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  “Hi Mel, well as you just heard they offered me a job, it’s part-time meaning a weekend a month and two weeks each year. But, I would have to get re-qualified in some things so that means I would be gone for a month to start with.”

  “Oh, well is it something you want to do John and how will it affect you regular job?”

  Major Clayton thought carefully before answering, “Yes Mel it’s something I want to do. As far as work goes I have the time I can take off, besides they don’t really have much of a choice they have to let you go for military stuff. They don’t have to pay you while you’re gone but they can’t fire you for it.”

  “Then do it.” Mel stated.

  “But what about you and the kids?”

  “Well I still have ten weeks off with pay and my mom is more than willing to help and we also have Lucida. So I don’t foresee any problems, when would you leave?”

  Major Clayton looked at the Colonel, “Mrs. Clayton he would leave as soon as you can let him go and he can get it approved through work.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  It had been a month and a half since she had seen John he had gone back to Fort Bragg North Carolina for training. They had talked often while he was gone and skyped a lot. Now she was at San Francisco International Airport to pick him up, it was just him and her, she left the kids are home with her mom. She missed him terribly; they had never been apart really since the day they met over three years ago.

  Now she waited anxiously for him down near the security exit where all of passengers come out of. The problem is she was looking for John in civilian clothes, not Major John Clayton US Army Special Forces. She wasn’t blind she did see a Solider in the mix of people coming down the corridor, but she couldn’t see John. As the Soldier got close she noticed he was headed straight for her then she realized it was him. She had never seen him in uniform and to be honest she had no idea what he would look like in uniform but there he was. ‘Oh my God!’ she thought look at all those things on his uniform! ‘Wow and he’s mine too!’ she was grinning from ear to ear, ‘Just wow” she thought. ‘That is one beautiful Soldier!’ she couldn’t take her eyes off of him.

  He smiled when he saw her, “Hey sweetheart, what’s shaking?”

  She hugged him with all her strength and had tears streaming down her cheeks. Everyone in the terminal area who could see what was happening started to applaud; it was a great home coming. They walked over to the baggage claim area and waited patiently for his suit case and duffel bag. Once they had he bags he donned his Green Beret which really made him standout and Mel was beaming with pride, he looked so awesome in the uniform. People in the terminal did stare at him; quite a few stopped him and thanked him for his service.

  The drive home was anything but quiet, she had so many questions about what he had done and everything on his uniform. He explained all of the qualifications badges and what they meant that alone set her head spinning she couldn’t fathom how hard some of those courses must have been. He then went on to explain the medals and what they meant but there were some that he wasn’t allowed to tell her about. She didn’t know whether to call bullshit or not, but she let him have this one. Later on when she asked Anzio about the medals he told her that many of the missions they did were highly classified and yes there were medals he had gotten that he couldn’t talk about.

  When they got home Mel’s mom didn’t know what to think when she saw John in uniform, she was impressed by how he looked in it, but Mel’s mom and dad as well as her brothers and sisters had always been liberals and somewhat opposed to the military establishment. They weren’t raging lunatics over it or anything such as that; they just didn’t understand how people could waste their lives in the military. Mel had always been different with her attitude towards the military, she was as liberal as the next person but she thoroughly supported the military and believed it took a lot of courage to do what they did.

  She knew it wasn’t the military who wanted to fight but a government that sent them there, she understood that not everyone came from her background and people sometimes felt a calling to serve their country in that manner.

  They all talked a while when they got home, John didn’t spend much time with Morgan when she was born. He was gone within a week of her birth and didn’t get that bonding time with her that he wanted like he had with Kai. As Mel explained not to worry she wouldn’t ever remember him not being there the first couple months of her life, for that matter probably wouldn’t remember the first few years in the long run, no one did.

  Regardless he was still happy to see the kids and be home, he had to return to his regular job, and all of the questions of where he had been, on Monday and today was Friday. Mel was still on maternity leave for a few more weeks so they would still have more time together before she headed back to work.

  While he was away at training they had decided to put the building of their new home in Hayward on the back burner for that month while he was gone. They both felt that it would be too much for her to handle that, the kids, the house and her mom as well as Lucida. Now that he was back they would get the ball rolling, he also had some new ideas about the house that he wanted incorporated into it. It would cost a bit more but it was for the family and some day in the future it may pay off, if not no harm no foul.

  When he went back for re-qual’s he was required to attend some courses on various other issues and how to handle them such as EMP (Nuclear and Carrington Event), Ebola and other infectious diseases, further training on border security regarding Islamic Jihadist crossing the border and their current cells located in the US and Russia flexing its muscles in eastern Europe. Essentially there more threats to US Security than ever before and the US Army had to be prepared to act to each one of them.

  That got him to thinking, first he didn’t want to scare Mel but he also wanted to do everything he could to protect his family. He had no idea if any of this would really happen but he had seen a lot of shit in the world with his time in SF and Delta and none of it good, he didn’t have a family then and now he did. His first couple of weeks back mostly focused on Mel and the kids, God he missed them, being away for the month and half really made him appreciate her so much more. He then got caught up with everything at work and there were a lot of questions, especially regarding his haircut. While he was away he was promoted to Senior Scientist within the Software Development Department he worked in. They were feeling they were on the verge of making a breakthrough in quantum computing from theory and small, very small working models to machines that were far more main stream. If that were the case they were on the verge of changing the world.

  He was also very involved with the Sergeant Major in recruitment and building the new teams for 5th Battalion 19th Special Forces at Camp Parks. They first reached out to their old teammates in Delta and 5th and 10th Groups, they were surprised that from their old Delta Team most of the men lived in or near Northern California and were willing to travel for the meetings. Boomer, his old Executive Officer was working and living in San Francisco, he had left the Army with fifteen years in, and he did get a partial retirement. He was working as a Probation Officer which he despised, he told Dognillo that if he could find him a fulltime position he would gladly quit the job he had now. Oddly, enough they did have a fulltime position open and he was ideal for it, within the week they had his orders cut and he was back at Bragg going through re-quals. It’s was looking good, it turned out that there were a lot of men looking for an opportunity to get back in the game, a least for a weekend a month and two weeks a year.

  Chapter Sixteen

  It had taken over a year to get their home built, not because of the architect or contractor but because of the changes that Mel and John kept wanting. When it came right down to it they justified the changes as it was their dream house and where they would raise their family. The cost overruns ran close to a hundred thousand dollars. They had the money; John’s mom had succumbed to a broken heart and found it hard to live
without her husband at least that’s what they wanted to believe. When she passed she had left John a sizeable inheritance enough to keep him financially secure for the rest of his life. He had no idea his parents were worth so much, on top of that John and Mel’s combined income was almost three-hundred thousand a year.

  The biggest cost to the project was John’s special project, when he first approached Mel about it he was worried that it might scare her, but no, she had said she had thought about it also but didn’t know how to bring it up. What they wanted was some type of family shelter built under the house with two entrances (and exit) one in the garage and one outside of the house. It needed to be at least twenty feet below the existing house and they didn’t know if it was possible or not, they weren’t survivalists or preppers, not by those definitions but by Major Clayton was taught and trained on just about every survival method by the US Army.

  The shelter needed two power sources, one on the grid and the other off the grid, generator power which meant they needed exhaust measures that allowed the fumes out of the bunker. Both John and Mel thought it more as a really big safe room which quite a few people had in Silicon Valley. It’s just there’s was almost two thousand square-feet, it was large, kid’s rooms, kitchen, living room, storage rooms and more, it even had a small medical dispensary that was well stocked. Mel was against keeping weapons in the house, although she did keep her pistol in a lock box with a trigger lock on the top shelf of her closet.

  She laid down the law that any further weapons purchased would go down into one of the storage rooms inside of a safe, John couldn’t argue with that, he added another caveat that the storage room would be padlocked on top of that.

  The garage had rubber padding on the floor to act as a conductor in the event there was an EMP attack. Research and testing was all over the place whether or not vehicles would be affected by an EMP pulse and not all EMP pulses were the same strength. John was able to get all sorts of antibiotics and other medical items that might help in the even there was some sort of pandemic the shelter was outfitted with a decontamination chamber and protective clothing as well as breathers.

  He stocked one storage room with boxes of MRE’s and canned goods as wells box after box of bottled water. Later on he would realize restocking the MRE’s every few years was a pain in the ass as well as other items that had some expiration dates. They did wonder if something ever did happen what they would do if a disaster ever happened and the food expiration dates expired when they were down there.

  The shelter as also fitted with air filtration systems to ensure they air they were breathing was as pure as they could get it which also meant they had to store additional filters and they had to be somewhat easy to change. There was a lot more planning than they were aware of that went into planning for a disaster.

  The big discussion they had was who they would allow into it, obviously everything they had was finite and wouldn’t last for every. They estimated they had four months’ worth of provisions to get them through; if they added anyone else obviously they would deplete their provisions. Mel of course wanted her parents included; of course they had to get to them. Mel had talked to her parents about it that were incredulous that they would ever think of something like that, her parents were sure the government would take care of them. Over the years she brought it up a few more times but their stance never changed.

  As time went on they made more plans and built small faraday cages to keep some of their camping equipment in that was stored in the garage. On the flip side just about all of the equipment the 19th SF used was EMP protected, they planned and planned. They practiced with local hospitals and had security arrangements for pandemics, any type of emergency they could think of they had a plan for and worked to ensure it was workable. The big plan was that in the event of an emergency everyone on the teams with families in tow would make it to Camp Parks where they would all be taken care of.

  If the men knew their families were taken care of they would be able to go outside the wire and do their jobs. If they couldn’t get in and they were local they were told to hold in place at their homes and they would be gotten to, the teams would take care of their own. The teams did drill this time and again over the years, most of the 19th group families had some sort of contingency plans of their own that probably weren’t that different from John and Mellissa’s.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The years passed quickly for John and Mel the kids were growing they both continued to have very successful careers. John had been promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and was very involved with the day to day operations of the 19th at Camp Parks. His was also a VP of Engineering now at his regular job; Mel had become the Director of Pharmaceutical Sales and loved every minute of her job. The only thing she loved more was her family, Kai and Morgan were growing up so quick, both played youth soccer and Kai played little league, Morgan played softball.

  Then there was dance for Morgan and Cub Scouts for Kai their lives were wonderful. Yet life does move on, a year and a half earlier Mel’s mom died in a car accident, from what the Police had told her it only took a moment, it seemed she had taken her eyes off the road for just a second, why they still don’t really know, but they surmised she dropped something and was trying to recover it. That one second she had slowly drifted into the other lane right into a semi-truck going the other way. They said she died instantly and felt no pain, how they knew that she had no idea. Her father took it hard, in fact the entire family did. Mel was almost incapacitated for a week or so, thank God for John who was so understanding and helpful to everyone in the family at that time. He made all of the funeral arrangements, set up the wake; he did everything, most of all he held her every night she cried.

  After her mom passed her dad was a mess, she didn’t know how he ever got along without his wife she apparently did everything for him and he pretty much over the years did nothing around the house. His expectation now that his wife had passed that everyone in the family, especially his daughters wait on him hand and foot. He became very disagreeable when that didn’t happen and took it out on them when they visited, tough they told him he should have learned how to take care of himself, don’t get any of them wrong, they loved their dad, but they were not going to be his personnel slave.

  Several months after her mom passed her dad had a cardiac arrest and was hospitalized for several weeks. He lost the use of his left side and his speech at times was incoherent the doctors said he would never fully recover and he would need care the rest of his life. Mel, her sisters and brothers had a meeting and discussed next moves with their dad; the decision was to place him in a home where he had care 24/7. No one wanted to take him into their home which would have potentially meant that one of them might have to quit their job to take care of him.

  The following year he passed away in his sleep he had another cardiac arrest in the middle of the night, apparently the nursing home was downsizing personnel and didn’t have enough nurses to cover the shifts, they were over extended, the nurses complained to often to management but they never did anything about it. Her dad died because there weren’t enough nurses available to help, unfortunately another patient had coded just before he did, and they were involved there. When they got to him he was dead, after the shock wore off to the family they buried their father and then sued the hell out of the nursing home winning a multi-million dollar award.

  Mel wasn’t sure if all that money was supposed to make them feel better, it didn’t, not her at least. The money was supposed to be divided equally between all siblings, but after the award one brother and one sister demanded all of the money stating they were more equal than the others, whatever the hell that meant. This caused a fracture within the family that they would never recover from; the money was eventually divided up equally between the siblings as well as the inheritance that was left to them which wasn’t really much. They all thought their parents were loaded with money, it turned out that they were barely just getting by. There
three mortgages on the house and they had mountains of debt, it was odd because they exposed living within their means, but after they passed away it had become apparent they never did.

  Life went on, the sun came up each morning and you made one step in front of the other. Mel moved on with the help from John and the kids, she knew how blessed she was to have what she did.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Kai was in his first week of 5th Grade and Morgan was in her first week of 3rd Grade, Kai was excited about starting school, Morgan not so much. John was on his two week deployment for the year, they were overseas some place in the world and of course he couldn’t tell her and he wouldn’t be able to contact her during this time period.

  If there were any family emergencies they were to contact the civilian POC (point of contact) who in this case was now retired Sergeant Major Dognillo or now just Anzio Dognillo. He did his thirty years and was forced to retire reaching the maximum number of years an enlisted person was allowed to serve. Prior to his retirement John and the Sergeant Major created a civilian position with the 19th essentially just for him, maybe a little unethical, but the Sergeant Major was the heart and soul of the unit.

  There was a new Sergeant Major who had actually served with Sergeant Major Dognillo or he was his team Sergeant when he was in the 10th at Bad Tölz Germany, Sergeant Major Aleho. He knew he had some pretty big shoes to fill especially since a few of the guys were old SFOF-D guys who joined up when they found out Major (now Lieutenant Colonel) Clayton and Sergeant Major Dognillo were running the show. He had tried out for Delta twice but never got through the selection course; he always got hurt and was forced out due to injuries.

  Back at home Mel was dealing with getting the kids off to school and all of their after school activities, she had help from Lucida who was still with them after all of these years, Mel didn’t know what she would do without her. To top of all off Mel had her yearly checkup, she wished she could get John to do the same thing, but he was a man after all, they did everything they could to stay away from the doctor’s office. She had seen John come home from that weekend training covered in his own blood from some sort of action, he never thought twice about it. Sometimes though it was pretty bad, once he had dislocated his shoulder, he and Anzio did their best to reset it and they thought they actually had. But John woke up in terrible pain that night and still refused to go to the ER, she threatened him with divorce if he didn’t go right now, they both knew she didn’t mean it, John thought though that if she was that serious he better go.