Hero Avenue

By Babs Greyhosky

About the Book
In this collection of serialized short stories, get an intimate look inside the unique, insular world of life on an Army base during the backdrop of the Vietnam War. From 1957 through 1971, follow Army wife Grace Stanley and her daughter Vivian as they navigate military culture and customs along with their fellow Army wives and children, all tasked with maintaining a sense of normalcy in the face of instant upheaval, separation and uncertainty.

About the Author
Babs Greyhosky was a television writer and producer for twenty years as well as an adjunct professor in the film school at the University of Southern California for eight years. She has a master’s degree in clinical psychology and now works as a licensed mental health practitioner, specializing in trauma and PTSD in veterans.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dorrance Publishing Company
• Release date: Mar 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9798886049893

Book preview

Forward

DEPENDENT:

classification status for family members of military personnel

ARMY BRAT:

nickname specifically for children of servicemen

The stories presented here were written over a course of twenty-five years about a life experience that played out over fifteen. While growing up in that experience, it never occurred to me that there was anything extraordinary about it, but I suppose that’s always the way it is, especially for kids. It’s what we were born into; it’s what represented normal to us. We were Army Brats, living on a military base with all the other Army Brats for whom the experience was the same in so many ways. It wasn’t until we were off the base, segueing into independent adult lives in the civilian world, that we noticed something in ourselves, in our childhoods, that made us unique. It usually happened in casual conversation, a passing remark about the year our dad was in Vietnam or moving four times in seven years, when the person we were talking to would look at us curiously and start asking questions. That’s when it occurred to us we were members of a special club that was hard to describe, unless you’d been a part of it. When it finally occurred to me, I started writing about it.

The popular perception of people in the service usually revolves around three images popularized by the media: wives and children tearfully bidding farewell to their soldiers headed off to war, those same wives and children running joyously toward those same soldiers upon their safe return, and lastly, the grief-stricken faces of a wife accepting a folded flag at her husband’s gravesite. But of course there is so much more to their stories beyond vignettes designed to showcase a fraction of the role played out by wives and children of active duty servicemen. My hope is that these stories will shine a light on the supporting characters – the wives and children – who provide the foundation for a soldier’s life, often at the expense of their own. The irony that they are classified as dependents isn’t lost on any of them.

Hero Avenue is the name of the street I lived on during the last five years of my father’s thirty-year Army career. I’m sure it was so named in recognition of the gallantry embodied by the men serving our country. And deservedly so. But the unspoken truth is that many of the real heroes on that avenue, or on any avenue on any military base, are the ones who didn’t wear a uniform. It’s time to give voices to them.

Babs Greyhosky

Los Angeles, California

2022

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PART I

Outposts

1957-1958

Clearing Quarters

In the warm sun of a long, Alaskan summer day, Grace Stanley stood with her neighbor Suzanne Connelly, each with a baby stroller at her side, and watched the ritual of every military transfer unfold. The women had pushed their toddlers down the street of Fort Richardson’s residential neighborhood, past blocks of duplexes cut from the same mold, painted in the same shade of white with the same size front yard, to the mailboxes at the end of the housing unit. By the time they headed back, the inspection team had arrived at Staff Sergeant Lou Yamaguchi’s place just a block away. Benign curiosity caused Grace and Suzanne to linger and take in the sight of another family packing up and heading out to answer orders from above.

Where are they going, you suppose? Suzanne asked with a deep south cadence.

I think I heard Florida, Grace answered. Someone said the whole battalion was moving out.

That’ll be a long haul. I guess anywhere from here is gonna be a long haul.

Grace watched the four-man team, in their white uniforms set off by heavy black boots, march up the sidewalk and onto the front yard where they stopped to confer. They wore serious, resentful expressions and carried clipboards with Army-issue pens – the kind the Stanleys had stashed in drawers all over their house – dangling from rubber band tethers. After a short huddle, one man began examining the perimeter of the house, inspecting foundation, water faucets, hoses, windowpanes, porch steps, and rails. The other three headed for the front door and rang the bell.

"I can’t imagine they’ll find a speck of dust in their house," Grace observed with envy. A clean house was like a degree from Harvard for women of her generation. She prided herself on keeping one of the cleanest, but even she had been astounded at how immaculate Mrs. Yamaguchi kept her house. Grace had been in it only once, yet the image of the stairway banister still stayed with her: not a speck of dust between the rails, which meant Mrs. Yamaguchi ran a cloth through and around each of the wooden poles on a regular basis.

Well we’ll see, Suzanne said. I don’t think the Yamaguchis used a cleaning service.

Why would they? No one could clean that house like Mrs. Yamaguchi.

That’s not the point. The point is to pass the inspection. Suzanne glanced at Grace, who was at least ten years older. How long you been in the service, hon?

I was a WAC during the war, Grace reminded her neighbor, so I know a little bit about inspections.

"Well…when we get transferred, I’m using the cleaning team."

Grace silently agreed that was a wise idea. Suzanne was a wonderful, generous neighbor but not someone who was bothered by dusty furniture, toothpaste splattered sinks, sticky kitchen floors, day-old dishes soaking in cold water or clothes left in the spots where they’d been discarded. For her hiring a cleaning team would be money well spent.

A tiny Japanese woman wearing a red checked shirtdress opened the door and bowed her head ever so slightly at the inspection team, then gestured for the men to enter. Grace saw the wet footprints left on the sidewalk by the men’s black boots and watched to see if they would wipe their feet on the doormat. The first two men did, but the third man – the one who seemed to be the team leader – did not and stepped right onto the polished wood floors with his wet boots. In the threshold, as he turned to shut the door, he caught sight of Grace and scowled in her direction, his ruddy complexion growing redder with his stare. She turned toward Suzanne to see if her neighbor had noticed this odd interaction, but Suzanne was bent over the stroller, tending to her young son who had become restless and cranky.

Okay, okay, I hear ya, Suzanne cooed to Little Owen. Stop your fussin’. Suzanne turned the stroller around to head back up the sidewalk. I’ve gotta get home, Grace. Somebody needs a nap.

Grace didn’t follow immediately. She let her neighbor move on without her while she stayed behind for a few last looks at the Yamaguchi house. Through the bare front window, with its Venetian blinds pulled clear to the top that allowed a perfect view of the downstairs, Grace watched the three men crisscross in the living room on their way to other areas of the house. She couldn’t help noticing the shine on the glass pane and wished she had thought to ask Mrs. Yamaguchi how she washed the windows without leaving streaks. It was as though the sashes held no glass at all. In her reverence over such cleaning skills, Grace didn’t immediately notice that the inspector with the wet boots and ruddy face was once again scowling back at her through the crystal-clear window. When her focus shifted from the streak-less glass to the man looking through it, she gave a start.

His scowl seemed to have deepened with irritation, as if to snarl, Mind your own business. Suddenly intimidated, Grace turned the stroller and headed for home.

By the end of summer, Sergeant Connelly received his orders for Korea. Grace was sorry to see her neighbor leave, but Suzanne seemed excited to be going back to her family in Mobile to wait out her husband’s tour of duty.

Two years in this climate is about all I can stand anyway, Suzanne told Grace, preferring the heat and humidity of her childhood home. Snow had never been high on her list. Same with vacuuming.

Suzanne and Little Owen waited in Grace’s kitchen while Sgt. Connelly met with the inspection team. The men who had shown up to clear their quarters were different from the ones who had cleared the Yamaguchis, which Grace thought was a good thing. According to neighborhood gossip, the Yamaguchis had been cited for at least four infractions – a rust stain in the toilet bowl, a sand-like residue in the corner of a kitchen drawer, ants on the back porch, and dust on top of the water heater located in the basement.

Have you ever heard of anything so ridiculous? Grace had posed this question to Bill while he was reading the baseball scores in The Sporting News. All these toilets have some kind of rust in them. They’re old. And that sand in the drawers – it probably came from the wood sticking when it warps. How much sand could there have been for them to get dinged for it?

Grace would’ve continued her litany of indignations on behalf of the Yamaguchis, but she knew better than to bother Bill when there was news to be had about the Pittsburgh Pirates. So she’d taken the rest of her complaints to Suzanne, who seemed as unbothered as Bill.

"I’ll admit I was a little surprised anybody found dust on the water heater, but it is, after all, in the basement. And who doesn’t have ants on the outside of a house in the summer?"

That’s why we’re using a cleaning crew, Suzanne had reiterated.

So when Grace saw the results of the cleaning crew that cleaned the Connelly duplex, she thought they hadn’t yet finished the job. Lanes of heavy dust remained on the wood floor where the mop had missed. Cobwebs still clung to the corners where walls intersected the ceiling. Three dead flies lay entombed in the globe of the bathroom light. Windows had been washed on the outside but not the inside, and Little Owen’s fingerprints still decorated the spot on the wall next to where his crib had sat for the past year. Grace noticed all these things with simply a quick look around because they were so obvious. What would inspectors uncover with their eagle eyes?

When Suzanne and Little Owen arrived to sit out the inspection at the Stanley’s, Grace offered to make them lunch since, based on the evidence, the inspection would take a while.

 Oh, thanks, but we won’t be sittin’ here that long, Suzanne said. Her confidence surprised Grace further when Suzanne didn’t even bother to remove her coat or the one on her son.

At least let me make you a cup of coffee, Grace insisted. But before she had time to measure the grounds, Suzanne’s husband knocked at the back door.

We pass? Suzanne asked as Sgt. Connelly entered the kitchen in his fatigues, waving a pink carbon copy between his first and middle fingers.

All done, he answered without the least bit of surprise.

So fast? Grace tried to reconcile the difference between the Yamaguchi’s experience with that of the Connelly’s.

Told you, Grace, Suzanne said, rising to leave, it’s not about the cleanin’, it’s about the passin’.

Sergeant William Stanley’s orders came as a surprise. His tour in Alaska was supposed to last three years, but after eighteen months, the Army decided to transfer him to West Texas. The news disappointed Grace. She enjoyed Fort Richardson with its majestic mountain range like a permanent mural out her living room window, the fresh air redolent with the scents of pine and the wilderness that surrounded them. She loved the idea that a moose would wander up to Sgt. Stanley’s window at work after having meandered in from the forest abutting the base buildings. Even the frigid temperatures didn’t bother Grace like the damp cold of winters in Pennsylvania where she’d grown up. Because the Alaskan air was so dry, she could take her daughter Vivian out in the stroller in January without either of them feeling uncomfortable.

As a loyal Army wife though, Grace put on her game face and tried to look forward to a new post in a part of the country that was as foreign to her as Alaska had once been. During World War II, Grace had been stationed at Tinker Field near Oklahoma City, and that was as close as she’d ever gotten to Texas. But before she could fixate on their new destination, she had to concentrate on the task at hand, and foremost on her list of responsibilities was preparing to clear quarters. Grace set out to make the final inspection her crowning achievement, worthy of approval from even Mrs. Yamaguchi. She would not hire a cleaning team, she would do it herself, and the Stanleys would pass inspection without a single infraction.

Packing up the house was easy. Except for Vivian’s crib, high-chair, and a television set, all the furniture belonged to the Army. The Stanleys had accumulated very little during their stay in Alaska; a wood framed picture of an Eskimo girl was the only souvenir added to the list of personal items carried with them from their last post at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. Linens, dishes, pots and pans, some extra warm clothes – it was all easily packed away in a few boxes and would take up very little of her time. Time that she needed to devote to her cleaning project.

A week before the Stanleys were scheduled to leave, Grace went to the commissary and stocked up on ammonia, bleach, window cleaner, scouring pads, floor wax, linoleum wash, oven cleaner, Comet, Pledge, and several toothbrushes for scrubbing cracks, crevices, and dirty grout along the bathroom tile. With the Yamaguchi infractions still fresh in her mind, she also bought rust remover for the toilet bowl and any other rust stains lurking unnoticed, and even though snow covered most of the back porch, Grace bought Real Kill anyway in case there were ants out there brave enough to weather the winter elements. Warped drawers weren’t a problem in January, so the risk of sandy residue in the drawer corners was eliminated, but she kept newspaper on top of the water heater in the basement until moments before the inspection team arrived, eliminating any possibility that they’d find dust on top of it.

Grace always counted herself lucky to have given birth to such an even-tempered, mild-mannered child. These qualities in Vivian were particularly helpful during that last countdown to inspection because Grace could prop her three-year-old daughter in her highchair with her plastic phone, and Vivian would entertain herself for hours in a conversation with several friends who existed only in her imagination. When Vivian grew tired of her fantasy conversations, she could then watch her mother crawl the perimeter of every room, wiping the floorboards with rags, remove every light switch plate and clean it in soapy water, wash down all the kitchen cabinets, scrub fingerprints off walls, dust the rods in all the closets, even scour off the marks left by hangers, pull out the stove and refrigerator to mop behind them.

Grace vacuumed the upholstery and polished the cherry wood buffet until it gleamed. No one could sit on the dining room chairs without sliding off them. Every pleat in the lampshades was attacked by a dust rag, every slat of Venetian blinds wiped on both sides, every inch of chrome, brass, or glass polished to mirror reflection. And after she waxed the hardwood floors, Grace put down a trail of newspapers to walk on. When she finally deemed the job complete, the Stanley house wasn’t just clean, it was sterile.

On her last night in Fort Richardson, Grace took a hot shower and nursed all the injuries incurred over five days of obsessive-compulsive cleaning. Several sizes of Band-aids crisscrossed thirty percent of her skin surface, hiding a variety of cuts. The distinct orange of Mercurochrome decorated the scrapes on her knees. She popped blisters to drain them and rubbed globs of lotion onto callused fingertips. Her fingernails looked as though she had crawled across gravel escaping for her life, and the cuticles were shredded and bleeding. There was nothing she could do about all the bruises, except admire their changing colors and find hidden pictures in their shapes.

When Grace dropped into bed next to Bill and a sleeping Vivian, whose crib was packed away, she blew out a long, tired sigh.

I told you we could’ve hired a cleaning team, Bill said.

That would’ve been such a waste of money.

But look at you. You’re all banged up.

Oh, it’s just a few scratches. The truth was that Grace felt only a deep sense of satisfaction for her battle scars. They were her own contribution to the cause, however insignificant it might appear to anyone else.

But the house looks good, don’t you think? she asked Bill just before he slipped off to sleep.

You could perform surgery in here.

She was pleased. She shut her eyes and expected to fall asleep within moments but then realized no amount of fatigue was going to rescue her from a restless night. After all tomorrow was her big day. Tomorrow was the inspection. Like every true warrior on the eve of battle, sleep was not to be had.

Bill was a tall, strikingly handsome man with a face that exuded quiet dignity, authority, and kindness all in one. When he wore his dress uniform, Grace noticed how others – even men of higher rank – dwarfed in his presence. For that reason, she thought it was best if Bill answered the door when the inspection team arrived. She remembered how diminutive Mrs. Yamaguchi looked opening the door to the inspection team who had loomed over her like the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and she felt certain the contrast in size had given the inspectors liberty to write up infractions at will. Of course Sgt. Yamaguchi wasn’t much bigger than his wife, so even if he’d been there, the outcome might’ve been the same. Not so with Bill. When Sgt. William Stanley, RA33086378, answered the door, it wasn’t just another soldier; it was John Wayne.

Grace, waiting in the kitchen with Vivian, heard her husband’s deep, formal voice usher the inspectors into the house. The clomping of their big black boots echoed off the walls of the near-empty rooms as the men split up and made their way through the house. Leaning against the kitchen counter where Vivian sat with her legs dangling over the edge, Grace caught sight of one of the men opening the door to the basement. She felt a sense of having out-foxed the fox knowing that, just moments before the team arrived, she had removed the protective layer of newspaper on top of the water heater, revealing a dust-free surface. Grace felt so confident that she hardly noticed the right wrist that had throbbed with soreness during the night. Bill had fished a bandage out of an old first-aid kit and wrapped the wrist to keep it steady, adding more evidence of her housecleaning wounds.

Bill led an inspector into the kitchen, and Grace pulled herself up almost to attention. The whole process reminded her of barracks inspection when she was in the WACs. If only she could have shown off her hospital corners, but the beds were stripped of linens. The kitchen gave off a glow from the spit and polish, and Grace was nearly giddy with pride to show off her work. She smiled widely at the inspector.

Hi, how are you today? she asked him.

He grunted, barely acknowledging her presence.

My wife and daughter, Bill explained, still very formal.

The inspector said nothing but glanced at Vivian for a brief moment. The little girl stared back at the man with the same level of stoicism she inherited from her father.

Grace wanted to tell him, You’ll find no dust or dirt on her either. Then she felt his gaze drop to her bandaged hand. She held it up like a badge of honor.

I was cleaning the grease that accumulates underneath the stove hood and must’ve twisted my wrist. It’s just a slight sprain. No big deal. She added with a proud laugh, I got rid of the grease under the hood though.

Grace moved to the stove to point out her handiwork, but the inspector remained silent, even after he ran a finger across smooth, polished enamel and it came away clean. He then started to open cupboards and drawers, bringing an end to the stove and hood inspection. Grace felt Bill’s eyes on her and she looked his way. He signaled to her with a sharp shake of his head to cut out the small talk and let the man do his job. Grace returned to Vivian and patted her daughter’s arm nervously while the room echoed with a series of sound effects: the slide of wood, the suction of the refrigerator door pulled open, the snap of a hinged door falling shut, the clomp of the black boots and the pendulous dangling of the army-issue pen tethered to the clipboard.

Hello? a voice called out from upstairs in a squeaky pitch of agitation. Somebody wanna come up here? the voice called out again.

Grace darted out of the kitchen before Bill could even try to answer the summons. She hurried toward the staircase, stealing a glance at the wood around the banisters where she had Pledged away the dust, and ascended the steps. Around the corner from the landing stood the inspector, staring at something on the floor. When he looked up at Grace as she made the turn, she became both nauseous and bewildered – nauseous because she was staring into the ruddy, scowling mug of the Yamaguchi’s nightmare inspector but thrown completely off by the squeaking voice that accompanied such a menacing look.

What’s that? he asked accusatorily as he pointed to the floor, showing no hint of recognition for the woman he addressed.

Grace had no poker face, incapable of hiding behind an unflinching mask the way her husband could. She walked over to the spot in question and looked down. A circle of dark brown discoloration marred the wooden floor near the floorboard.

I don’t know. It was there when we moved in.

The inspector stared back at her with a skeptic’s eyes, letting his silence imply his lack of belief.

I remember someone made a note of it because I was standing right where you are when I pointed it out.

Pointed it out to who? he asked in a gruffy squeak that had now acquired a creepiness, as well as the menace.

The guy who showed us the quarters when we moved in. It had never occurred to Grace that she should’ve gotten a name to reference or a copy of the report.

Without consulting his clipboard, he stared back at her. We don’t have any record of that.

Grace started to say more but stopped when she heard Bill coming up the stairs, carrying Vivian.

Is there a problem? Bill asked.

The inspector pointed to the floor. Water stain.

That was here when we moved in, Bill said.

I already told him that.

The inspector glanced at Vivian. Maybe you left wet diapers there.

"On the floor, in the hallway? The man might’ve just as well suggested that Grace never flushed her toilet nor bathed regularly. I would never put wet diapers on the floor."

What Grace considered her worst character flaw was also something that often saved her from herself. Her temper boiled up so intensely at times that the sheer explosiveness of it bottle-necked in her throat like an esophageal traffic jam, rendering her speechless. With less anger, she could unleash a monologue of uncensored, regrettable remarks that often left Bill shaking his head. Like the time a spiteful neighbor made a remark about her Romanesque nose one too many times and Grace told him to shove it up his ass. That a woman would utter such a thing was bad enough; that his wife would say it was almost indefensible, except that Grace’s retort had saved Bill from his worst character flaw: an inclination to pop the offending party in the chin with his impressive left hook.

Grace didn’t speak, but Bill saw the fury collecting in the crease between her neatly plucked brows, shining forth through the burn in her eyes and squirming to get out through the purse of her lips.

We’ll take care of it.

Grace heard her husband’s words and trembled with anger. She scooped up Vivian from Bill’s arms and marched back downstairs, her shoes banging on the wooden steps with righteous indignation.

Back in the kitchen, she waited out the rest of the inspection while every cut on her body stung anew, every bruise throbbed with fresh vigor from her rising blood pressure, and pains shot through her sprained, wrapped wrist. Vivian, once again sitting on the counter, a good-natured smile on her face, seemed to sense her mother’s discomfort and reached a soft chubby hand out toward her. Grace brought the fingers to her lips and kissed them, concentrating on Vivian’s sweet face and peaceful manner to calm her down. For a while, it worked, but when she heard the front door open and the big, black boots clomp out while the door closed behind them, she again felt the swell of anger.

Bill entered holding a yellow carbon copy instead of the pink one that Suzanne’s husband had held up after his record-breaking five-minute inspection. The Stanley inspection had taken nearly an hour.

A provisional pass, as long as we take care of the water stain.

Bill’s unaltered tone – his lack of outrage – stirred Grace’s anger even more. I did NOT put Vivvy’s wet diapers on the floor – you know I would never do something like that.

I know.

So what do they expect us to do – refinish the floor? If I could’ve gotten that spot out earlier, believe me, I would have. It’s bothered me ever since we moved in.

We’re shipping out tomorrow, so we can’t do anything about it.

Grace stared at her husband, trying to piece together a resolution to this maddening, infuriating display of pettiness and unfairness.

So we pay them to have a cleaning team come in and finish up the job.

Grace’s widening eyes signaled the imminent explosion. Pay a cleaning team?! After what I just put myself through? I worked like a dog, there isn’t a germ to be found in this entire house, you yourself said it was sterile –

What the hell do you expect me to do? Bill so seldom raised his voice that the force and volume was startling, though never threatening. Grace was familiar with this rare side, but Vivian was not, and the little girl started to cry. Her whimpers frightened Bill as much as his volume had frightened Vivian. He reached out and gently stroked his daughter’s soft cheeks. It’s okay, honey – don’t cry. Momma and me are just mad at someone.

Grace turned away to look out the window; she didn’t want Bill to see her watery eyes. If Bill could so easily surrender to such unfairness, then he certainly would never understand how a trivial cleaning inspection could reduce his wife to tears, or an invalidation of her existence, a dismissive slap that rang with the accusation, You aren’t worthy.

When Bill had soothed Vivian back to a state of calm, he closed the issue once and for all. Forget about it, Grace. It’s the Army.

That afternoon the Stanleys drove to Seward where they boarded a ship to take them to Seattle. It would be a long journey, getting from Alaska to Texas, plenty of time for Grace’s wounds to heal and her bruises to fade from blue to olive green to yellow. She would need more time though to scrub away the memory of that dark stain on the wooden floor at the top of the stairs where a little bit of her self-esteem had been left behind.

Casualties of War

So you’re heading off to Bliss, huh?" The same mischievous look that Grace remembered about her brother-in-law still crinkled the corners of his eyes. She also remembered how handy he was around the kitchen as he doled out bowls of hearty soup for a family dragging in from a drive that started in Seattle, Washington. They still had about 175 miles to go before they reached El Paso, but being able to stop in Roswell was a welcome respite from days of endless highways and nights of lonely motel rooms. Grace was happy that Bill could visit with his younger brother, now a captain in the Air Force, but she worried about being an imposition. Art, his wife Patsy, and their eight-year-old son Jimmy lived in a trailer barely large enough for the three of them, but the bond of brotherhood won out, so Grace’s offer to stay in a local motel for the night was quickly dismissed. And now four of them were all crammed around a table eating soup and catching up while Vivian slept soundly on a nearby couch, and her cousin watched her with a mild curiosity.

Art’s got real fond memories of Fort Bliss, don’t you, honey? Patsy remarked with oozing sarcasm before asking Grace if she wanted a beer.

Grace couldn’t recall the last time anyone had offered her a beer, let alone a sister-in-law she barely knew. But coming from Patsy — this blonde firecracker who drank and smoked cigarettes and talked like one of the guys — it didn’t seem unnatural. Patsy spoke in a low, raspy Texas drawl and used expressions Grace had never heard before, like not the sharpest knife in the drawer or even a stopped clock is right twice a day. She enjoyed her earthy sense of humor and envied her confidence while at the same time was intimidated by both those traits. Patsy never seemed to worry about saying the wrong thing or making the wrong impression, two sins from her own personal list of Commandments that Grace lived in fear of committing.

Oh, no, thanks. I’m fine with just water, Grace answered, then immediately wondered if she sounded like a prude.

Well you just holler if you need anything, Patsy told her as she opened a beer for herself.

Technically I guess you’d have to say it was Biggs Air Force Base, but one sits on the other’s land, Art continued in his musings of Fort Bliss.

Oh, who’s gonna split hairs over a place where you broke your neck? Patsy said through lips clenched around a cigarette awaiting its match.

"Wait a minute – you broke your neck at Bliss?" Bill asked with surprise.

I did indeed.

I thought it was Alamogordo.

Nope. Runway east seven.

Up until the subject of Art’s broken neck arose, Jimmy was content to stare at his sleeping cousin on the couch. Now he made his way over to the small Formica topped table where the adults gathered like four people jammed in a phone booth.

When did you break your neck, Pop?

Nineteen forty-two. Coming in for a landing during a training mission.

And they still sent your dad off to war, Patsy said with an incredulous laugh. You’d think after breaking his neck, they’d’ve kept him stateside.

Well it healed, didn’t it? Art asked his wife with a wink. Besides how else was I gonna get to experience the joy of a German POW camp?

Patsy’s face spread into a wide smile as she threw an arm around her husband. I was never so happy in my life than the day I got that telegram saying you were a prisoner of war!

"You were happy?" Grace blurted out.

Hell yeah, I was happy, Patsy confirmed. It was sure better than the first telegram I got telling me he was missing in action.

Oh. Well, yes, I guess that would’ve made me happy, too, Grace agreed, to the extent that one horrifying letter was preferable to the other more horrifying letter.

Grace and Bill had broken up right before the start of World War II, which had flung