Bowling for Sleepovers
By Chas4455©
"Grandma Carol that was the best dinner I've had in forever. Thank you so much."
"Well baby, I know you don't eat right at school, all of that fast food, burgers and pizza with your friends. I try to make sure you have a good meal when you come here to visit. You should try to come more often. It gets lonely here since your grandpa died last year."
"I know grandma, I'll try to come more often. It's not far from Manhattan to Junction City.
"Grandma, I have a favor to ask of you. You know I'm majoring in history, and I'm taking a class in Historical Research. I have to do a project that involves interviewing a family member. Can you work with me to do a story?"
This is Carol Jorgenson's story that she related to me, her granddaughter, Cynthia. Some of this she knew first hand, some of it is from conversations with Sarah Maxwell and her husband, Bobby. She also had a conversation with Maggie Maxwell, Bobby's mother. Some information she also learned from her husband, Sergeant Major Ronald Jorgenson, US Army (retired), before his death.
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Your grandfather and I were living in Junction City, Kansas. He had just been promoted to Sergeant Major of an infantry battalion. We were living in a rented house while waiting for an opening in the on base housing. In the house next to us lived a nice young couple, Lieutenant Robert Maxwell and his wife, Sarah Jane, and their two year old son, Jimmy.
It was 1968, and the Viet Nam war was hot. Young men from Fort Riley were being deployed to South East Asia every day. Bobby had finished Artillery Officer Basic at Fort Sill before being assigned to an artillery battalion at Fort Riley. He and Sarah had lived here for almost a year before Bobby got his orders. He had two weeks before he had to leave his wife and son.
After Bobby left, Sarah would come over to visit and have coffee with me almost every morning. She was lonely and had no family nearby. I'm sure I was almost a mother figure to her. Her own mother had died when Sarah was a teenager, and she had been raised by her aunt, whom she was never really close to. Her father, her aunt, and two cousins all lived in Portland, Oregon.
I still remember the conversation we had one morning, about two months after Bobby left.
Sarah was at her wit's end. Jimmy never seems to sleep since his daddy left. Every night, she puts him to bed, and then when she should be getting some time to herself, he gets out of bed and comes to see what she is doing. He has walked in on her while she is in the shower, or on the toilet. Several times she has caught him up in the middle of the night. One night he broke a full dozen eggs on the kitchen floor. Another time she caught him getting into the cleaning supplies under the sink. She thought she had childproof locks on the cabinets, but he learned to open them. Finally, out of desperation, she put a lock at the top of his bedroom door on the outside so that he can't open it.
"Oh girl," I remember thinking, "You ought not to do that. That would be dangerous if something happened in the night and he needed to get out. And locking him in his room is going to put off his toilet training if he can't go to the bathroom."
"He just misses his daddy and wants assurance that you are not going to leave him." I told her.
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After they were married, Bobby and Sarah would go out at least once a week, for a date night. One of the things they liked to do was bowling. When they were in college, their first date was to go bowling, and they enjoyed it ever since, even when Sarah was pregnant.
Now Sarah is getting bored being home every night, watching Jimmy. She decides it wouldn't hurt to take Jimmy, and go to the bowling alley. It would be a pleasant diversion to maybe have a drink like an adult, and watch other people having a good time.
There is a supervised play area in the bowling alley that Jimmy enjoys, so she orders a gin and tonic, and watches the bowlers. The sound of the pins falling and the balls rolling is exciting to Sarah. Everyone around her are laughing and having fun.
She is sitting directly behind four lanes where she can watch their scores on the overhead electronic scoreboards. It is fun to compare their scores with her usual. A couple of them are better than she and Bobby, and some of them must be just beginning.
At the bar stands a man that has been watching her for the last twenty minutes. He stands about six feet tall, with short dark hair, just a touch of gray starting to show at the temples. He has a thin athletic build, and steel gray eyes that seem to look right through you to your soul. Everything about his appearance would tell you he is the epitome of the cavalry officer that he is.
Early in his military career, Major Edward Alexander traded tanks for helicopters. After completing his flight training, Lieutenant Alexander was assigned to an aviation unit in Germany. He spent three years there, eventually becoming the personal pilot for the brigade commander. When he wasn't flying the commander on inspection trips around Germany, he spent his free time touring Europe on his BMW motorcycle, or in his Audi convertible.
Eddie Alexander learned he was catnip for married ladies, even married German ladies. They weren't looking for a commitment, and that was fine. When their husbands were away, he was ready to play. He had been lucky so far, as he had never been caught by a cuckolded husband.
When he sees Sarah put down her empty glass, Eddie decides it is time to make his move.
Sarah is approached by the tall good looking guy who appears about her age, though maybe a little older. He introduces himself as Eddie Alexander. He doesn't mention that he is a Major, and is on the brigade commander's staff. He offers to buy her another drink. After her fourth drink, he suggests that he should drive her home. They take her car because it has the child seat in it.
Eddie says he needs to call a cab to take him back to pick up his car, so she invites him in. Once inside, she asks if he would like some coffee. She carries her sleeping son into the house and puts him to bed. When she comes back into the kitchen to fix the coffee, she has changed into a long tee shirt that barely comes half way to her knees and wearing a pair of fuzzy slippers. She has let her ponytail down, her hair falling down around her shoulders. Her nipples are plainly visible, poking out under the thin material of the night shirt.
Eddie is standing in the kitchen, leaning against the counter, watching her every move. As she turns toward him to reach for the coffee canister on the counter, he reaches for her and pulls her toward him for a passionate kiss. She is startled, but quickly responds and gives herself to him completely.
As they walked past Jimmy's door, on their way to her bedroom, Sarah reached up and flipped the lock closed. She didn't want any interruptions tonight. In the morning, Eddie calls a cab to take him back to the bowling alley to get his car.
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Sarah doesn't know Bobby's assignment is much more dangerous than he told her. In his letters home he assures her that he has a staff job and is always in a safe area. She shouldn't worry, and he will be coming home to her and Jimmy and everything will be good.
In actuality, Lieutenant Maxwell is an artillery forward observer. His job is to be on the front lines, standing next to the infantry company commander, ready to call for artillery fire on whatever target is given to him. His radio operator, the RTO is standing next to him, and the infantry commander's RTO is standing on the other side. The four men are always target number one for enemy snipers.
In October, 1968, Bobby has two months left before he goes home, back to the 'World'. His infantry company, C Company otherwise known as Charlie Company, has just been landed in LZ Rosebud, and is approaching a village surrounded by rice paddies. Bobby, accompanied by Captain Jim Bragg and Specialist Jesse Rodriguez, are 300 yards from the village when all hell breaks loose. The infantry squads react immediately, spreading out and returning fire. It appears a sizeable Viet Cong force is defending the village at all costs. It is later determined the VC had been collecting a large stockpile of weapons and ammunition in this village in preparation for a planned attack on a Vietnamese Army camp. They had removed all the villagers and turned the village into an armed camp.
To his left, Bobby sees that Captain Bragg has been hit by the first volley of fire. Rodriguez has also been hit, in the leg. He is down but still conscious. Bobby immediately takes charge of the situation, takes the radio handset from his RTO, and immediately calls for all available artillery fire to be directed on the village. Bobby quickly has the massed firepower of three artillery battalions, 54 cannons, firing repeatedly at his direction.
With an infantry squad providing security, Bobby establishes the company command post. A forward air controller shows up in a small plane, and contacts Bobby on his radio. At Bobby's direction, the FAC brings in six Skyraiders dropping 250 pound bombs and firing rockets on the retreating enemy.
In two hours, the village is a smoking hole in the ground and the Viet Cong are no longer a threat.
As the infantry are sweeping through the smoking remains of the village, eliminating any remaining resistance, medevac helicopters swoop in to pick up the wounded. As Bobby is directing his platoon leaders, a medic stops him.
"Sir, you've been hit. Let me bandage that up. Are you in any pain? I can give you morphine."
For the first time, Bobby looked at the blood running down his left arm and dripping from his fingers.
"Just bandage it the best you can, and try to stop the bleeding. No morphine, I can't afford to lose focus now."
