The Boy In the Box

My Troop Commander looked at me and asked; why I had failed the Master Gunner course? I had to look him in the eye and let him know I failed the presentation portion of the program, (It’s kind of amusing to me right now as I’m a Professional Speaker of the National Speakers Association). The blame was totally on me, I tried to take on the task, solely upon myself, (everyone else in my group had previously failed out of the course). We were headed to gunnery and I advised the Captain, I had all the technical expertise to assist our Cavalry Troop during gunnery and would take the position of Troop Master Gunner to make sure our troopers would do well. He knew I had been through combat and told me; I’m relying on you Staff Sergeant! We’ll do well sir, that’s a I promise intend to keep to you sir! He dismissed me and now I had made a promise that I intended to keep, not only for me, but I had to prove myself that I had the expertise to assist other soldiers in their gunnery skills. As I walked into out squad room, I was introduced to a new soldier who would be on my Bradley. He had served in Korea during “Operation Desert Storm” and missed the opportunity for combat experience. He had served with a unit I had served with and immediately, I felt an attraction to him from his experience. I counseled him about what my expectations were and what he needed to do to gain rank and become the gunner to my track. He was a tall lanky kid from Texas and I really liked him. Over the next few weeks in preparing for gunnery, I asked him to join me in the simulator in preparing him for the gunners’ position. I t happened to be at 0200 hours on a Saturday morning, he arrived on time, in uniform and was a quick learner, I really liked this kid. He worked his butt off in the motor pool getting out Bradley Fighting Vehicle ready for field training and gunnery. 

It was a September Saturday that I watched the local news report about a local airport that was victimized and an aircraft was about to be stolen and got stuck in the mud on a taxiway, before making a turn onto the main runway. I paid no attention and went on enjoying the weekend with my wife.

Field training against other units was a fun opportunity to test our skills and we had several test during a 12 day Field training Exercise. The next weekend was getting our vehicles ready for gunnery and we were about to have a four day weekend over the Halloween weekend. Tuesday morning came and my soldier was missing and I reported him missing during the morning report. I asked his roommates if they had seen him and they responded they had not seen him since the previous Friday. Wednesday came and he was AWOL, Thursday came and I again reported him missing and it was time to cut the lock on his wall locker and make inventory of his possessions. Going through his possessions, I had to make accountability and came across items that only a pilot would need. I reported all the items to the First Sergeant and Commander and several days later, a local detective stopped by our Troop and asked me questions about the items I had reported during his inventory inspection. One of the items had been reported stolen from an aircraft several week before and they were investigating a stolen plane on Halloween from a local airport. I had no idea of a stolen plane and I called my crew to speak with the detective about what they knew. My driver had been invited by him, on Halloween, to fly with him to Texas over the weekend so he could confront a guy who had made a move on his girl. He had refused and that was the last he had heard of him. We deployed to gunnery several days later and I had to train a new gunner and the competition was high with my track and the commander. Our track had out shot the other tracks during the practice runs and the Troop Commander was calling me out and intended to out gun me. The sights on my track went down and I had to use my sister track for qualification and we maxed it! The commander called me to the tower to congratulate my crew for kicking his butt on the range and we were rewarded the opportunity to hit the rack and sleep in the following morning.

0600 hours, my Platoon Sergeant woke me up and said I needed to report to the Commander and First Sergeant, right now, so much for sleeping in. When I walked into the tower, my Platoon Leader, Platoon Sergeant, first Sergeant and Commander were waiting for me. My first thought, they would find that I didn’t make top gun and they were going to accuse me of cheating, especially since the Troop Commander was in the left lane. To my surprise, they had found my lost soldier. He had stolen a plane on Halloween and attempted to take-off in a deep fog. He had rose to altitude and made a sharp right turn over our military training area, didn’t watch his altimeter and winged into a training area, crashed and burned. They asked me to deliver his remains to his parents in Texas and get all the appropriate paper worked signed. He was my soldier, after all, and I felt it my duty to represent him. My duties was to inspect the remains, place his uniform over his remains and attend to the funeral arraignments.  During the inspection, the once six foot two man was now an elastic wrapped glob of unidentifiable, non-human recognizable four foot burnt figure. I laid the uniform over the figure and coordinated with the funeral director to pick me up at my home in the morning and deliver the remains and me to the Kansas City, airport. The airline saw what I was doing and placed me in first class for my flight to Texas. The Texas funeral director soon met me and secured the remains as I acquired a rental car. That evening, I arrived an hour early, prior to the viewing of the flag draped coffin to get all my paperwork squared away. The family arrived and I gave the family a good hour before I briefed them on the paperwork and tell them of my soldier. How do you look into the eyes of a mother and tell her, her son really screwed up? I described her son’s military bearing and my experience with his training. The next day was the funeral service and I had to make sure the casket was properly delivered into the earth and covered to US Army specifications. One of my soldier’s nephews approached me, as the coffin was being lowered into the grave liner, and asked me more about the Army. I told him to look at the coffin as it was being lowered into the grave. I pointed to the coffin; that’s what happens from making the wrong decisions. Learn from his mistakes and walk away from the final covering, it wasn’t something he needed to witness. I shook his hand and watched the lid on the liner be lowered into place and covered with the good Texas earth.

I often think back to his mother and how she must have felt with her first view of the flag draped coffin and her boy in the box, she would never see again. All she had was memories and when she asked of his uniform, I told her it was with him. The boy in the box was my soldier. I don’t know what more I could have done to have prevented him from stealing a plane and crashing to a fiery death. I often think of him, the 5/17 Cavalry coin he gave me. The boy in the box, one of my kids that I lost, not to combat but to everyday life and the girl far away.