Dignified Flyers

When you fly out of Atlanta on a Friday afternoon, you expect to feel put-upon.  It starts at the gate.  Jesus save me from the carry-ons, you think, as the gate agent says, “Ladies and gentlemen, we have a full flight, limited bins.  We’re asking ten to fifteen volunteers check bags for an on-time departure.”  The thing you carry: a backpack, no wheels.  The gate agent will ask, “Is it squishable?”

You hardly expect, no way of knowing, the treasure already stowed in the belly of the Delta MD-80.

Your boarding pass reads: GEN.  Jesus save me from the boarding groups.  Groups boarding before General Economy: Travelers Needing Special Assistance; Unaccompanied Minors; Medallion; First Class; Business Class; Comfort Class; Military Personnel with Credentials; Travelers Stowing Retractable Strollers; Travelers Calming Recalcitrant Babies; MAIN Cabin 1; MAIN Cabin 2; MAIN Cabin 3.

You anticipate an uncredentialed body in your seat and prepare a polite redress.  Every time you board a flight, to anywhere, you expect a body in your seat.  Nobody is ever in your seat.  But today is Friday, December 20th, busiest travel day of the year and you never know.

In line behind you, only two left to board, a smartly-dressed, Nicole Kidman look-a-like and, last but leashed, her cinnamon mini-doodle.  The doodle has its own backpack.  A therapy dog?  A patch, a dog tag of sorts, is sewed on the pack: Mobile Dog Gear.  The website’s dog tag-line: Make sure your pet jet-setter has everything she needs for her next trip with Mobile Dog Gear’s Weekender Backpack Pet Travel Bag!

Overhead bins are crammed.  Full.  Shut.  In your seat sits a man with meaty hands.  Jesus save me.

You don’t bother with your boarding pass, something in his manner – you’d say slow to rise, if only.  He leans a shoulder across the aisle from his (your) seat, slaps a paw, says “This here must be mine.”  You hesitate, confused, thinking, is he moving or not?  Not looking up, the man says, “You want me to move?”

“Oh – no real difference, is there?” you say, “Both aisle seats.  Heh-heh.”  In your amiable haste, you fail to notice his seat-mate, shoulders broad as a shoe lace, her checkerboard Vans dangling, barely brushing the floor.  You’ll sit and stew later, realizing meaty hands shares an armrest with a featherweight.

Your backpack could wedge with some difficulty under the seat where you’d prefer your feet, so, in a sparring mood, you open an overhead bin – push, push, push – wrinkling someone’s suit jacket, bending a picture frame, hoping the sweater you wrapped around your MacBook is squishable.  A wet, brown apple core is tucked in the seat-back.  The mini-doodle, straining at its leash, tries to jump in your lap.  Doodles are not supposed to shed.  “Sorry, sorry,” says Nicole Kidman.

The pilot comes on, “Ladies and gentlemen, de-icing may take up to twenty minutes.  On-time arrival is threatened.  We apologize in advance for the inconvenience.”  De-icing?  Your weather app says 43F.  The pilot will update.  Jesus save me from the delays.

Your seat-mate is a hulk.  He plows an elbow into the armrest you’ve just lowered.  A chill stream of air showers your head.  Then, finally, a moment, permission to inhale, a decision to let it all go, a slow resolve to control what can be, starts to slacken your body.  The world must go away.  Settling in, headphones on, paperback open, phone set to Airplane Mode, Do Not Disturb.  Closing your eyes allows an exhale.  His knee knocks into yours.

You lift a headphone for the pilot, “Ladies and gentlemen.  We’re all set for on-time departure.  And a special announcement: It’s our unique honor to be carrying the remains of a military serviceman with us to Cleveland today.  We appreciate your patience upon arrival and ask that you’d please remain seated, as we allow the military escort on board to disembark first.”

Jesus.

First thought – embarrassing, shameful – Now, how long will this take?  Further curiosity, if not dignity, follows:  Was the serviceman active-duty, a soldier?  Killed in action?  Or training?  Just this past October, a tank rolled over in a training exercise in Fort Stewart, Georgia, killing three soldiers.  Would the cause of death matter?  A natural cause possible.  Does the military grant the transfer of active duty who suffer heart attack or stroke?  Some veterans retire overseas.  What happens when they pass, are they flown back?  If in their will, sure, but on whose dime?  Did the pilot say service-member, or serviceman?  You would have found servicewoman noteworthy.  And what about where?  A war theater?  Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Somalia?  Are we even at war?  Officially?  Is the war on terror a declared war?  Is Cleveland, Ohio the final destination?  Was he married?  Children?  Family?  Family.  There will be family.  Waiting.  Where?  On the tarmac?  Were they notified?  Of course they were notified.  Will there be a ritual on the tarmac?  The military escort – a personal friend, platoon mate, or simply serving anonymous duty?  Where is the escort sitting?  When did the escort board?  Is there a special, cordoned-off space in cargo for the casket?  You picture the cargo hold, a flag-draped casket amidst the luggage.  For some reason, you recall a photograph of George H.W. Bush lying in state with his service dog, Sully, sitting by the closed casket.  You wonder about final destinations.

Not long ago, and for decades, the remains of soldiers were shipped like parcels in the bellies of commercial planes. That practice began to end on November 15, 2005, when a twenty-one-year-old medic with the 101st Airborne named Matthew Holley was killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq. His parents, John and Stacey, had also served with the 101st Airborne; now they were told that their only child would arrive home in San Diego as freight in the hold of a US Airways flight, ferried to the family by baggage handlers.

After lodging a complaint with the Army and receiving help from California senator Barbara Boxer, the Holleys saw their son met by an honor guard instead. Still angry, they began a campaign to change the way all military dead would be delivered. California representative Duncan Hunter, then chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, wrote legislation that eventually became known as the Holley Provision to the 2007 Defense Authorization Act. It directed that the bodies of fallen soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines would no longer be booked passage on US Airways, Delta, Northwest, or Continental but would be flown on military or military-contracted flights and met by honor guards.

From the 2010 Esquire article, “The Things that Carried Him,” by Chris Jones. The award-winning true story of one soldier’s (Sergeant Joe Montgomery) last trip home.

The Defense Authorization Act governs the Department of Defense budget and gets reviewed and voted on annually.  The Act has since been amended, the military once again permitted to contract major airlines, which now employ honor guards, to perform honorable transfer of bodies.  The honor guard makeup varies, often airline employees who volunteer, some former military, some not, depending on airline and airport size, but their mission is common, to receive military casualties from off the plane with dignity, honor, and respect.

Turns out, de-icing is simply defrosting, five minutes and airborne.  Smooth flight.  Glide in to the gate, on-time, the bell chimes – seatbelts clickety-click – but no one stands.  The cabin’s sole duty, remain seated.  From her seat, a woman in coke-bottle glasses turns and gawks toward the rear of the plane.  An eager look, mouth hanging open.

Soon, a young man passes, shaved head in a dark beret, dark pants, Army Uniform Class B.  The cabin is quiet.  His body is pear-shaped, neck white as marble, patches of soft pink rash.  White sleeves, too long, extend into the palm of his small hands.

You picture him in the field with oiled cloth, steel brush, alternately rubbing, scrubbing, delicate hands carrying a large caliber weapon or belt of ammunition.   From the rear, his badges, insignia, and other accoutrements go unseen.  Rank unknown.  You wonder about his seat-mate.  Did the two talk in flight?  Did the escort share his story?  What if the escort had sat next to you, what would you have said?

“Thank you for your service,” says the woman in eyeglasses.

In his essay, The Bonds of Battle, Sebastian Junger writes, “… the closer the public is to the actual combat, the better the war will be understood and the less difficulty soldiers will have when they come home.  Israelis benefit from what could be called the shared public meaning of a war.   Such public meaning – which would often occur in more communal, tribal societies – seems to help soldiers even in a fully modern society such as Israel.  It is probably not generated by empty, reflexive phrases – such as ‘Thank you for your service’ – that many Americans feel compelled to offer soldiers and vets.  If anything, those comments only serve to underline the enormous chasm between military and civilian society in this country.”

You do not see or hear whether the military escort acknowledges the woman.

Tim O’Brien, Vietnam veteran and author of The Things They Carried, reflects, in a chapter titled Notes, on a story inspired by a letter he received after the war from a member of his platoon, a friend who, years later, would commit suicide.  O’Brien writes, “The emotional core of the story came directly from his letter: the simple need to talk.”

O’Brien quotes from his platoon-mate’s letter, “What you should do, Tim, is write a story about a guy who feels like he got zapped over in that shithole.  A guy who can’t get his act together and just drives around town all day and can’t think of any damn place to go and doesn’t know how to get there anyway.  This guy wants to talk about it but he can’t…”

If the escort had been your seat-mate, you know you would have smiled, said hello, pulled down the armrest, and then, sadly, regrettably, covered your ears like it was any other flight to cancel the noise.  If the serviceman did have a story, if he did want to talk about it and could, it would not have been with you.  A defensive readiness position – Deaf Con One – assumed from take-off to landing, even after the pilot says, “Thank you for your patience.  And thank you for choosing Delta.”

In the concourse, a group gathers around a small window with a view of the tarmac and the MD-80’s baggage conveyor.  The group spans the breadth of the window, blocking the view.  You’re curious too, to witness the transfer off the plane, but move along.  Seems a bit much, like rubbernecking in a traffic slowdown: a search for catastrophe, mangled metal, bent axle, wheels that no longer turn.

Besides, you weren’t invited, presence pure happenstance.  But what if you did stop and watch, a clear view of ceremony, and were to see family?  A mother, a father.  A wife.  She would be young.  Small children.  Imagine the escort in Army Class B uniform, at attention, the pink on his neck reddening, trying to keep it together.  Honor guard, three, four, five abreast, flags-in-hand, grim faced, eyes forward.  Discipline.  Duty.  Respect.  What if the young wife, mother, father, aunt, uncle, child of the deceased were to turn, face the concourse window, to meet your eyes?  What would they see?

(The charter pilots) had seen it often—the moment when the family is hit by the truth, when the nose of the casket finally pokes through the (plane’s cargo) door. That’s when the air comes out of them and the place they’re in, as it did that afternoon. The hangar emptied with a gust that buckled men’s legs.

“I think that was the hardest part of this whole thing,” Gail (the mother) would say later, before stopping, unable to say anything more.

“The Things That Carried Him” by Chris Jones. The award-winning true story of one soldier’s last trip home.

You feel a certain smugness as you walk past the window, pleased for not gawking, and yet, days later reconsider, wondering why your imagination defaults to cynic.  You picture a more charitable scene: the woman in eyeglasses, standing at the concourse window, tissue in hand, amidst others, all solemn, all with hands over hearts, backs straight, some heads bowed, crying.  A dignified, heart-felt community viewing.  The woman dabs her eye, a tear you would’ve seen, through a more compassionate lens, magnified, if only you’d have stopped to pay your respects too.

You want to believe it is the truth, that some of those assembled at the window had a deep connection, had watched with sincerity and compassion and feeling, that the woman in eyeglasses, no reason not to believe, was perhaps a veteran herself, or been raised in a military family, or had a loved one injured, or die, in some long ago conflict.  A Gold Star Mother, perhaps.  Maybe she and others in that concourse community were informed, up-to-date on U.S. military combat operations.  Maybe they knew that Operation Enduring Freedom ended in Afghanistan in 2015, replaced by Operation Freedom’s Sentinel where 8764 U.S. troops in Afghanistan still remain today.  Maybe they knew that Operation Inherent Resolve is the operation against ISIS in Syria and Iraq (an operation renewed, restarted, renamed in 2014 after the withdrawal of all U.S. troops in 2011 in Iraq).  Maybe they knew that any time a body is moved, the casket is carried so the feet travel first, that military casualties land from overseas first into Dover Delaware Air Force Base, to a facility called Port Mortuary, arriving inside an aluminum transfer case packed in ice.   Military personnel charged with moving the case can sense what is left of the body by its heft. Transfer cases are sent back overseas for reuse.  The bodies are prepared, placed in caskets for transfer to their final destination after an examination for cause of death.  Any personal effects still left on the body are removed and placed into baggies and marked for return to the family.

Or again, maybe little of this was carried at the time, maybe this knowledge came later, days after the flight, at home reading the internet on a Macbook.

***

Sully the service dog is named after Charles Sullenberger, the pilot who landed the passenger jet on the Hudson River over a decade ago.  Sully the pilot graduated from the US Air Force Academy.  Sully the service dog graduated from America’s VetDogs.  America’s VetDogs is a service provided with no charge to veterans in need.  It is funded by donation.

Another charitable organization, woundedwarriorproject.org. Under the banner, Donate Now, are two clickable tabs: One-Time Gift and Monthly Gift.  I click One-Time Gift and up pops a counter-proposal in red italics:

You’ll make the most impact for our wounded warriors when you support them with a monthly gift. As a monthly donor of $19 or more, you will receive a Wounded Warrior Project® fleece blanket.

Back at the Donate Now banner, I click Monthly Gift and up pops nothing, no input box, no way to select number of months, no prospect for defining the terms of payment.  It seems the payment duration defaults to limbo.

I lay a credit card on the keyboard, the card conceals three keys – control-option-command – their soft, backlit glow extinguished.  I consider donations, the nature of open-ended, indefinite donations, the burden they carry, commitments with unforeseeable end.

A Bush staffer had tweeted the photo of Sully sitting by the casket in the US Capitol, caption, “Mission Completed.” Sully’s mission has since been renewed and continues at the Walter Reed Medical Center. 

I click One-Time Gift.