylvania State Police to devote himself full-time to the search for his son.

When the judge calls his name, my grandfather rises and adjusts the thick black frames of his glasses, forcing himself to make eye contact with each officer who has the power to declare his firstborn son dead. He hears his attorney introduce him and finds the words he had rehearsed with Rosie in the car:

“As well as being the parent of Sergeant Pearce, I was also a combat pilot in World War II. I participated in one of the largest air battles ever fought, the Schweinfurt and Regensburg raid of 1973. I was shot down on October the 14th, 1943 and was a prisoner of war until 1975 in Stalag 17.

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