Bob McCarty Writes

Below is Part Four of a series of posts I’m sharing with readers of this blog today. A change of pace from my usual writings on humor, politics, culture and capitalism, this series represents the first few chapters of a book I’ve been writing for several months. It draws from my background in the Air Force as well as from my experience in politics and public relations. I hope you enjoy it, and I look forward to your feedback.

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SCRATCH OFF

By Bob McCarty

Copyright © 2008 Bob McCarty, L.L.C. All rights reserved. Any reproduction, publication or broadcast
or other use of this document without the express permission of Bob McCarty, L.L.C., is prohibited by law.

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Word of Josh’s death spread through Effingham the following day, and it seemed nearly every citizen in this small farming community of almost 13,000 wanted to pay respects to Josh’s father.

Newspaper and television accounts – even network news reports – had confirmed it: Josh was a hero. The nation’s hero. For the people of Effingham, he was their hero, and they would fly flags at half-mast throughout the community for days in his honor.

Florists in town ran out of flowers and potted plants four days in a row following news of Josh’s death. Such was the outpouring of respect and condolences, they turned to shops in neighboring communities for help as every rose, mum, tulip and potted plant from the markets in Chicago and St. Louis seemed destined for delivery to Kastens’ front porch. Even the silk flowers sold out on this occasion as Effingham mourned one of its own.

Complete strangers felt compelled to deliver home-cooked meals to the fallen hero’s home. By sunset on that first full day after receiving the bad news, Kastens had grown weary of the parade of visitors — most of them strangers, some co-workers and others who had served with him years earlier as a volunteer firefighters in the West Effingham Fire Protection District. Having already received far more than his refrigerator and freezer could hold, he retreated to his garage to do something constructive. That was, after all, how he had always battled the loneliness he had occasionally felt since that day Josh had left home nine years earlier.

Finding a 4-foot-by-8-foot sheet of plywood leaning against the wall, he grabbed it with two hands and laid it in the middle of the garage’s concrete floor. Next, he grabbed a can of red spray paint from the shelf above his workbench. After shaking the can well, he sprayed out a three-line message: Please, no more meals. Thanks, Larry.

Leaned against the corner post of the barbwire fence near the end of his driveway, it would be impossible for anyone arriving at his property to misunderstand his message.

On Tuesday, April 3, a letter arrived via overnight mail from the Air Force Casualty Affairs Office in San Antonio. In addition to a letter of condolence from the Air Force, it included forms for Kastens to fill out in order to claim things such as Josh’s personal belongings – most of which, including his 2005 Honda S2000 convertible, were in storage in Georgia – and how to collect on his son’s $400,000 Servicemembers’ Group Life Insurance policy.

Kastens knew he would have to take care of details like that, but opted to do it later. After the funeral or after he had finished grieving. Upon realizing it might never get done if he waited for his grieving to end, he completed the paperwork and made copies of documents proving his identity and prepared them for mailing the next day.

Within two to four weeks, the letter said, he should receive confirmation that an account had been set up in his name with $400,000. In addition, he would receive instructions outlining how he could claim Josh’s personal property at Moody Air Force Base in Valdosta, Ga.

Josh’s body arrived in Effingham Wednesday, April 4, less than 72 hours after his death. It was accompanied the entire way home – through bases in Germany, Delaware and nearby Belleville, Ill. – by Capt. Dave Jones, the Air Force pilot for whom he had sacrificed his own life. The following day, according to his father’s wishes, Josh would be buried in Effingham with full military honors.

A military funeral meant a lot to the citizens of Effingham and the surrounding communities. High school sporting events were cancelled, and shops closed their doors. Even Kastens’ neighbor, the Wal-Mart Super Center, shut down for four hours. It seemed everyone in town wanted to pay respects by standing outside the funeral home chapel, by lining up and waving American flags along the route to the cemetery or by attending the funeral service.

Such an outpouring of support was typical of this small Illinois town, home to the world’s-largest cross – 198 feet tall, made of 180 tons of steel standing along a stretch of I-70 just west of town. The town epitomized traditional American values.

Reporters from as far away as Springfield, Ill., and Terra Haute, Ind., covered the funeral and, in so doing, witnessed this phenomenon of small-town concern firsthand before sharing it with the world in a variety of formats.

From comfortable and not-so-comfortable distances, photographers captured images of the ceremony as a somber, apple pie kind of moment. It was the kind of occasion newspaper wordsmiths might describe as sobering, reflective or heart-wrenching, depending upon the emotion they wanted to convey.

Reporters interviewed Josh’s high school classmates still living in the area, and they talked to complete strangers. Regardless of relationship, all of those who were interviewed expressed profound admiration of and respect for the fallen local hero.

Judy Schramm, a reporter for the Effingham Daily News, attended the funeral along with thousands of others from the area. Having never been to a military “full honors” funeral, she was struck by the solemn and respectful pace of the event which included four color guard members presenting the U.S. and Air Force flags and six pallbearers bringing the flag-draped casket to the grave site.

A seven-member Honor Guard from Scott Air Force Base in Belleville delivered a 21-gun salute – three rounds of seven volleys each — as directed by a non-commissioned officer in charge. That was followed by taps being played over a loudspeaker system – the military had a year earlier given up on maintaining adequate numbers of trained bugle players. Finally, the officer in charge of the 20-members-strong Honor Guard presented the American flag that had draped Josh’s casket to his dad.

Standing next to the grieving father was a man in an Air Force uniform. Schramm had heard a rumor float through the crowd that the pilot who owed his life to Josh was at the funeral.

“That must be him,” she thought. After the funeral, she would seek him out. His story had all the earmarks of a real tear jerker. “Now, if I can only get to him.”

After the flag was presented to Josh’s father, members of the Air Force Honor Guard marched away slowly. After the departure of Josh’s father, everyone else began to walk away, too. It was over.

Before Schramm could get close enough, she lost site of her potential interview subject. He had apparently disappeared into the crowd of people walking toward their cars. Thinking fast, she alternated between speed-walking and jogging to get to her car as quickly as possible without drawing negative attention. Along the way, she scanned the crowd, looking for the glimmer of captain’s bars on the shoulders of the man she now hunted.

Just as she began to lose hope, she spotted him behind the wheel of a small, white, two-door Chevy.

“I’ll never catch him,” she thought as she saw him near the front of a long line of cars approaching the cemetery exit. Then she decided she would follow him to wherever he was going.

By exiting the cemetery through an out-of-the-way side entrance, she was able to make it to the service road along I-70 before Captain Jones. She opted to park on the shoulder and wait until Jones, too, had made it out of the cemetery.

Five minutes passed before he reached the front of the line and turned left on the service road. She followed his car west to the on-ramp and for another 30 miles until he pulled into a Steak and Shake® restaurant at the first Vandalia exit. Once inside, she approached his table, introduced herself as a reporter and asked if she could join him. He said, “Sure,” and, by the way he looked back at her, she knew her hunch had been correct. She just knew he was the pilot.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2008 Bob McCarty, L.L.C. All rights reserved. Any reproduction, publication or broadcast
or other use of this document without the express permission of Bob McCarty, L.L.C., is prohibited by law.

>> Part Five <<

To read other SCRATCH OFF posts, click here.