Lt. Colonel John 'Hannibal' Smith was sitting in an old worn-out recliner in a very cheap motel room; a half full open bottle of Jack Daniel's sitting beside him on the table with a half full glass of the amber liquid beside it. He was very depressed. The United States Army and his country he would have given his life for, in an instant, had dumped him down the drain like yesterday's garbage.
Hannibal sat there, pondering the fates that had brought him to this turning point in his life. What else would Murphy throw at him now? His career was gone, like a whisper in the wind. The career he had worked so hard for, gave his blood, his sweat and his tears for and very nearly gave his life for on several occasions. The one that made his father so proud when he chose to go to enlist in the Army and serve in the Korean War, instead of going directly to West Point on his automatic appointment.
Hannibal always hoped that his father would have been proud of the fact he had received his appointment to West Point on his own merits after serving in the Korean War with honor and he did not use the automatic appointment he could have received based on his father's Medal of Honor. His father had been his idol, his hero. Hell, his own Medal of Honor didn't make any kind of difference on whether or not he had been arrested or how he was treated when he and team returned to base after the mission to Hanoi. No one seemed to know or even care that he had been awarded that special medal.
A life in the military was the same career his father had chosen and died for in Korea as a full colonel in the United States Marine Corps. His future career in the United States Army after receiving his appointment to West Point was the one thing in his life Hannibal had to hang onto after his father died during the Korean War. It was the one thing he could always depend on to be there. He always had his career in the army to fall back on. Now, that was gone too. Like his mother and father in the Korean War, both of them died while serving their country. Hannibal always figured he would be like his dad and die in combat, he never thought he would be living life as a fugitive.
Hannibal's wife divorced him during the Vietnam War while he was a POW, citing to the judge he had abandoned her. He was listed as an MIA and then a POW, there was nothing at the time that he could do about it, but the judge had seen it her way and ruled in her favor during the divorce. Now he had nothing to fall back on, except the members of his team who were now his closest friends, due to their shared experiences in the POW camp.
Hannibal looked up at the small black and white TV sitting on the shelf in front of him. The six o'clock news was just beginning. On the screen were pictures of the Vietnam War. The war was still going on without him. He felt for the guys who were still over there fighting for a country that didn't want them there. He had spent so many years of his life in that hellhole in heavy combat. He knew exactly what they were going through. The mud, the blood, the pain and the killing. Young men, dying for no reason other than the political interests of the government that sent them to war.
Lt. Colonel John 'Hannibal' Smith, formerly the commanding officer of the 5th Special Forces group in Vietnam now was a wanted man, a fugitive though the only crime he was guilty of was following the orders of his superior officer in the same way any good soldier would have done in his place. Follow a lawfully given order. But, in doing so it had cost him dearly and he had very nearly paid for it with his life. He lost his freedom, the very thing he and every other man had been fighting for in Vietnam. Freedom.
Hannibal had just escaped from the maximum-security stockade at Fort Bragg, NC just a few weeks earlier. Even though he was no longer behind bars, he knew that BA, Face and himself would never truly be free until they finally cleared their names and who knew when that was going to be. It could be tomorrow or it could be 20 years down a very long, hard road. There was no way to know.
Hannibal looked around at the small room that he was being forced to occupy for the time being. He was unable to go home to Ft. Bragg, NC. The home of the 5th Special Forces Group, his unit, his men and his friends, forged in the blood and fog of combat and death. He was unable to see anyone in his family or any of his friends because he was sure that someone had to be watching them so soon after their escape from the Ft. Bragg stockade. The room he was in was a very cheap room in a very cheap motel. It smelled of rank sweat, urine, vomit and very old booze.
Hannibal couldn't sleep. He could not eat. Every time he tried he to close his eyes for even a few minutes, he woke up from a nightmare about Vietnam or that horrid POW camp screaming, bathed in his own sweat, his heart beating like a trip hammer. The memories would not leave him alone for even a few minutes and let him sleep in peace. The artillery booming in the distance, the sound of helicopter rotors filling the air, men dying by the dozens - bathed in their own blood and that awful POW camp.
The guards in that camp did unspeakable things to him and his men while they were in the camp, the torture, the starvation, and the death. Those horrible memories hung over him like a black shroud he could not shake.
Hannibal could not get rid of the memories, the war, the combat and the torture he endured in the POW camp. He remembered it all, especially the POW camp, like it had just happened to him yesterday. He knew he had to put it behind him, somehow, someway. He knew he had to put it behind him, somehow, someway. He knew he had to face those nightmares head on, but he didn't know how. Hannibal needed help and he knew it, but he didn't know how to ask for it and whom he could trust.
Hannibal looked at the bottle on the table beside him, then picked up the bottle and refilled his glass full to the rim. He sat for a long time, just staring and looking at the amber liquid in the clear glass and through it at the small black and white TV on a shelf in front of him. He was thinking to himself that if he drank just enough, maybe just maybe he could just forget about everything for a little while and finally get some sleep. No, he thought, that is not the way to put those memories behind me. Not at the bottom of a bottle. He knew too many men in Vietnam who had lost themselves in the bottle and now they were dead.
Hannibal thought about what his father had told him when he was just a boy about the men he had served with in WWII and how some of them had lost themselves in a bottle and then they had lost it all, their families and ultimately for some of them, their lives, unable to deal with the pain of what they went through in combat and the amount of death they had seen. I do that, Hannibal thought to himself, lose myself in the bottom of a bottle and I'll be back in the stockade at Ft. Bragg just that quick and he knew that he could not handle being locked up in a cell for very long ever again. Those horrible memories of the POW camp just hurt too much, both mentally and even physically.
Hannibal's common sense finally won out over his wish to get drunk and forget and he got up with the bottle of Jack Daniels in one hand and the full glass in the other. He took them over to the filthy sink and poured them both down the drain, knowing that his life was his own to command and he would get through the nightmares, someway, somehow.
Hannibal walked over the phone and called Face and BA. He knew the only way to get over his nightmares; at least for a little while was to talk to someone, anyone and his men had always been there for him as he was always there for them. After finishing the call, he put on his jacket and headed out the door to finally try and put at least some of his demons behind him at least for a little while. His legacy awaited him. His men. His team. His best friends. The men he had fought and almost died for on numerous occasions. Of all the things that had been stripped from him by the United States Army, these men was still his friends and they could never be taken away from him except with death. They were his friends, his family.
The government, by turning him into a fugitive had taken everything that meant something to him in his life. The army career he had worked so hard for. But his friends were the one thing that no one, not the Army, not the US government, not anybody could ever take away from him. Only in death could that ever be accomplished. They would be with him for the rest of his life and that gave him hope that maybe, someday everything would turn out for the better and they would be finally be cleared of the charges against them and be free.