Stack Island

One

"You've got to be fucking kidding me... Now?" Emily asked of her husband when she saw him pulling his unit issued pager off his belt after it shrilled it's annoying tune. Master Sergeant Grant Baker, not wholeheartedly believing the words himself said "Come on babe, it might not be anything."  That one earned him his first eye-roll of the morning. Grant knew that he did not have to explain to his beautiful bride by now that command was not kidding. Even though it just barely struck ten hundred hours on this beautiful Sunday morning, just one more work day before he was officially on leave, he was still beholden to the needs of the Marine Corps.

"Are you going to tell them, or am I?" Emily asked as Grant clipped his pager back to his belt and began looking for his car keys. Emily was referring to the couple's three children who had been bouncing off the walls in excitement for the last two days when they heard Daddy was getting leave and they would be taking a family vacation for the first time in their young lives. Seeing the snowball of emotions starting to pickup speed Grant said, "Let's not jump to too many conclusions, okay? Let me at least go in and see what it's all about first. We made contingency plans for a reason, remember?" Emily had been planning this trip ever since they first got word of Grant's PCS, or permanent change of station orders to Patch Barracks in Stuttgart, Germany. While Grant had been to different areas of Europe for various training exercises in the past, Emily had not stepped foot off the North American continent until then and neither of them had ever gotten to see the many tourist hot-spots Europe had to offer. 

"You know what this trip means to me Grant, and to the kids too." Having known one another as long as they had, Grant of course knew this was the dream vacation for Emily, dating back to when they first met in grade school. He could even remember playfully teasing her for bringing to school the scrapbook she made him help her with when they were kids as a prop for one of the persuasive speeches they had to give during speech class in the tenth grade. 

"I know, sweetheart, and you never know maybe we'll get lucky and there's no mission." he said, though both knew what the likely outcome would be. "Maybe this is just some safety brief before the holiday. Worst case though, me and the guys go out for a couple days, get some work done and I will catch a hop or take the train to wherever you and the kiddos are".  Grant said, smiling his best sheepish smile.

"Grant Michael Baker, you and I both know they wouldn't use your "bat signal" for a safety brief."  Emily said, just after rolling her eyes for the second time this morning. "And another thing, don't patronize me by down playing what you and your men do. I know just as well if not better than any Marine wife what you and your men do when you jet off to God knows where is no walk in the park." 

He knew she was right, and she knew he knew she was right. Neither of them would soon forget his stay at Bethesda Medical Center in Maryland, and the almost year long rehab that followed. The injuries he suffered back then as a fresh faced Sergeant, which coincidentally enough allowed him to be present for the birth of both their first and second child, were certainly memorable enough. Like so many before him, Grant had been deployed during Operation Enduring Freedom and was unlucky enough to be riding shotgun in his team leader spot when his platoon's patrol was hit with a remote-triggered IED. Despite being the third vehicle in the convoy, Grant's up-armored Humvee still took a mighty blast, flipping over and into a roadside ditch. 

Four Marines were lost that day, and Grant would have made five if it weren't for the valiant efforts of his vehicle's gunner. Private First Class David Sabic, a twenty-five year old first generation Bosnian-American from Pomona, California disregarded his own injuries from being thrown out of the Humvee's turret and returned to the burning hunk of armored steel four times in order to pull his fellow Marines away. Then Sergeant Baker would learn after the fact that David, or Davy as his brothers in arms knew him, suffered far worse than the broken bones and second degree burns that landed Grant in the hospital. PFC Sabic, after pulling Grant and his three other Marines to safety collapsed, having suffered such bad burns to his arms, legs and torso it was truly a wonder he was still alive to be airlifted with his team to medical care. Davy died as a result of these burns along with smoke inhalation, but not after fighting for what must have been two incredibly miserable painful days.