The First Meeting
It was a cold morning when Mark's mother drove him to the airport to meet… whoever it was. He kept forgetting. Anyway, Mom seemed to think he was important, and enough so that he was worth getting up at this ridiculous hour of the morning for. Mark Golan, a pint-sized youth who had just reached his fourth birthday four days ago on January 26, 1973, wasn't entirely sure what all this fuss was about. Normally feisty and energetic, Mark was instead disgruntled and sleepy this morning. He wanted to go back to bed, but his mother would have none of his protests and they got in the car at- what was it- Edwards Air Force Base. The sun hadn't even come up yet when they started the drive to Los Angeles, where the big airport was. Mom said they had to meet someone coming in on a plane today.
The term "Air Force Base" was already well-known to Mark; he had learned it time and again over the years as the name of where he lived changed and changed again. Mom was in charge. She must have liked moving a lot, because they sure did it often. Mark secretly wished they'd stop moving around so much, and try and see how staying in one place for a while worked out for everybody. But Mom wasn't asking for opinions when she announced things like another move. It was a statement of fact, and that was that. You didn't argue with Mom. For one thing, Mark was sure she could win a staring contest with just about anybody in the world, because Mom had a stare like nobody else. Sometimes when Mark complained about having to move, or what was for dinner, or not wanting to do this or that, Mom wouldn't even say anything. She'd just turn around and stare, and eventually you figured out it was a better idea to just do whatever she said to do.
The United States Air Force was the reason they were going to the airport today. Mark knew that. One of the first books he had ever read was about the Air Force. They were a big group of people, with big, noisy planes, going to places where bad people were and showing them what was what. They didn't get scared, apparently, because just the noise of the jets scared the living daylights out of the four-year-old boy. But it was kind of exciting, too. Mark had a feeling the Air Force was anything but boring. They probably never got bored, the guys working in the Air Force, because it seemed from the books and the stories Mom told Mark that there were a lot of bad guys out there trying to cause trouble for good people. Some of those good people were Americans, but lots of them were people from other countries.
Communists, for example. They were always up to something. Mark had heard enough about them that one of his favorite games was going on the prowl, a small soldier's helmet on his head, and hunting around the house for "no-good Reds" or "Dirty commonists". Mom said he was mispronouncing that last one, but that was okay. Mark liked his way of saying it. Anyway, the commonists, communists, whatever you called them- they were mean, and wanted to tell you how you ought to live. They wanted to make you live their way whether you wanted to or not. The United States didn't like people who did that, so they went around the world making friends and trying to help the good people and tell the bad people they had another think coming. "Think", or maybe was it "thing"? Again, Mark liked his way fine.
Well, the communists were a big bunch of people who liked the color red. Mark thought it was pretty lucky that red was their favorite color, because he had always liked blue. But to the communists, it wasn't okay if you thought red was fine, but liked blue better. Red had to be your favorite no matter what. Mark didn't like that. He didn't like mean people who wanted to tell you what to do and didn't care what you thought at all. They sounded like such a mean bunch, they would probably make him go to bed even earlier than Mom did if they ever got in charge of things.
Mark had seen all these guys in uniform, always with a gun close by, walking near the big "hangars" where aircraft were kept, and Mom had to talk to some of them whenever they left or came back onto a base. Mark liked to ask if they'd seen any communists today, and they always said no. But they didn't seem to have anybody guarding the house Mark lived at, so when he felt the need, especially at night, he hunted around and made sure no communists were sneaking into the house.
The communists didn't like the Air Force, though- Mark knew that for sure. After all, every time some big, fancy thing got to happening, the Air Force people all wore blue, and the communists wouldn't like that. And the books said the Air Force didn't like communists either, because the whole United States didn't like them. Communists were bad, mean people, and what the Air Force did was watch out good and make sure the communists knew that if they tried to make trouble with the United States or any of its friends, that all those planes the Air Force had would mess their day up.
Mark was always reading about the military. The United States had the Air Force, the Army, the Marines, the Navy, and the Coast Guard, and they all worked together. But the Air Force was the best one, because the books Mark read said so, and Mom said so. And he said so. Mark thought the Air Force was great. They were a lot of brave men. He just wished they didn't make him move almost every year. He was always having to figure out where his things were, which box they had wound up in this time.
There was no move going on today, but since they'd been at Edwards Air Force Base for something like 10 or 11 months, Mark figured a move couldn't be that far away. It was in a state called California, and it got really bright and hot during the warmer parts of the year. Mark kind of liked California, but he had liked Louisiana, too. There was this place with lots of trees and tall mountains called West Virginia, and then this big, wide open place called North Dakota- that one was Mark's least favorite. It never got as cold anywhere else as it had at Minot AFB in North Dakota.
Mark was dozing in the front passenger seat of the family truck, which Mark had proudly memorized recently as a 1972 GMC Carryall (because it could carry all your stuff, Mark figured, from the huge size of the truck) when Mom started shaking his shoulder. Oh, no. That meant it was time for him to get up.
"Mark?" Mom said, shaking him gently. "Time to wake up, we're here."
"Mm," Mark grunted, shifting where he lay on the big, wide seat and keeping his eyes closed.
"Come on, sleepyhead," Mom said. "Up we go."
"Wanna sleep," Mark grouched, hoping he could at least get five more minutes in. It was warm in here, and it was real cold out there.
"Come on, Mark," Mom said, and now she sounded more serious. "We're on time, we don't want to be late."
Mark reluctantly sat up. He wasn't allowed to be late to anything. He'd been born at a place called Whiteman Air Force Base in a state called Missouri, and you weren't allowed to be late to anything at that base. Or any base. If you were, Mom said, people yelled at you. She'd never said if those people were going to come yell at him if he wasn't out of the GMC on time, but Mark figured it was better not to find out. He also didn't want to do any staring contests with Mom this early in the morning. He just wasn't up for that, and she always won those anyway.
But he tried one more thing. He flopped down, closed his eyes again, and said, "I love you, Mom."
She reached over and took Mark's small hand, and pulled him to sit upright again. He opened his eyes and blinked, and looked up at her.
"I love you, too, sleepy-head," Mom said, and she gave him a hug. Mom gave the best hugs. She smelled nice. It was this stuff called "perfume", she said, but Mark was pretty sure all moms just smelled nice. It was probably a rule. He'd been hoping she would soften up and let him sleep more if he said something sweet to her, but it didn't work. Darn it. Oh, well. It never hurt to try.
Mom took Mark's hand and he scooted across the seat to the GMC's enormous steering wheel, reluctantly passing it by. He wanted to drive some of the time, but they didn't seem to have thought about what a little guy like Mark was supposed to do. Heck, he couldn't even see out of the glass windshield because he was so short. How was a four-year-old supposed to drive one of those things? Maybe GMC knew. Mark didn't.
Bundled up though he was, Mark instantly knew every spot on him that wasn't adequately covered the second he hopped down from the Carryall's interior and the biting cold hit him all at once. His mother helped him get his scarf on, though, and Mark got his mittens on all by himself, smiling proudly as he showed his Mom. He got his warm, fuzzy hat on and off they went. Mark was careful to keep hold of his mother's hand. He wanted to be brave like the big grownups in the Air Force, but he also had to be smart. He couldn't fight that well yet, and the communists were probably looking for a chance to snatch someone small just like him. Mark stayed close, and remained vigilant, his eyes scanning the area, evaluating it for possible threats. Mark might have been small, but if anyone had bad intentions for him or his mother, he was going to show them what was what real fast.
XX
The airport had a big, big room with these really high ceilings, and a lot of people were walking around. They walked past the place where people came up to a counter and told a grownup that they wanted to get on a plane. Sometimes that was where they went, and sometimes a man Mom knew was with them. Mark didn't get to do that himself, though, because they laughed and then Mom came and picked him up and said he wasn't allowed. It was obviously a thing grownups got to do. Mark could get on a plane, but he had to be with his Mom.
"Are we going on a plane?" Mark asked, looking up at his mother. She was, at that moment, looking ahead of them, her eyes looking intently at something, her wood-colored brown hair going down the back of her black winter coat. She was definitely figuring out how to get wherever it was they were going. She always knew where they were going.
"No, honey," Mom said, smiling down at him a moment. "We're waiting for a plane that's getting here soon."
"Is it an Air Force plane?" Mark asked, getting excited. They were the best planes, obviously. All the books said so.
"No, but there's Air Force men on it," Mom said.
"How come the Air Force don't own it?"
"Doesn't, Mark," Mom said as they walked.
"How come the Air Force doesn't own it?"
"You don't think they own all the planes, do you?" Mom asked, amusement in her voice.
"They don't?"
Mom laughed. "No. They own a lot of planes, but not all of them."
Mark figured he'd better not ask too many, so he kept quiet and focused on looking around. It sure was big in here. Everybody was taller than he was. How did anybody find their way around a place this big?
They got to a place where some people were waiting in chairs, and other people would walk up and out of this big hallway every so often. Sometimes more people would greet those other people like they knew them, and go on their way together. Mark figured this was where they waited for planes or something like that.
Mom helped Mark climb onto one of the cushioned chairs, and he settled in for the wait. Maybe it was gonna take a long time before this plane showed up, but Mom didn't like complainers, because she said you had to be tough, the best people in life were the tough people. So while he wanted to pitch a fit and say he wanted to go back to bed now, he kept that to himself and decided to wait patiently. Mom sometimes gave him nice treats or let him stay up a little later than usual if he behaved when they went somewhere, especially to the airport, because they didn't do it often.
After a while, Mom checked her watch, and asked if Mark wanted to get a bagel. Bagels were these round things made of bread that you got two sides of, and they could toast it and put butter on it. Mark loved bagels, so of course he said yes.
While Mark munched on one half of his toasted, delicious buttered bagel, he looked around at some of the grownups going around the airport and wondered if any of them were communists. He supposed not, since most if not all of them were Americans, but how could you be sure? Not all of them wore uniforms, apparently, or red stars or anything. Some of them pretended to be normal people. Mark had heard Americans were even allowed to be communists as long as they didn't break the law, but Mark wasn't sure he liked that idea. Communists always seemed ready to break the law.
As he was working on the remaining half of the first side of his bagel- Mark wasn't really hungry, since Mom had fed him pretty well before they'd left the house to come here- Mark noticed a grownup with neat black hair, some fancy-looking clothes Mom said was called a "suit", a tie and everything, heading towards him and Mom. He wasn't alone, either; he had a boy with dark hair by the hand, and Mark noticed right away they were about the same age.
Mark thought about kicking this grownup, but decided against it. Something about that smile he put on as Mom noticed him didn't seem quite genuine, made Mark distrust him immediately, but Mom had told him hitting people was absolutely not okay unless they hit you first. She had really given him an earful when he'd kicked a boy at school for swiping one of his crayons. Said he'd embarrassed the family. That was a really, really bad thing, so Mark looked at the man and the boy but didn't say anything. He just enjoyed his bagel.
"Morning," the grownup man said to Mom, and she smiled back nicely. "Good morning."
"Heck of an hour to be up like this, ain't it?"
"Yes, it is."
"I'm on a business trip, or I was until they mixed my tickets up. Gotta wait now. Hey, are you waiting for anybody?"
"Yes," Mom said, and Mark had a feeling she kind of wanted to go back to reading her women's fashion magazine.
The man smiled some more, warm and pleasant, but Mark thought kind of fake, too.
"Oh, really? Who would it be, if you don't mind me asking?"
"My husband. He's a major in the Air Force, just getting back from his fourth tour in Vietnam."
The man's eyebrows went up. "Really? Wow. So, Air Force- he wasn't involved in those bombings over Christmas, was he?"
"That's what he spent Christmas doing. He's a B-52 pilot," Mom replied, and a woman nearby got up, closing her book with a snap.
"You should be ashamed of yourself!" the woman said; she turned and walked away, going to sit somewhere else.
"Sorry to disappoint!" Mom called after her.
The boy holding the man's hand grumbled something, and the grownup man halted whatever he'd been about to say.
"Anthony, what?"
"I wanna sit down," the boy declared, clearly tired of just standing there while the grownups talked.
"Okay, go on and have a seat," the man said, and let go of the boy's hand. Something buzzed and beeped, and the man pulled his suit jacket away to look at a small plastic device attached to his belt. "Ma'am, can I ask you to keep an eye on my son? I got a page just now from one of the hotels here. If I don't get those tickets today I gotta stay overnight, you know?"
Mom, if Mark was any judge of her moods, looked like she wanted to say no. But she just nodded, smiled a little, and said, "Sure. No problem."
"Thanks a million," the man said, rushing off.
XX
After asking a few initial questions, Mom returned to reading her magazine, and checking her watch. Mark eyed the boy, who'd sat down beside him and was sitting slumped back in a chair much too big for him. He'd managed to crawl up on it somehow while Mark had been eying the kid's father.
Mark had a father. Sure. There was this man he remembered being around here and there, almost always in uniform. But what on earth did Mark call him, anyway? What was his name? Was that who they were waiting for? Mom's husband?
The blond four-year-old eyed the kid next to him. He hadn't made much of an effort to talk. He was sort of just sitting there, looking generally unhappy about the situation.
"Hi," Mark said.
"Hi," the boy replied.
"I'm Mark," the blond boy said, holding out a small hand.
"Tony," the boy grunted, giving him a brief handshake before returning to sitting there with a grouchy look on his face.
"I live at Edwards Air Force Base."
The other boy grunted again. "My Dad keeps dragging me places. I wish he'd stop."
"Your Dad should be in the Air Force," Mark said.
"I guess," Tony said. He didn't say anything else, and continued to just sit there. Mark fell silent too; he was getting used to the idea of needing to speak up and make friends quickly; at the rate he moved around, that seemed important. But this kid didn't seem like he wanted to talk.
"You don't talk very much," Mark said finally. "I like you!"
He grinned, and Tony glowered at him. The frown gradually started to slip, then it faded, and gradually the dark-haired boy started to grin too.
"Who're you again?"
"Mark."
"Marka?" Tony asked, not entirely sure.
"Mark," the blond boy corrected sternly, thumping his chest for emphasis.
The three-year-old's eyes widened. "Uh-oh," he said.
"Yep," Mark said, nodding affirmatively. "Better not be a commonist, Tony."
"Communist, honey." Mom turned a page on her magazine. "They're communists, not commonists."
"My Mom's in charge," Mark said, looking back at Tony.
"So what?"
Mark puffed up. "That means she's the boss. Better do what she says."
"No." Tony was glaring again.
"Don't you bad talk my Mom."
The two boys stared daggers at each other for a few moments, both of them hard-headed and stubborn, neither one willing to back down. Then Mark remembered that the Air Force was all about being polite and stuff, and in "winning hearts and minds". So he let the tension go out of him.
"Sorry," Mark said contritely, and held out the other half of his bagel. "Have a better day. Really. Here you go."
Tony looked distrustfully at the blond boy, but took the bagel and munched on it. He calmed once again and nodded. "Thanks."
"Sure."
"So you wanna be in the Air Force when you grownup?" Mark asked curiously.
"Mm," Tony said, eating the bagel. He thought about it a few moments. "I don't wanna do business. My Dad does that and it's boring. Maybe I'll be a copper."
"Like a penny?" Mark asked, surprised.
"No, like, a policeman, ya know," Tony said.
"Oh." Mark paused. "I'm gonna be a fighter pilot." He thumped his chest again. "The best."
"If I'm a policeman I'll be the best."
"At that," Mark said firmly. "Not at fighter piloting. That's me."
"Okay," Tony agreed, and now he held out his hand. Mark shook it.
"So, are you gonna be a soldier?" Mark asked.
"Cop. Or something. Not business."
"One day," Mark said, "I'm gonna be a soldier. I don't wanna do nothin' else."
"You said fighter pilot."
"That's a kind of soldier. Sky soldier."
"Oh."
"You should be a soldier."
"Not a Civil War soldier," Tony said flatly.
"What?" Mark asked, startled. "That was a while ago."
"Good." Tony clearly did not like the Civil War. Mark thought about mentioning that somebody, like his great grandfather or something, had been a big hero in the Civil War, but maybe he'd mention that later.
"You should be a today soldier," Mark went on. "Soldiers are tuff. Tuff, tuff."
"I can be tuff, too," Tony said, sitting up and glaring a little.
"Uh-oh," Mark said; now it was his turn to say it.
"Yep," Tony said, nodding. "Better not be a commonist."
Mark stared for a few moments, suddenly unsure whether he was being made fun of. He approached everything pretty straightforward; it was his preferred way of dealing with just about anything.
"Gotcha, Mark," Tony said after almost a whole minute, and he broke up laughing.
The blond child continued to stare, but gradually started giggling, and the two boys laughed together until the guy in the suit showed up suddenly.
"Hey, Junior," he said, hurrying over and speaking to Mom. "Thanks. Really appreciate it. They got a flight for us that leaves in half an hour, so I'm afraid we can't stay."
"That's all right," Mom said. "Glad I could help."
"Come on, Tony," the tall man with the tie on said. "Time to go. Say goodbye to your friend."
"I wasn't done talking," Tony grouched. "And I'm hungry."
"I'll get you something before we get on the plane, I promise, but we gotta get going, Junior."
"I don't wanna."
"Come on, come on," the man said, and gradually Tony let himself be coaxed off the chair and plopped to the floor, grumbling unhappily.
Mark got the apple Mom had gotten for him as extra food, and debated handing it to the other boy. Just as he was about to do so, Mom seemed to perk up in response to an announcement on the intercom. "Your father's plane's here," Mom said, suddenly all movement, all action again. "Come on. We want to be right there to see him when he comes into the terminal."
"Okay," Mark said, getting excited too; he could tell Mom was excited, could feel it off her somehow. He hopped up, and handed the apple to Tony. "Here," he said. "Have a good day."
"Thanks," Tony said, and surprised Mark by hugging him. "See ya later."
"Bye," Mark said.
XX
Tony stalled as his father tried to lead him away; he was tired of Dad dragging him through airports and hotels but there didn't seem to be much sign of it ending all that soon. So, heck with it. He dropped the apple and went after it as it rolled away. When he came back with it, he saw that nice boy who'd given him his first real meal today- Dad sometimes forgot, as he did this morning- heading away with his mother.
"Remember, make sure to smile when you see him," his mom was saying.
"Yes, Mom," the boy- Mark- said, but a moment later looked up at her, and asked uncertainly, "What did you say his name was? Daddy?"
XX
The man in the blue dress uniform came up the gently sloping, polished stone exit ramp a few minutes after Mark had reluctantly said goodbye to that boy, Tony, whose Dad seemed to be less on the ball than Mom, and that was an understatement. Mark held onto his mother's hand, and got a slight nudge when the uniformed man came into view.
XX
He had sandy-blond hair, short and neat, and was clean shaven, displaying a handsome, firm-looking jawline. He was good-looking, a charmer when he wanted to be, but very businesslike any time the need called for it. Right now, though, the now-former executive officer of the 43rd Strategic Wing, Anderson Air Force Base, Guam, looked tired, and not just from jetlag. Mark had no idea of this, would not have understood it if he was told, but the lady who had been so rude to Mom was one of thousands just like her; many were even worse.
The war that Daniel Golan was charged with waging in Southeast Asia had stopped being popular with a lot of his countrymen a long time ago. The heavy bombing of North Vietnam in the very last days of 1972 had been harshly criticized, and the odds of the United States remaining in Vietnam much longer were not good. The U.S. was, in fact, in the process of leaving. The war might go on but America was getting out. Public demand had seen to that.
He had been given a lot of grief in airports before, in other places he had been in uniform. All the crap thrown at him, literally and otherwise, was getting old. Nobody seemed to give a damn what the servicemen thought. If you were in uniform, the attitude seemed to be you'd already chosen your side. This wasn't a good time to be in the Air Force. Or to be in the Armed Forces at all, for that matter.
But even so, Daniel Golan was determined not to let jetlag or anything else mess up his return to the States, and his family. And his son, who he had barely seen since the boy been born on January 26, 1969. Mark barely even knew who his damn father was. The child needed reminders whenever Daniel came back, and was a little too adjusted to the fact of his father rarely being around. Would he even recognize him?
XX
"That's him," Mom said. "That's your father."
"That's Daddy?" Mark asked, almost whispering. Look at that uniform! That gorgeous Air Force blue, the silver pilot's wings with the star above them, one ribbon after another until Mark couldn't even keep count anymore- that was his father? That was Daddy? That was the nice man who he remembered seeing a few times, who, he now remembered, helped him raise the flag on the family's front lawn every morning when he was home? Those mornings had been few and far between, but Mark remembered them, sure enough.
This was the man who wrote all those nice letters, then. Sometimes the letters made Mark cry, because they made Mom cry, and nothing made Mom cry. She was so tough, but she often cried when she read the letters aloud. The man talked about missing them, and sometimes wrote these things called poems that really got Mom going. He wrote stuff that was funny, stuff that wasn't so funny. But this was a nice man. Mark knew that instinctively. He had been told all the time that his father was a hero, that he was brave. Mark saw this man who had his blond hair, whose brushed silver nametag read GOLAN and whose many ribbons testified to the long years of hard work he had done on behalf of his country.
The tall, handsome, uniformed man strode faster, an olive-drab bag on his shoulder, and he threw it down as he neared his family.
"Laura," he said, and Mom embraced him, throwing her arms around his neck. "Dan," she sighed, "you're back. You're back."
"You're Daddy," Mark declared, looking up at the man, once his parents separated. "You're in the Air Force." He pointed at the uniformed man, those gold oak leaves on his shoulders and ribbons on his chest, and said, "I love you!"
Part of him still didn't know who the hell this guy was, but everything… fit… somehow. Mark didn't know quite where some of his emotions were coming from, but instinct said it made sense. He knew this man, all right.
And this man certainly knew him. The tall Air Force man knelt and swept Mark up, hugging the four-year-old to him. Mark was startled to realize that his Daddy was crying.
"We're going to get to know each other, Mark," he said. "I've been away from you too much. Too much. But- I hope you'll forgive me for it someday. I did it for you and your Mom."
Mark reached up and imitated his mother, throwing his little arms around Dad's shoulders. "I love you, Dad," he said, and his father, the Air Force officer, hugged him closer still. "I love you too, Mark."
The blond four-year-old happily left the airport with his parents. Instead of driving back to Edwards AFB, they went to the beaches at Santa Monica, and Mark had the time of his life building sand castles, charging the rough waves while Daddy snatched him away every time, and flexing his small arms in front of everybody, which for some reason people thought was just the funniest thing ever. Mark threw sand at some bigger kids who tried to call Dad names, and while Mom told him no, he knew it was right. Anybody who picked Dad out as military and wanted to give him guff and bad talk over that was gonna have to answer to Mark Golan, the future pilot, the sky soldier.
Later in the day, as the long drive home to Edwards Air Force Base, his home for the next year and a half, began, Mark was dozing again, just as he'd been on the way out to Los Angeles this morning. He wondered where that nice boy Tony had gone, and hoped he could find a better Daddy, one who was as amazing as Mark's was. Tony didn't seem to have a Mom, and he needed a Mom like Mark's. Maybe his Mom was in the Air Force and that was why she wasn't around when Mark met that other boy. All the blond boy could say was he hoped Tony had indeed had a good day, and that he'd have a better day tomorrow. He even wished he could've been here at the beach today. It was nice to think about.
The steady rumbling of the GMC Carryall's V8 and the hum of its tires, however, as well as the steady sound of his mother's smooth voice and his father's deeper one, served to sweep all thoughts of that nice boy at the airport from Mark's mind. He wished the boy well, but knew and accepted that they had in all likelihood crossed paths just once. Military life was already making him accustomed to making friends, and losing them, quickly. It was just a fact of life. Meeting Tony had been fun, but sleep was beckoning, and Mark was tired after a long, active day. Someday he was going to be a grownup and stand up to the communists while wearing Air Force blue himself, but for now, he didn't need to. It wasn't time. He was a kid and he was doing what he could.
Mark closed his eyes and slept, looking forward to raising the flag over the front lawn with his father tomorrow, as the song Mom called "The National Anthem" blared from loudspeakers and the sun and the flag rose together over the base.
A/N: 5-27-2017. After some final editing, I've gone ahead and uploaded this story. Funny thing is that I actually started to write it in August 2016 and had it ready for upload by November 2016. I just held onto the story, refraining from uploading it as I made periodic edits while it sat on the virtual shelf.
This story establishes some important backstory about my interpretation of Mark Golan. His serious attitude and dislike for those with an irreverent view of military courtesies and military school life is best explained by having him be a "military brat", someone who has grown up as the son of one or more active duty military parents. Some "brats" reject the family legacy, or at the very least decide not to follow their parent(s) into that way of life. Others embrace it and in some cases never, ever want to do anything else. That is not how I wrote Mark Golan in my first story featuring him, "The Graduate", but it is how I have viewed him for a while now. It fits much better than my original interpretation, of him having been a stereotypical troublemaker before going to military school and becoming straight as an arrow while there. Some kids really do grow up living and breathing the military way, and Mark Golan as a character seems well-suited to that.
I think it's possible something like this could've happened, had both characters been in the same place at the same time. Talking for just a few minutes, though, and never seeing each other again for more than ten years after that, the chance that either of them would remember the other when they met again at Remington Military Academy in 1986 are low. Just as importantly, they never exchanged last names, and their appearances (somewhat) and definitely their personalities have developed and changed by the time they meet again thirteen years later. Here, they were friendly, and might have stayed that way if they'd grown up knowing each other. But after thirteen years of separation, in which time both boys further developed hard heads and differing personalities that they stick to pretty firmly, they were pretty much destined to become enemies in senior year of high school.
I referenced the movie Up with the line "You don't talk very much. I like you!".
Mark, as I write here, has a very idealistic view of the United States and of its military, specifically the U.S. Air Force. He sees the issues of the Cold War as simply the mean commies against the good United States, a very black-and-white attitude that, as I've written him, Mark never completely loses. I have also chosen him as growing up seeing military life as the only way he wants to live. He doesn't want to be anything else but a man in uniform, and as I have written him, Mark Golan lives up to that by going to a military high school and then a military college before entering the Air Force itself.
This story is partly meant to help provide background for the hard-assed character we see in two brief scenes in one episode of Season 12. Mark Golan has grown up Air Force, and he does not know and cannot imagine any other life. This story is mean to help illustrate his idealistic, red-white-and-blue mentality at his crucial early years and how a life growing up in the Air Force has affected him. I do not mean to excuse Golan's shortcomings in canon or in my depictions, but rather to explain them.
Because I didn't have the chance to say so in the story- Mark at that age wouldn't understand the details, and maybe his mother prefers not to worry him with them at that time in his life- I'll say it here. My choice has been to envision Golan's father as a career U.S. Air Force bomber pilot, commissioned in 1959 and as of 1973 ranked as a major (0-4). He participated in the notable Vietnam War campaigns Operation Linebacker I (May 9-October 23, 1972), Operation Linebacker II (December 18-29, 1972). He has been an active air combatant in the Vietnam War for several years, and has only rarely been home during that time. Thus, having barely seen his father more than a few times, Mark Golan scarcely knows who he is, let alone what to call him, despite readily recognizing he has a father and that his mother has a husband. His grasp of his father early in the morning is not great, since his father has had a minimal presence in his life so far.
The line of "What did you say his name was? Daddy?" was, if I remember right, what one of Major General George S. Patton, IV's children said to their mother as she took them to meet him in a West Coast airport as he returned from Vietnam. Read that in a book somewhere, and the General or his wife was recounting that event as having happened one time or another.
I did some research on the character of Anthony DiNozzo, Sr., and wrote him as best I could. He is mentioned as being a sort-of businessman who has often been known to go "schmoozing" and work out ways to get free or discounted hotel rooms and airline tickets. It was also mentioned that he actually forgot Tony, Jr., in a hotel room once until the hotel sent him a bill or found Tony in there. The way he so carelessly hands Anthony, Jr. off to a mother he has just met and leaves, then comes back, only to rush off again is how I pictured DiNozzo, Sr. They do seem to have reached a friendlier relationship some 43 years later, but it definitely took a while. I don't know if I accurately depicted a brief conversation between a three and four year old child but I did my best, even using a simplified POV for Mark in the story.
Ironically, the U.S. Air Force has a generic reputation as the "least military", the most casual, of the U.S. Armed Forces. A U.S. Army tank crew veteran told me once that "The Air Force is the finest corporation in uniform." The irony is in the fact that Mark Golan, as I write him, is as hard-driving and committed as any Marine "brat" might be. But there are exceptions to every rule and you will definitely have lazy Marines and gung-ho, hard-charging members of the Air Force.