Clinical Trials

"I am, sir, and thank you. For everything."

Eight months later

When the results of the Warrant Officer selection board came out, Chad couldn't believe it when he saw his name on the list. He called his new wife first who told him she knew he'd make it, then he called the retired colonel.

"Sir. If you can make it to Camp Lejeune in February, I'd be honored if you'd pin one of my bars on."

"I'll be there...Gunner," the older man said, using the nickname Marines had for warrant officers. (The Army calls its warrants 'chief'.) Way back in the 60s and early 70s there were Marine Gunners who wore a warrant officer bar on the right collar and a black bursting bomb on the left. They all retired and no more were made.

At some point the Marine Corps brought the program back for certain warrant officers, and they, too, wore the bursting bomb. All of them, however, were still affectionately called 'gunner' but only those with the proper 'jewelry' were actually Marine gunners, a distinction lost on almost everyone else.

Chad didn't care about any of that. He was on Cloud Nine as a new husband with a beautiful wife who'd just gotten pregnant with their first child. And now he would become a Marine Corps officer, or as some jokingly said, "A staff-NCO with a club card' meaning that they were, in some sense, still enlisted Marines who could now go to the officer's club. They weren't enlisted anymore, but that was just one aspect of Marine humor, such as it is.

A month prior, he'd gone to the base exchange to pick up a new set of chevrons for his working uniform, and Hallie asked which rank was for a warrant officer as she looked at rank insignia hanging on a wall from Private First Class to four-star general. Chad was now the one not wanting to jinx anything, and he wouldn't even look as he said, "The scarlet and gold bars. With one scarlet square. Two squares are for chief warrant officer 2s."

After he walked away, she bought a pair for him, and the morning of his promotion she took them out of her purse. She thought her handsome husband was getting tearing eyed but it was just a symptom of having someone in his life who loved him.

Speaking of such people, Fran and David were also there, and both were walking without help.

"Wow. What a wonderful life I live," he told her as he put a hand on her growing tummy. "A gorgeous wife, our parents doing well, and a new life on the way."

"Your wife is getting fat, Warrant Officer Decker, but our parents are much better, and I have this sneaking suspicion there may be some hanky-panky going on."

"I know, but that's something I try not to think about. Ever," Chad told her before he kissed her and told her how much he loved her.

His had was still on her belly, and just then he felt their baby kick for the first time.

"Our daughter must know that's her handsome daddy," Hallie Decker said with a laugh.

Both of them had feared that they might well have been burying a parent by now, and yet they were not only both doing hugely better, the clinical trials they signed 'the folks' up for had brought them together.

Now, here they were, married with a child on the way, and Chad's career continuing to be successful enough to allow his beautiful wife to remain at home. Best of all, Hallie now had someone who not only loved her but adored her and respected her and treated her the way she'd always dreamed of. And if that wasn't enough, just being pregnant was a kind of miracle in and of itself, something her doctors told her was nearly impossible.

And yet, she was, and in just a few short months she would be holding the most beautiful little girl ever as the handsome, younger man she so dearly loved shared that experience with her, and both of 'the folks' would be there to see their first grandchild, as well.