Code of Dishonor

2

"I've read this five times already, why is this still a rough draft?" President Potry asked her assistant. The two women sat on the plane.

"Shirlee, you haven't met with the military yet, they still think we're making progress on the village front," the woman was a closer friend than most, she was the only one who called her by her first name.

"I'm being obstinate about this, I won't listen to what any military leader or what MilTel has to say about staying in war. Our soldiers don't want to do it, we have so much to do at the home front and we have over 3,000 troops in the Middle East alone." The president sighed. "I wonder if they'll even go for it."

"With all due respect, Madam President, everyone feels your opinions on the military are biased because of your husband."

"I was in the army, too!" she snapped, she calmed herself and pushed the treaty away from herself.

"I'm sorry, Shirlee, I'm sure Chriss would want this as well, he died for this country," the assistant forced a smile, it was a delicate subject.

"No, he was murdered, he wasn't killed in a war," President Potry tilted her head, "somebody killed him, some American, some soldier. The worse part is they still don't know who. five years he's dead, three years I urge congress to return our troops."

"Can you-"

President Potry interrupted, "They found him shot in the face!" she remembered having to identify him, "I was in congress still trying to have them come home, my general husband; Chriss Blue Moon. He was dead, they never found the gun, but they know it was military issued, they know he wasn't in the right office, he was... somewhere he shouldn't have been, why was he dead? Why did they kill him?"

The assistant thought she would cry reminiscing, she looked at the president, she looked at the brave woman staring right back at her, as confident as always. The way she told her speeches and spoke to anyone, everyone equally, whether you were a dead or alive, big or small, in the senate or just a regular Joe. She smiled back at her, it was the assistant who couldn't keep from crying.

The president looked down at the treaty, seeing the blank spaces for both the leader's signatures, she would be happy to sign it right then. Sometimes she sounded like a contestant in a pageant when she said she wanted world peace.

She glanced up, the blond across from her had stopped crying, both woman smoothed down their skirts which reached mid-shin. The president's was because she had a scar across, behind, and beside her left kneecap. It was the result of army obstacle courses, not even a year in over nineteen years ago when she was twenty, her knee bent the wrong way. She was sentenced to a desk job to fulfill her five year contract and then she left to serve her country in other ways. She was still married to her husband, she lived on the base but worked in the town.

"Did you bring it?" President Potry stood up and went to a more comfortable seat across from the table.

"Yes," the woman followed her. She reached into her large tan purse and pulled out several stuffed envelopes, "Examined and resealed," she handed them to her. Her mail had to be checked for anthrax and toxins, of course any threatening letters were investigated, but there were very little of those, most people, except for politicians, loved the president. She always read her mail, she didn't have enough time to respond, they had bland general postcards for that, she would if she could have.

"When I was a congresswoman they never checked my mail, I could actually answer people then," she commented and opened the first letter.

"This is only 2/3rds of it." The assistant's hand was opened to all extent, "There's too much for you."