The Triplet

By Don McBurney

The Triplet is a story of how God elevates a humble orphan and makes of him a child of God, adopting him into God's royal family. Gil Webster, a young boy left orphaned during the Middle East conflict before being adopted and raised as an American citizen in Iowa, grows up and heeds the call to military service following 9/11. Once stationed at a large NATO base in Turkey as a translator and intelligence officer, Gil joins an undercover operation tasked with discovering and interdicting a drug supply chain, but he also becomes intricately involved with the revaluation of Iraq's new currency, the dinar. Yet he meets two fellow soldiers and friends along the way, Kamal and Tuo, who work with Gil on their mission and on their faith, despite their differences.

Some seek greatness only to have it elude them because of their very ambition. Others, who are more humble, do not seek greatness only to find they have achieved it, especially in God's eyes. Against the unlikely background of conflict, terrorism, and political intrigue, three soldiers will come together in faith, as God once again uses an unlikely person to actively witness for Jesus Christ.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: Jul 19, 2018
• ISBN: 9781480862821

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Copyright © 2018 Don McBurney.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

Scripture taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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ISBN: 978-1-4808-6283-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4808-5699-8 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4808-6282-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018951293

Archway Publishing rev. date: 08/21/2018

CONTENTS

PRINCIPLE CHARACTERS

PREFACE

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

PROLOGUE:   A HOPE AND A FUTURE

PART ONE:   BLESSED BEYOND MEASURE

PART TWO:   FRIENDS

GLOSSARY OF ACRONYMS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ENDNOTES

PRINCIPLE CHARACTERS

GIL’S WIFE

Gail Webster

THE TRIPLETS

Gil Webster: the main protagonist

Kamal Amadi: Iraqi army officer

Tuo Trang: American officer of Vietnamese descent

MILITARY PERSONNEL

Lieutenant General Grimsley: Pentagon

Colonel Bill James: Gil’s commander in Turkey

Chief Master Sergeant Dale Brown: Incirlik, Turkey

Master Sergeant Westley Reilly: Incirlik

CIVILIAN INSTRUCTORS

Mr. Jack York

Professor Vic Skinner

PREFACE

THIS IS A STORY OF REDEMPTION THAT ILLUSTRATES how God selects someone from humble beginnings—an unlikely person—and uses that person for His glory and to hasten the coming of His kingdom in greater fullness. Some seek greatness only to have it elude them because of their very ambition. Others, who are more humble, do not seek greatness only to find they have achieved it, especially in God’s eyes. This is a story of how God elevates the humble orphan and makes of him a child of God, adopting him into His royal family.

This book is a work of fiction but I have drawn from several of my personal experiences and an occasional item of family history from decades past. Historical events I cite herein are accurate to the best of my knowledge but I have taken liberty with certain events that have not yet happened. As the old saying goes, I am neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet. I pray that you will enjoy and benefit from this story.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I APPRECIATED THE ENCOURAGEMENT I RECEIVED during the writing of this, my first novel. It’s good when people care and provide words of support.

First and foremost, God gave me daily, inner guidance while I wrote and revised. I could not have accomplished this pleasant task without His encouragement; in fact, it would have been an impossible, unpleasant task apart from His help.

I thank my readers, Marilyn, my wife, and her good friend, Joannie. They persevered through initial drafts and offered valuable comments.

The members of our Monday and Tuesday night home fellowship groups also gave me enthusiastic, moral support. Thank you, one and all!

PROLOGUE

A HOPE AND A FUTURE

IT WAS A DAY LIKE ANY OTHER, OR SO IT SEEMED TO the boy. Ordinary days can turn out to be extraordinary days but who can know before the experience happens? It helps if you’re old enough to have mileage under your belt—to be able to see, in retrospect, how turning this way instead of that proved to be a strategic moment in your life. It also helps to understand that God guides your life by continually giving you up-to-the-minute directions instead of a large, foldout, life map with both the road and the destination clearly marked on it. But this accumulated knowledge is reserved for old people, who can see backward and observe how circumstances eventually worked themselves out in their lives. Young people are denied this.

So the boy didn’t know any better than to think it was an ordinary day. He hadn’t yet lived out his story. He hadn’t yet discovered the meaning and purpose for his life. His vision couldn’t yet penetrate the fog that was his future.¹ He didn’t yet realize that life-changing experiences often come quietly and unobtrusively, in unexpected ways.

He was a typical, average boy in most ways, so like typical boys, he spent his time in the relentless expenditure of energy for no discernible purpose. He liked to play in the dirt, make small piles of rocks, chase lizards or any of a number of other miscellaneous pursuits. He tended toward immaturity in those early years because he made no attempt to see past the nose on the end of his face. There was nothing worrisome or sinister in this—he was just a boy.

The boy was a twelve-year-old orphan, who was scheduled to age-out of the orphanage before too many more years. As a young child, for a wild variety of reasons, his parents had routinely moved around as traditionally agrarian nomads do who wished to avoid sectarian violence. They were not ultimately successful because his father was shot and killed when he was about six years old. Then his mother was killed two years later as she wandered with her family near Amman, Jordan. They had been Christian (non-Moslim Arabic) so they were part of a decidedly minority population, acquainted with persecution.

The boy didn’t have much going in his favor or much to commend him to others. His most obvious and noticeable deformity was a cleft palate. As a consequence, his voice was nasal and he couldn’t speak clearly.

The children in the church-run orphanage were from a variety of cultural backgrounds, countries and languages but they spoke rudimentary English on the campus grounds. The boy was not picked on or alienated within the institution because all the children were in the same boat—they had issues of one sort or another. His was just another face, albeit deformed, in the small crowd of children except he was older than most. He was not ostracized—that potential always lurks around the corner for any child, anywhere, anytime—but being older also meant he was bigger and taller than the younger children.

When he first arrived at the orphanage, a group of five or six children on the playground, led by the tallest and biggest boy of the group, looked at him. They put their heads together in secret powwow. A scout was dispatched, who peeled away from the group and dog-trotted toward him. As this scout passed the boy, his fist flashed out and struck the newcomer on the arm. The boy immediately and instinctively punched him back! This minor rite of passage was neither personal nor malicious. It was merely boys getting acquainted with each other. After that initial test, the boy was accepted as just another child in the orphanage.

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Some months after the boy had arrived at the orphanage and on that fateful, extraordinary day, a runner brought a message, They want to see you in the office.

Me? Why?

I don’t know. They just told me to get you. You better get on up there.

He ran his fingers through his hair and rubbed the fronts of his shoes against the backs of his pant legs. He wasn’t afraid. He didn’t think he was in trouble, and besides, the headmaster was kindhearted. But he wasn’t called to the office very often, so he wondered.

An older, mature, Christian missionary couple had visited a few days before and had watched the children from a balcony that overlooked the playground. They had spent time in a few classrooms and had eaten lunch with the headmaster and the students in the cafeteria.

Of course the boy had noticed them—who hadn’t?—but given them no thought. Visitors didn’t pay attention to him. Serious visitors, those with adoption on their minds, asked to go to the nursery or into the preschool rooms. The boy wasn’t angry or bitter about it. He knew such visitors were naturally attracted to the younger, prettier, more out-going children and he was none of the above. So, without fear, he wondered.

The boy had been renamed Gil when he was taken into the orphanage. This was the name by which he was known to the headmaster, who said, Gil, this is Mr. and Mrs. Webster. They would like to talk with you and spend some time with you. Is that alright?

Sure, I guess so. Sure.

They asked, Gil, will you walk us around and show us some things you like here?

Okay. Where do you want to go?

Wherever you would like to take us. Do you have a room or a favorite place? Do you like to go to the library? Do you play sports?

Well, I go to our little soccer field sometimes but I mostly just run around and kick the ball in the dirt. I don’t have any tricks to show you.

That’s alright. We’d just like to spend time with you and get to know you better. Will you take us there now—just the three of us?

He did but wasn’t comfortable. He wasn’t good at talking and no one had ever asked to see or spend time with him before. Strangers couldn’t understand him very well. But he was glad he had thought about cleaning off his shoes before he went up to the office.

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He grew up in their home. Amazingly, all those years earlier and on that extraordinary day, Mr. and Mrs. Webster had liked him. They said so! They adopted him and gave him their name. They took him to that far-away place, the United States of America, and there he finished growing up as Gil Webster—Gil Webster in the cornfields of Iowa where he really learned to speak English.

In many ways English was a weirdly difficult language to learn for it had arcane rules like i before e except after c or when sounding like a as in neighbor and weigh. Gil also had whimsical questions like, "Why is abbreviated such a long word?" And it seemed like something of a cruel joke to him for the word lisp to have an s in it. He wondered why the words overlook and oversee meant opposite things while flammable and inflammable meant the same thing. Why did the words answer and sword have a w in them?

English spellings were very varied. There was even a word whose synonyms were antonyms of each other. Who could keep it all straight? However, now people could understand him when he spoke and his use of grammar had improved such that now it was above average.

Well-fed and properly developed American citizens no longer shuddered and shivered (or pretended not to) when they looked at him because Mr. and Mrs. Webster, his new forever parents, had paid for surgery that repaired his cleft palate. Because of that and a thousand other reasons, Gil would love them always. They had chosen him and made him feel special when he knew there was nothing at all special about him. He loved them because they had first loved him. They gave him access to everything they had, and to him, it was one treasure after another.

He was grateful. He was satisfied with his life, especially now for some unknown reason, as he walked along sleeping, country roads where cattle stood at the fence and songbirds perched in the trees. He looked up into the wide sky with the morning sun rising—that golden globe, inching up, floating effortlessly free of the horizon. And there was water in Iowa—water to drink, water to wash with, to play in, to waste (if one were so foolishly inclined), water enough to grow corn and soybeans and to keep lush lawn’s grass green.

He was only one, tiny person but he could sit down on this earth—his land—touch it and feel love for it. He didn’t deserve it; he hadn’t done anything to earn such blessings, but with these things in his life, he could well say in that moment that nothing more was needed.

Which is not to say he forgot his original roots. He was a child of America’s Midwest but also a child of the world’s Middle East. Every child carries characteristics from his earliest, formative times within his psyche and this was as true for Gil as for any other child.

Now, in Gil’s everyday routine he spoke, heard, wrote and dreamed in English but one would have to say that his mother tongue was Arabic and that it had not been entirely forgotten. He had a head of thick, black hair on top of skin that was mid-brown even in midwinter. In spring, he didn’t require much sun to turn a darker brown and he never burned.

Neighbors and classmates knew he had been adopted and born somewhere else (maybe Egypt or Lebanon or Israel or Iraq or Saudi Arabia or any number of other countries they knew almost nothing about) but they did not think of him as different from themselves. He was, like them, a farm boy. And he did not think of himself as different from them, except he knew the desperately humble circumstances from whence he had come. He was, perhaps, more appreciative than most of where he now was because of where he had been in his younger years.

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The rock was far out in space, undetected by human eye and as yet unknown to mankind. In interstellar terms, it was but a speck that was moving ever so slowly along its orbit. In human terms, it was huge and rocketing forward at unbelievable velocity, at unimaginable speed as it headed toward its destination. It was on a collision course with this cool, green Earth, a small part of which Gil Webster loved so well and so truly.

PART ONE

BLESSED BEYOND MEASURE

CHAPTER 1

WHEN GIL TURNED EIGHTEEN, HE STARTED COLLEGE in the fall of 1996. He went to a small school in a small town.

Today, many think a small town is something smaller than Los Angeles or New York. They define Kansas City or Omaha or Des Moines as small market towns. Gil had a different definition for he had spent his adolescent years with Dad and Mom Webster on a farm outside a town with only one stoplight.

His college town was larger but had fewer than ten thousand people living in it and his college had fewer than five hundred students. Actually, he thought it was a relatively big school in a fairly large town (not yet a city) but understood that most Americans didn’t define it the same way.

Some people think college is a time and a place where students learn to rebel and protest, to shake their fists in other people’s faces and use angry words laced with profanity. Gil didn’t. His fellow students didn’t either. So he enjoyed his college experience. Neither he nor his parents worried about a faculty whose goal it was to subvert childhood training and traditional American values.

Rex Bennett was one of the new freshmen Gil met as they waited for the dining hall to open, late one afternoon. Gil introduced himself and said, I’m hungry! Like the man said, ‘I don’t care what you call me as long as you call me for supper.’

Rex responded, You got that right. I wish they’d open these doors. Have you signed up for your classes yet?

Yes, and then I broke the bank buying all the books they told me I had to have. Gil continued, I’m from a farm outside a small town up in Iowa. How ‘bout you?

South Alabama. What’re you studying?

The basics. Requirements. Maybe something will develop out of that.

I’ve got lots of allergies, so I couldn’t stay on our farm. I have to be someplace that has more concrete and less ragweed. I thought about chemistry and its sterile lab environment, but like you said, the price of the textbook nearly gave me a heart attack. I’ll give it a go for a while and see how things turn out.

The doors opened. They wished each other good luck and parted company.

Chapel was held twice a week. Attendance was mandatory. Gil sat with all the other students whose names began with the letter W. He enjoyed the quality of the chapel speakers and musicians.

The girls had dorm moms, lived in low-rise buildings separate from the boys and had nightly curfews. Attendance was taken in class, grades were given and students were expected to learn. None of this was a problem for Gil or the vast majority of his classmates because they didn’t want to shake their fists in anybody’s face. They wanted to learn and respected the scholarship of their professors (most of them, at least) who, (most of them, at least) also cared for and appreciated their students.

The college campus was beautiful in the fall when classes began. Leaves hanging from mature hardwood trees turned many different bright and pastel colors. There were no farm chores to be done after family-style suppers in the cafeteria so students socialized, made new friends, walked under the trees, tossed Frisbees and played catch.

Gil was happy to substitute the easy companionship of his small, Iowa farmtown for the equally-easy companionship of his small, college-town atmosphere. He thought, We are born as social creatures, privileged to talk with classmates and new friends, to sit with others under the shade of hickory trees, to visit about things that happened yesterday and to laugh and tell stories.

There was a low, rock wall with an entrance in it to the old, historic administration building where boys and girls liked to sit and chat. Early on, Gil met a boy named Billy who was from St. Louis and had never been on a farm or worked with cattle yet could imitate a cow’s moo so perfectly, they would come running to him. Gil asked, Billy, how’d you learn to do that?

I don’t know. I never tried it before I came here and heard the cows. It sort of came naturally to me. I didn’t practice. The sound just came out. Weird, huh?

During another one of those first evenings, Gil met a girl named Cherie Marie Severn. He was enchanted by her exotic-sounding name. Maybe she was from France or possibly Spain or perhaps Germany. She strung him along for a while, but the truth came out—she was none of the above.

Gil’s roommate was Leonard Mitchell. It turned out that Leonard was from the same town as Cherie Marie.

Gil found this out when he said, You’ll never believe it! I think I met a girl from Spain or maybe France. She looks French to me. Could be German. Her name’s Cherie.

Leonard laughed and told him, She’s such a trickster. She’s about this tall, I bet, and has a little pug nose. Is her name Cherie Marie Severn?

Yes, how’d you know? And what do you mean? Gil asked.

We went to high school together. We’re from the same town, and brother, it ain’t in France! She fed you a big load of it, let me tell ya.

So, although she was only a local girl whose parents had liked those names and given them to her at birth, it didn’t really change the adventure of the new experience. Gil was gullible, and in some ways reminded Leonard of a country bumpkin come to the big city. But in other ways, Leonard envied Gil’s enthusiasm and open, fresh naïveté.

For his part, Gil felt embarrassed by how easily he had been tricked but decided to grin and bear it. Although Cherie Marie was just a local girl who had never been to Spain or France or Germany, her names were an example of possibilities.

The world was full of possibilities. You never knew whom you might meet or who might be approaching you, just around the corner, ready to smile and say hello to you. An exciting sense of the new, the exotic, the unexpected was in the air. All in all, it was a satisfying, even magical time. Gil was content—even more so, believe it or not, than when he had been home with his parents on their Iowa farm.

Content as he was, however, he was not lazy. He knew that college was more than a social experiment. Gil was a responsible student. He read his assigned textbooks, attended classes faithfully and regularly, studied and asked his professors for help or clarification whenever he needed it.

He took basic, introductory courses that all incoming freshmen had to take. To satisfy his foreign language requirement, he registered for Spanish (shades of Cherie). This exercise unexpectedly reminded him of Arabic, his mother tongue he had neglected for several years. He lacked affinity for and facility as a language learner but his life experience already had provided him with unusual proficiency in two languages: Arabic from his childhood and English from his adolescence.

Thus after his first semester, he didn’t continue with Spanish but began exploring how he could use his knowledge of Arabic. No on-site classes were offered but his adviser arranged for correspondence classes by native speakers via cassette tapes for which Gil could gain college credit. Naturally, it didn’t take him long to regain and demonstrate advanced proficiency over non-native Arabic speakers.

Gil enjoyed the thought of math, physics and chemistry but realized, early on, that he wasn’t destined to excel in those sciences. So beyond the required basics, he didn’t pursue them. On the other hand, and again to his surprise, Gil discovered an innate giftedness for history, theology and philosophy so he steered his course selections in those directions. He was glad he had the opportunity to learn more about American, church and Russian histories (as examples), but once again, his language study reminded him that he already had personal experience with Middle Eastern Arabic/Semitic history.

After class one fall afternoon, Gil and his friend David Bohannan were walking back to their dormitory. They agreed that theology gave them optimism and a desire for excellence. Gil also agreed with Elton Trueblood, a Christian author and philosopher, who famously had written, Deliberate mediocrity is a heresy and a sin.²

Gil, like any sane person, preferred blessing to cursing (he would rather have a pat on the back than a kick in the pants), so he made a conscious decision to pursue excellence and not loiter any longer in mediocrity (or boyhood). His days of chasing lizards, stacking rocks and playing in the dirt were over.

David also appreciated quotations that spurred him toward passion in living out his beliefs. He said, "Our professors have introduced me to concepts and people that are new to me. For example, I’d never heard of Johan Albrecht Bengal, an early theologian and philosopher. But I like something he wrote: ‘We must not listen to those who inculcate … noxious decorum.’³ I don’t think I quite know what he meant by that but it sounds fancy. Maybe someday I can impress someone by quoting it."

Gil responded, You’d better be careful. What if that certain someone asks you what it means? What would you say? He struck a dramatic pose and declaimed, At least I understand Trueblood’s words: ‘A religion which serves as a pastime or opiate, demanding no sacrifice or change in manner of living, is not Christianity. Christianity is a glorious adventure.’⁴ They laughed as they reflected on the glorious adventure they were living even at that very moment.

All kidding aside, Gil was profoundly affected by what he was reading and learning. In that time and place, college was beneficial to him. Learning on this advanced level was indeed its own adventure. Once more, he appreciated life and was content, while at the same time, he was glad to make new friends and was encouraged in his growth and maturation. He was gaining purpose, slowly but surely. His parents had set him on the type of godly course such that he could now see beyond the nose on the end of his face.

Which is not to say Gil had forgotten fun and games. He and four other friends were out late one night (Who said life was fair. The girls had curfew but the boys didn’t.). One of them got the wild hair of an idea that they should climb the water tower. They drove downtown and there it was, big as life—bigger, actually. There was no fence or barrier of any kind to keep them out so suddenly the escapade was possible. Two of his friends backed out immediately as they stared into the sky, up and along a skinny leg of the tower but three thought they were up to the challenge. One was Billy (the cow-mooing genius), one was Gil, and the other was Earl Strobes, who simply had no clue what he was about to get into and blurted out, "Let’s