A marina in Hampton, Virginia, July 2024. (Photo by John Griswold)
Having the boat lifted out of the water and inspecting her props, rudder, and trim tabs took no more than 30 minutes. It cost the same as my monthly rent. Everything there was fine though, so Chris asked the marine mechanics to search until they found why Castaway was unable to get up on plane. A team of four or five would go to work once she was back in the water. Money was not discussed.
Another vet who Chris had known back in the day, B, called from nearby. I had never met him but knew the name well. While Chris, his friend Brad, and boatyard employees stood under Castaway, talking things over, I walked over to the marina to bring B back to the boat.
B was instantly likeable and told me to get in his truck, we would drive back to the yard. He had a .32 automatic sitting in the center console, but I did not mention it. We chatted, and I learned we had enlisted in the army about the same time, for the same job, and later volunteered for dive school the same year. But his overseas tour was Korea, mine Panama, and we had never been at the main stateside detachment at the same time. We knew some of the same people and talked about Chris as a character. B’s truck was a beaut, and we talked about that.
Once the boat was in the water, B generously offered to buy pizza for all of us, including the mechanics. I ordered online and rode along with B to get it.
“Nice gun,” I said, strapping in to the passenger seat.
He pulled at the .32 reflexively to check the Velcro holding it to the console and told me a story about having to draw it in a road-rage incident. He told me his wife had died recently from brain cancer. He missed her so much; he was lost without her. As we walked the pizzas back to the boat he asked if it was true what they said about the universities. His Facebook is filled with political notions such as, “Voting for Kamala after dropping Joe is like shitting your pants & changing your shirt.”
As the mechanics got back to tackling an electrical problem they had identified and draining water and crud from a diesel tank, B asked me, “Have you heard the stories about me? Do you know who I am?”
He told me then that he and some friends, including their lieutenant, got in a drunk-driving accident in Korea. B was at the wheel. The young officer got out of the car and fled. The Uniform Code of Military Justice might have held him liable for what happened, even sent him to Leavenworth, Chris told me later.
A Korean man was maimed so badly he could no longer support his family. B accepted sole responsibility and was court-martialed; the young officer flew back to the States unscathed. The officers in the jury said they would not convict B due to the conduct of the lieutenant, but B had already pled guilty, pretrial, on the advice of his young JAG lawyer. B was neither kicked out of the army nor demoted, but in fifteen more years of service was never promoted, so he retired at the same pay grade he had had the year of the accident.
Then B brought up Jeff. Jeff was a young captain I had met once when Chris was being arrested for one of his DUIs. We had all been civilians by then, attending a reunion. After that incident Jeff used to call me and monologue as I tried to watch my son play baseball. He said he felt responsible for an Iraqi unit that he had advised, which got wiped out in an ambush. B told me that Jeff used to call him too, and a lot of other guys, and talk endlessly. Jeff shot himself a couple of years later. B said he felt bad he had not been able to do more for Jeff, and I said I had felt helpless too.
B said some of the guys from the old days were calling to check on him now. He would be okay, he said. His wife’s dad had called him in once and shown him a portfolio of investments he had made with his daughter’s future in mind, a practical measure of his love. But his father-in-law and then his wife died, and B became the beneficiary. He was rich now—maybe not as rich as Chris, but rich, he said—and free to do anything he liked. He had one of those three-wheeled concept motorcycles, and he planned to open a blacksmithing and welding shop for fun. He loved that work, was good at it, and made or repaired things free for other people. He also liked to meet up with other vets and drink a lot of top-shelf bourbon, he said, and was doing as well as might be expected.
The boat was ready for her sea trial by then. We made a brief run at full speed up the James River and returned to the yard. B stepped off and headed for his truck. We would be underway again soon.
