Birth of a Warrior

by Jenthewarrior

The origin story of Michael Westen. Follow his troubled home life, his army training, his first interactions with figures like Larry, Tom Card, and Sam Axe, and his fiery romance with Fiona Glenanne. Follow him from the plains of South Africa to the snowy forests of Bosnia, from kidnappings to arms deals to assassinations, as he grows into a master spy, and into a legend.

11. Letting Go

XI. Letting Go

Fort Benning, Georgia

March 23, 1984

Ma wrapped me in one last tight hug, for the road, she said.

"You call home when you can, and tell me what you're up to," she whispered, her voice choked. Hearing it made my chest ache. "If you see danger you run the other way."

"I will, Ma."

"I love you so much."

"I love you too, Ma."

She pulled away, and held my face in her hands, with this look like she had finally noticed how different I was inside and outside. Ma always knew. She kissed my forehead, and then let me go.

Over the past weeks I had been sent into chambers full of noxious gas and forced to take my mask off. I slipped down a bumpy obstacle and landed face first in a sticky briar plant. Boys I had grown close to, people I tried to think of like brothers, dropped out of training and dropped out of my life one by one. It all seem trivial now. Nothing could sting as much as watching my mom walk away. She was going home with every expectation that one day I would follow, and she had no idea that I was never coming back. She had no idea.

When she was gone a weight lifted off of my shoulders. I sat on the picnic table at the top of the hill, under a shady tree, watching families come and go in the parking lot below. I wondered if the other recruits had mothers telling them to call home, and fathers giving them the cold shoulder, or little brothers wondering when they would play together again. Ma made it seem like I was heading into a minefield with death and danger always one step away, and it made me wonder if those boys down there would survive, if I would survive. We were going to spread like birds over the globe, according to Ford, and see things we never imagined.

McKinney had been making nice with families all day, but when most of them were gone he trudged up the hill and joined me. He was smiling for once, but to himself. It was a private expression. He must have been proud of all of us for making it through training.

He sat on the picnic table beside me and unwrapped a stick of gum.

"Bolton got a hold of me today," he said, gazing out at the horizon, "Once you complete AIT and serve your mandatory four months as an infantryman, he wants you on for screening."

"Where am I going?"

McKinney glanced over at me and snorted. "Where do you want to go, kid? Persia, Lebanon, Honduras… lots of places with boots on the ground right now. Doubt they would waste talent like yours on a domestic assignment. But who knows." He chewed his gum thoughtfully, and leaned back against the table. "Wherever you go, try to stay alive."

He was listing places I barely knew existed, and suddenly the world seemed a whole lot bigger.

For a while he sat there and chewed his gum, that smile slowly fading from his face, replaced by somber thoughtfulness. He hummed something to himself, pulled out a cigarette, and lit it, only taking one puff before he rubbed it out on the table. He held his silver lighter in his hand, cracking a dark smile at it. "I got this when I came home the first time. Bunch of hippies were carving them out, stealing words said by some great man, sometime."

I watched him hold that lighter like it was a precious gem, curious and cautious. "What does it say?"

He laughed, "It says a lot. We the unwilling, led by the unqualified, to kill the unfortunate… die for the ungrateful." He flicked the lighter up, gazed at the flame for a split second, and then put it out. In one motion he stood from the bench and clasped me on the shoulder, "It ought to be the creed. Good luck out there, kid."

With that, he walked off, humming and singing under his breath, back toward the barracks, "Who dares to put a musket on his shoulder, to shoot some other mother's darling boy?"

I knew the song, because he hummed it sometimes while we were running drills. Ford said it was an old war song. I thought McKinney seemed proud, the way he was walking around and putting his hands on everyone, smiling at families, but I was wrong. He was giving them one last goodbye, telling them he was proud, and then he was leaving just like my mom.

Both of them were saying goodbye, and letting go.