Author's note: thanks to everyone for the thoughts and prayers and good wishes...I went through all of my pre-op this morning and tomorrow is my last day at the office for a few weeks...let me know if the dialog works or should I write the entire thing in third person
The soldier gets to Tuscaloosa
4 November 1985
Catching a ride with the trucker from Atlanta to Birmingham made things a lot easier for the soldier. I-459 was still open so the final leg of their journey together went pretty quickly. Listening to the LSU-Ole Miss game helped a lot, the soldier heard something that proved to him that things were getting better. When they got to Bessmer, the trucker was able to get him on another truck that would drop him off where he needed to be in Tuscaloosa.
On a Sunday morning in Tuscaloosa, the soldier was dropped off at the train station. He checked in with the duty NCO at the USGSC liaison office who took his information and entered into a form on a personal computer. The sergeant explained that he was hooked up with a modem to a telephone line which would connect with a computer at the University of Alabama. From there it would go to something called the ARPANET. All the universities were hooked up to the ARPANET and it was fairly simple to run connections over to key nodes like elements of Gulf States Command. His information would go straight to New Orleans and someone there would start working on finding his family.
The duty team got the soldier a place to clean up and sleep. They told him that a train would be leaving for New Orleans early tomorrow morning, but it would make a lot of stops on the way down. Little did he know about the hornet's nest his arrival stirred up. When the message got to USGSC, it went to the J-1 and to the Chaplain's office. The soldier on duty at the Chaplain's office called Rabbi Blackman who would have the pleasant duty (for once) of notifying the soldier's parents that he was alive. The duty driver picked up the Rabbi and they headed over the river to the West Bank, down Highway 23, through the Belle Chasse Tunnel, and onto Barriere Road, where they made a right turn down a residential street. They pulled up in front of a two-story house and Rabbi Blackman knocked on the door and introduced himself. The soldier's mother asked if he was the Rabbi that taught a history course at LSU.
"I thought it was Jimmy when the message came through, nice to meet you Mrs. Kerner. Your son will be home tomorrow. He's in Tuscaloosa and will be on the morning train", Rabbi Blackman told the soldier's mother.
"Rabbi, it's nice to meet you, Jimmy's father is at work but I'm expecting him to call when he gets down to Garden Island Bay, please come in and have a cup of coffee," said the soldier's mother. "Jimmy always talked about how much he enjoyed your course."
"Mrs. Kerner, what does your husband do?"
"He works for Freeport Sulphur, he's captain of the T.E. Lyons, but he's not supposed to get back to Harvey until Tuesday evening," said the soldier's mother.
"Mrs. Kerner, don't you worry about that, when the good Archbishop is done with Mass, he and I are going to make a few phone calls and we'll get him back if we have to send a helicopter to get him," said Rabbi Blackman.
The Rabbi and Mrs Kerner (and the duty driver) had their cup of coffee and then the Rabbi headed back across the river. The soldier's mother got on the phone and started to let the family know that her son the soldier was alive and coming home.
When the Rabbi got back, he briefed the Archbishop and they started to make some phone calls. When they got hold of the right people at Freeport Sulphur, they were told that the soldier's father would be on a boat back to Venice as soon as he tied up at Garden Island Bay and they would get him back to his home in Belle Chasse. The Rabbi contacted J-1 and didn't ask as he normally did when he need something from them, but directed that someone from GSC be at Union Passenger Terminal to meet the soldier.
When the Lyons pulled into Garden Island Bay, the soldier's father was told to call his wife, immediately. The mine boss went on board and told the crew that the soldier's father would be heading home on a crewboat immediately and that his oldest son had acutally survived and would be home tomorrow. When the soldier's father got back to the Lyons, he looked a lot happier than he had in quite a while. He was told to get his stuff and they had a boat ready to take him upriver to Venice and they'd get him home from there.
Back in Tuscaloosa, the soldier was able to get some laundry done and eat some comfort food at the local Picadilly Cafeteria. The one piece of advice he got was to pack up his submachine gun, people on the train would really be uncomfortable with him carrying it. He didn't sleep very well that night and showed up at the train station a couple of hours before the train left. So, on the morning of the soldier's 34th birthday, he boarded a train that would take him home. He figured with the size of his family, someone came through all of this. He found a spot where he could stretch out, put his duffel bag on the floor and his ALICE pack on the other side. He then streched out, covered his face with his cap and went to sleep.
