Marine Corps Stories: Capitulation

Misha felt at home at the head of the table. As the senior ranking official among mostly men, she didn’t seek to rule them. What she wanted to find was not power. She only wanted to exemplify the possible, the best. Far from an affirmative action hire, she had studied to show herself worthy of the lofty position which she occupied. She prepared herself for trouble.

“Ma’am,” Lieutenant Colonel Robert Pell looked askance. He had dark brown skin and eyes that looked like embers. “How are we supposed to get ten thousand of our troops out of Saudi Arabia and fifteen thousand of them out of Iran in this time frame?”

Misha detected the disapproval dripping in Pell’s diction. It didn’t matter. She straightened, her cammie blouse, pristine and sharp replete with her four stars on both collars acted as a cacoon against negativity.

“Lieutenant Colonel Pell, we have done more with less time. It is about the safety and the protection of our men and women in uniform. Like I said, I take full responsibility for the taken lives in the line of duty. It is to those families that I owe a debt of honor and respect. But to continue on with these campaigns in Asia would be monstrous. We’ve been fighting there for almost a hundred years. This time, at least, we had good reason again.”

Pell had had his elbows on the table. He removed them and pressed his chest.

Colonel Tilda Mcfadden possessed flaxen hair and braided tightly into a bun. She looked down at a set of notes with her glasses hovering over them.

“Ma’am, we’re supposed to be out of both countries by the end of the month. But I just don’t see that happening, with all due respect. If you look at the–”

“There’s no need. Yes, I know that you were going to say the direction for this withdraw is ‘downward thinking.’

Tilda sat up straighter.

“It’s not. We’re talking about Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines who are going to be able to go home after intense warfare with the enemy. Now, with all of the main targets, predominantly civilian, demolished and smoldering, we have the opportunity to see that they our boys and girls go home safely. Is that clear, Colonel?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Tilda said.

Misha sat still in her seat. “Anymore questions or comments before implementing both the Declaration and Constitution for each country?”

“Yes.” Major General Cyril Dutton said. He had a full face and a stout body that almost caused his uniform to protrude over the table. “Ma’am, don’t you think that we need a little more time for the two documents to take effect. I know that you meant that capturing the hearts and minds was two shots to the chest and one to the head, but if we’re going to be prudent about this, it would behoove us to take our time.”

Misha never flinched. “Take our time, Dutton? We’ve been in these wars for far too long. Our prudence lies with our decisions. It is important to note that as Iran and Saudi Arabia find new documents to sustain them, they ought to be peaceful allies in the future.”

“But ‘ought’ isn’t ‘will be,’ respectfully, ma’am,” Dutton said.

“In the time that Major General William Tecumseh Sherman razed the south, how many Confederate forces blazed a trail through New York and Massachusetts? How many kamikaze pilots flew their planes into US targets after 1945? This is what I’m talking about. We have set the tone for how to conduct combat. We have made the real ‘shock and awe.’ The civilians must deal with the mental effects of these wars. That is not our problem. Our issue is with sustaining two governments that explicitly called for ‘Death to America’ and one that did it implicitly. With these papers in place, we no longer have to wonder who or what is our enemy. We will know by their capitulation.”

Silence pervaded the room like an icy blast or reality. The senior officials weighed the words of their leader.