BartBurt1

I decided to take the couple out of their comfort zone, change circumstances and bring them together repeatedly through monologues. Chuck and Sarah have been married for several years and partnered even longer. Circumstances have prompted Sarah to file for divorce as she petitions the CIA for a return to active status after a 2-year hiatus. She's required to attend regular 'divorce counseling' sessions to purge herself of her demons before the agency will permit her return. As a twist, the counselor also requires that her husband participate but due to his separation, his participation is via email.

Each segment will be posted with the other's comments on the events discussed or written about so you'll get about 4k of items to review, each as its own chapter.

Read it. Love it or hate it but it's how things happen in today's world. The language is real and some of the comments are taken from actual conversations I've had in the past with fellow green grunts going through the same thing I did. If GEG was me vomiting up my love life, this is me puking my service time up, although I lost my first wife early-on to a stroke during her first pregnancy and I was in the ME instead of home where I belonged.

I'm asking for reviews. I think this might, with some tweaking and name changing, dumping and changing the intersect refs, be worth considering as a commercial venture so I really want your 'hate it/like it/you suck' comments.

It's been sitting on a flash drive I'd misplaced some time ago. I don't even remember writing it to tell you the truth. Nik read it, hated it, thought about it, and the really hated it. Not the story, the reason behind it.

BTW, there's hope for us. She's appalled at the crap we face in PA just getting the utilities turned on and forget the DMV. She came home in tears asking if she'd made a mistake. Yep, there's hope. Gotta love Yankee rudeness. Rubs the southron girl wrong. Note to Yankee yuppies: keep pissing her off. I want to go home.

APR
Outside Ugly Erie PA

Chuck's Version (Via E-Mail)

Hey, Doc, what's up with the shrinking profession? OK, I'm sending you my first 'installment' in response to your list of questions. Enjoy!

My 'full ride' to Stanford did not include room & board and my class load didn't allow much time for a part time job so in order to get the money I needed, I, Chuck Bartowski, robbed a bank.

No, I didn't. I wasn't a criminal but I was desperate. I worked a full year after high school at the local Buy More before enrolling in Stanford. I also enrolled in the Army ROTC program 'offered but not sited' at Leland Stanford School for the Over Privileged since the late 60s when all ROTC programs were 'removed' from the curriculum vitae in a moot gesture of support for the antiwar sentiments of the faculty.

My Buy More earnings were stretched almost to the breaking point when I was accepted into the 'Advanced ROTC' program that I commuted to over at Santa Clara twice a week. I received a monthly stipend that met my needs, paid for my share of the apartment I shared with my friend Bryce Larkin, and fed me and put gas in my decrepit Honda Civic.

I attended 'Cadet Basic Training' and 'Advanced Individual Training' between my sophomore and junior years. The one overwhelming thing I remember about FT Ord, California, is that I hated FT Ord, California. I died there during the Basic course, came back to life just in time to die again in AIT. Summers were brutally hot and I hated 'hot'. I loved air conditioning. The Army did not. Sleep was always beckoning and always just out of reach, or so it seemed.

The enlisted instructors and drill sergeants hated ROTC cadets. We were their future bosses and so they endeavored to teach us our 'place' in life at every opportunity. When a 'Kaydet' screwed up, the entire platoon of cadets would participate in the punishment. Guess who screwed up a lot? Yep, Cadet Charles Irving Bartowski.

"Batshit, don't you know your left from your right? All riiiight, Kaydets, drop and give me 50."

"Batshit, you NEVER leave your weapon unattended. All Riiiight, Kaydets, fall in for PT courtesy of Kaydet Batshit."

I wasn't the only cadet to screw up. Hell, we all did. I just remember the times I did.

There were areas where I excelled. Maybe it was all those first-person shooter video games I played with Morgan and Bryce, I don't know, but I shot a 'possible' on every weapons qualifications exercise. I also held the cycle record for fasted field stripping drill on every weapon we trained on. Must have been the Buy More experience of rebuilding electronics, I don't know.

I even maxed out the PT Test and thus ensured myself the coveted position of Honor Graduate. Like I said, there were areas where I excelled. And there were areas where I screwed up. I screwed up big-time when Bryce showed up on the weekend before graduation with two hot babes he'd smooth-talked into coming to Ord to 'help save his best buddy from the Army'.

We spent the weekend drunk, debauching the hot babes, and I showed up for morning formation on Monday late, drunk, out of uniform and covered with lipstick and smelling like a distillery and a Louisiana whorehouse.

We graduated on Thursday. I wasn't the honor graduate. Apparently, being 4 hours late for a 6am formation, puking on the boots of my platoon sergeant, and being a first-class wiseass did not endear me to the system.

But I did graduate, and that was the whole point of the matter.

My junior year at Stanford was the best year of my life. I had money to pay the bills, an entire wardrobe to loll around in on the weekends, my class load dropped and the quality of my grades improved. And I met Jill Roberts, fellow Stanford Cardinal, pre-med major and all-around hottest woman on the planet. And she liked me. Really liked me. She copped my V-card and I spent more time between her thighs than her panties did. Oh, yeah. The best year of my life. We weren't 'going together' or anything. We just dated a lot with sleepovers optional but frequent.

While Jill and Bryce and other 'comfortable' (spelled R – I – C – H) people went to Mexico for Xmas break, I went to FT Benning, GA, for airborne training. The course was set up for ROTC cadets and was compressed to two weeks from the usual three. All it meant was that 21 days (and nights) of training were done in 14 days (and nights).

Did I tell you I hated FT Benning School for Boys and Girls? It was as cold as FT Ord had been hot. And it was a wet, damp, cold that cut right through to the bone. And it was always cold.

We ran everywhere. Walking was something you did in civilian life or when you were going to the latrine. The Airborne School was all about running, physical conditioning and…running. No fatties on the risers. Nope. No skinnies, either. Everyone lost fat but gained muscle mass. Even the split-tails (girls).

The curse of FT Ord came back to haunt me, just as it did every other trainee. Our instructors were all airborne-qualified, of course, and were addressed as 'Sergeant Airborne' regardless of rank. We were all addressed as 'shit for brains', 'Kaydet pussies' and several other monikers that cast doubt on our parentage and our humanity.

We learned to fall 'the Army way'. We learned a new way to run – the Airborne Shuffle. We learned how many different ways you could die when stepping out of a perfectly good aircraft.

It was fun.

My first jump was a night jump. It was 7am but I had my eyes closed from when we hooked up and then stepped out for the long fall until I 'landed'. When I landed on Georgia a few minutes later, apparently I'd forgotten everything I'd been taught. Instead of feet, legs, butt, and shoulder, I'd done something spectacular and gradually became aware of laying on the ground, looking up, and being surrounded by several 'Sergeants Airborne'. I don't remember the jump at all.

"Damn, Trainee, that was fuckin' spectacular. I've never seen 180 pound bag of shit land in such a disgraceful manner. If it wasn't for the schedule, I'd have you back on the towers learning the PLF but we don't have time for that. Get your sorry ass off my DZ and into formation."

Yep, I still screwed up a lot but somehow I graduated and wore the coveted jump wings and could now blouse my boots into my Cochrans when wearing my Greens. Ooo Rah!

Jill was nice and brown and more than willing to make me forget about Georgia. She was warm and soft and everything I wanted and needed. What the hell. I was in lust sliding down the slippery slope toward love.

I met Jill's parents when they came down from Seattle for a weekend. We hit it off. Especially her dad and I. He was a recruiter for Roark Industries and was prepped and ready to offer me a full-time job in their IT engineering division upon graduation. Between his daughter's glowing tales and my transcript, he'd come ready to talk salary and relocation and…my intentions towards his only daughter.

"Well, sir, I'm very flattered and would love to join Roark Industries but I financed my education through ROTC and I have a commitment to the Army after graduation."

"Son, that's no problem. We have several congressmen in our pockets. Hell, I'll call the Senator-on-tap and have her tell the Army to either forget about you or transfer you to an inactive reserve unit. Don't worry about that. Hell, once you and Jill are married…you ARE going to marry her, aren't you, Charles?" He gave me the 'daddy glare' and I felt my balls pull up into my abdomen. I hated daddies.

"We've discussed it but she's not thrilled with becoming a 'camp follower'. It's been a big stumbling block. Plus she wants to go to med school and being married just doesn't fit into her immediate plan, I guess."

"Her plan has changed. She's going to get her doctorate in microgenetics and come to work at Roark. Don't worry about the Army. We'll take care of that. You take care of my little girl, Charles, understand?"

"I've still got another year here at Stanford. I think it's a little premature to make a commitment since the Army has first dibs on me. I'd love to come to work at Roark if you can get the Army out of the way." Yeah, I figured a reserve unit would be perfect. One weekend a month plus a 2-week summer drill beat the hell out of four years.

"Consider it done, son. Now, before the ladies think I've killed you, ask her, Charles. She'll say 'yes'. I know she will."

I had no idea how things were going to play out. None at all. Like an innocent lamb being led to the slaughter, I was being led to the (gulp) altar.

Things between Jill and I really heated up. She moved in with me, spent almost all her free time with me doing things we both loved to do and became friends with Ellie, my sister, the nag, the intern, the nag, and my only living relative, the nag. Many times I caught them looking at bridal magazines when we went down to Burbank for a weekend. They'd become plotters, and I was their objective (pronounced 'vic-tim').

The summer between my junior and senior years was the most demanding, rewarding and confusing 3 ½ months of my young life. I went to Ranger School, almost died, found out I really loved being a soldier and I met and fell in love with a fellow Ranger candidate.

OK, I'm straight. The thing is, this cycle of training was a test-bed for coed training. The Army was in the thick of thin things trying to appeal to all segments of society and toe the line on the whole Politically Correct thing. Thus, we had female trainees from the Point, the Marines and some other government agencies with initials instead of names.

The instructors had a simple plan in mind: cut the split-tails out of the pack and send 'em home as quickly as they could. In the minds of some of the unenlightened, there was no room for a Ranger who squatted to pee. Male chauvinists abounded in the Army. They had good reasons for it. But no one asked them, they were told 'train 'em' and so they did.

Our class was special and small and under the microscope of the DC crowd. Every week each of the 7 female 'trainees' were interviewed by some woman from DC with a chip on her shoulder and a divorce in her immediate past, a divorce from a career officer in the Army. Sunday afternoons were 'our' time but apparently the girls didn't get the memo. Instead they got the Feminazi for an hour or more.

Monday mornings were hell in a normal cycle. They were more so if one of the female trainees had vented about some slight from a male trainer or trainee. We had 'sensitivity training' sessions instead of sleeping like we needed to. Ranger training was based on the theory that if you were sufficiently sleep-deprived, you were easier to train. Bullshit but it was a cornerstone of training. If you could function in the last week on 2 or 3 hours of sleep after 10 weeks, you could handle the pressures of combat. We began to resent the sessions and took it out on the girls who complained to the DC Bitch who ordered more training. It was a vicious cycle.

I had been paired up with Cadet Ashburn from West Point but he'd washed out due to a hamstring injury and so I was pushed up the alphabet until I was partnered with Burton as my trainee 'battle buddy'. Burton was shorter than I was, about 5'9" with mousy brown hair that looked like it had been hacked off with a weed eater and piercing icy blue eyes. We hated each other at first blush.

The instructors referred to us as 'Bart & Burt', shortening our names for convenience sake. We were always first choice for details, problems and exercises. It was always 'Bart & Burt, fall in' or 'Bart & Burt, lead the exercise'. I wish I'd been born a Zumbowski.

Things were cold between us. She was distant, reserved, very judgmental and critical and seemed bent on being the honor grad. Don't know why she cared. She wasn't in the service but came from one of the government jobs.

Our FTX in the Florida swamps brought us together. We were 'tail end Charlie' on a patrol through the swamps and were setting up a night 'base camp' when Burt whispered she needed to pee and shambled off into the saw and elephant grass for privacy. I just kept 'improving our fighting position' when I noticed two of the Pointers enter the grass about 10 meters up from us. Apparently peeing was a group sport at the Point.

A minute later I heard a muffled scream, probably not loud enough to be heard past our position, and I grabbed my e-tool and ran into the saw grass. The two Pointers had Burt on her back, her pants down around her ankles (she was peeing, after all) and one had pulled her BDU jacket up over her arms and head, effectively muffling her and securing her from beating the shit out of them. Did I mention Burt was a girl?

The biggest Pointer was on his knees, equipment in hand ready to make entry when I whacked him upside his head with the collapsed e-tool. The second 'gentleman from the Point' looked up from ripping off her t-shirt and sports bra to catch my e-tool full in the face.

I pulled Burt's jacket down and caught her fist in my face. I heard the crunch of my nose breaking off in the distance someplace but then just yanked her onto her feet and whispered 'pull up your pants and let's get out of here. I think I killed them.' It was too dark to really see anything and it wouldn't be morning until I saw the bruises on her face and legs. I really wasn't thinking straight. I was pissed that someone would try and rape my partner. So much for the Long Gray Line and their honor code.

We slid down into our hole. Being on a hummock, we'd escaped the low water table seepage and we were relatively dry.

"Burt, did they, I mean, are you OK? I'll be right back. I'm going for the senior instructor."

"NO! No, please. This never happened, Bart. I fell. They'll use it against the other female trainees. I wasn't hurt, Bart and thanks to your timely arrival, other than being embarrassed, I'm not hurt. You're my hero, Bart. You saved my ass."

"No, Burt. This cannot go unpunished. Those bastards would have raped you and you'd have kept quiet and they know it. No way. This has to be reported. They're not going to stop with you. They'll work their 'magic' on the others. I can't live with that on my conscience." I started to climb out of the hole but she pulled me back down against her and whispered harshly in my ear.

"NO! You can't. I'll lose my…I can't have this on my record. My job would be in jeopardy. Burt, you have to let it go. Please? For me? Please? I can't lose this job. It's my last chance."

"What kind of job is more important than punishing rapists?" I whispered into her ear, equally as harshly.

"I – I can't tell you. I owe these people my life and I can't let them down. Please, Bart. Forget about it. It's not important and nothing happened thanks to you. Please? I'll make it worth your while." She grabbed my crotch and began fondling me through my BDUs. Shit.

I guess I lost my temper because I was up and out of the hole in a heartbeat. I found the Ranger Sergeant who was the senior instructor and dragged him out into the saw grass. I showed him the two bodies. I explained what had happened. He started swearing a blue streak about idiot trainees and their inability to not get lost in the dark. Now he had two trainees dead in a training accident. Shit!

The whole conversation was whispered but I could hear the rage in his voice. He told me to go back to my partner. He'd handle everything. I could see something in his eyes that I'd never seen before: respect.

"But Ranger Sergeant, I killed two…"

"Son, they died in a training accident. It happens all the time. Me and the other Sergeants will drag them out to where the gators nest and then we'll spend tomorrow looking for them before we find them. Go – Back – to – Your – Buddy!"

Just then one of them groaned and tried to sit up. It was the one I'd hit in the head. The sergeant shoved him back down with his boot and motioned for me to leave.

I slid back down into the hole and found my battle buddy sobbing quietly. I put my arms around her and squeezed her arms against her sides and whispered "It's all going to be OK. The sergeant's going to drag the bodies out into the swamp and let the gators have at them until they 'find the bodies' later tomorrow. It's OK, Burt. It's my responsibility. I did it. You're the victim, not them."

She kissed me. It was slow and warm and wet and her lips were so soft and she started squirming when I deepened the kiss so I broke it off. "Sorry, Burt, got carried away there. I'm sorry."

"I'm not, Bart. You're sweet and you care about people. Now, let my damned arms loose so I can hug you. Kissing is a team sport, Bart."

You can have incredible sex in a foxhole if you don't mind the mosquito bites all over your exposed parts. I know this for a fact because my ass itched for days. But the sex was incredible. She was incredible.

The next day a medivac chopper with two MPs aboard flew in and took the two Pointers away. I never saw either of them again. No one said a word to me or to Burt. In fact, we seemed to be 'dipped in the Blood of the Lamb' as far as the instructors were concerned, avoiding all the shit details and even being granted a 12-hour pass the night before graduation.

Burt and I had become inseparable, finishing the cycle in the #1 and #2 spots. The night before graduation she took me to a hotel and turned me every way but inside out. She left sometime in the wee hours of the morning whispering, "I'll always remember you, Bart."

She didn't show up for the graduation ceremony even though she was the honor graduate but it was just as well. Jill and Bryce showed up unannounced. It would have been awkward. I'd never cheated before, not once, not ever. God, I missed 'Burton, J.'

It was awkward anyway. Jill had a string of hickeys on her neck that I saw that night in our hotel room when we were fooling around in the shower. Her long hair had hidden them but I saw them. I thought of Bryce and I knew who had planted them there. I never said anything. Who was the bigger hypocrite?

We flew back to San Francisco in time to register for classes. My senior year would not be all that great. In fact it would suck.

Hey, Doc, I got to split. I have a recon patrol overdue and someone's got to run the retrieval. I'll email you the next installment per our agreement but for right now, I have 11 guys more important that we are.

Later.

C. Bartowski