Send Down the Rain(71)

“He turned around and went back to the only thing he knew. War. Where he spent two more years. During which time he would be awarded this.” Bobby reached into his pocket, then opened his hand to reveal the Congressional Medal of Honor. The audience gasped. Even the judge’s eyes grew large. The network guys sitting behind live camera feeds could not believe what they were hearing.

Bobby continued. “Back home, my life spiraled downward. After rehab and therapy and nearly bankrupting Allie in the process, I cleaned up my act and ran for state senate, convincing all of you that I was a man of my word. In truth, I got elected on the sympathy vote. I based my campaign, and every one since then, on a very good lie. The lie that I’d lived the life my brother lived. It wasn’t difficult. I simply asked the US military for a copy of my records. And since they were in my name, I got them. Somehow no one in the media ever studied my ‘military record’ in any detail. Had they done so, they’d have quickly pieced together that I could not possibly have been drying out in Arizona and at the same time leading special operations in Laos. Or Cambodia. Or wherever he was at the time. Once elected, I learned I was good at politics because I could lie with the best of them. So I traveled up the political ladder and ran for the US Senate. I’ve been re-elected five times, primarily because I was really good at spinning that same lie and who’s not going to vote for a war hero and Medal of Honor winner? I’d made myself the poster boy for the Stars and Stripes. Wasn’t long before I found myself appointed to committees whose sole purpose was to control much of what happened in the military. Those appointments came with top-secret clearance.” Bobby took a deep breath. “A draft-dodging coward with security clearance . . .” He glanced at me. “Ironic, don’t you think?”

The silence in the courtroom was deafening.

He continued. “Even the set of military records the government gave me upon my request were incomplete in several areas. Given Joseph’s activities, much of which our government could not acknowledge, much of the file was highly classified; sections were black-lined or pages were simply missing. But with my classified security clearance, I dug around and patched back together the missing pages of my younger brother’s military service record. Only then did I uncover the true nature and extent of his service, where he was and what he did. Luckily for me, he’d served so well, so secretly, and with such distinction that his entire life was classified. Still is.”

He turned to Suzy, who sat in the audience with her jaw on the floor. “That’s the reason you couldn’t find it. Not to mention the fact that you were looking under the wrong name. But even if you’d had the right name, they’d have never given it to you.”

Suzy was shaking her head. Tears streaming down.

“When I read the reports of what he’d done”—Bobby glanced in his lap where he held my file—“I felt both shame and extreme pride. I had done the unthinkable. Joseph had taken my place. Even my name. He said yes when I said no. I knew I could never pay for what I did to him, but . . . for reasons I’ve never understood, Joseph has never unmasked me.” He looked at me and just shook his head. “For forty-plus years, he’s never told the story I would have told a thousand times over. And for forty-plus years, I’ve been standing on his shoulders, taking credit for his steps.”

Allie, sitting directly behind me, was muffling violent sobs. Suzy sat speechless. Nobody knew what to say or do.

Bobby turned to the judge. “The Latin word meritare means ‘to serve like a soldier.’ From it we get the word unmerited. My brother went to war when he wasn’t technically old enough to go. Barely seventeen. He went without complaint. While there, we taught him how to defend those who could not defend themselves. He did that then. He’s done it his whole life. He’s doing it here, today.” Bobby looked at the judge. “That gift to all of us was then and is now unmerited.” Bobby was calm. Not the least bit anxious. And when he looked at me, for the first time since we were kids I saw my brother in his eyes.

Even the judge was speechless. Bobby paused, then looked back up at him. “A long time ago, my brother gave me what I did not deserve, and, ever since, has taken from me what I did deserve. He may be on trial, but he’s not the criminal. If I could step out of this chair and take his chains, I would. I’d serve his sentence—whatever it may be. I ask this court for mercy.”





43

My heart was pounding in my ears. The pain in my chest had grown unbearable. I slumped over, causing my attorney to ask me if I was all right. I couldn’t respond. Allie stood behind me and put her hand on my back. The cameras turned toward me. Whatever had long held back the pain in my chest was finally losing its grip.

I tried to stand, but I couldn’t move most of the left side of my body. My heart sounded like Niagara in my ears and it felt like someone had shoved a spear through the center of my chest and out my back. I was having trouble breathing. Whatever I was doing got everyone’s attention because all hell broke loose in that courtroom. Their faces suggested everyone was screaming, but I couldn’t hear them. The world I was living in had gone quiet.

Somehow I ended up on the floor where the fluorescent ceiling lights seemed brighter. Somebody had ripped off my shirt, and somebody else hovered over me, holding two paddles. They screamed something, and I was pretty sure I didn’t want them to do what they were about to do, but they slammed the paddles onto my chest and I remember seeing a flash of white light.