The driveway of Quarters One was empty as the Chrysler Town & Country minivan that General Allan B. Naylor, Sr., had chosen over a staff car for his official vehicle pulled into it. The vehicle had of course come with a driver, and Naylor was traveling with his senior aide-de-camp, Colonel J. D. Brewer.
“I wonder where the hell she is,” Naylor said, making obvious reference to his wife.
“Does she know you’re here?” Brewer replied.
“Who knows?” Naylor said as he opened his door. “Can I interest you in a drink? I hate to drink alone.”
“Allan’s here,” Colonel Brewer said, pointing back to the street at a Chevrolet Suburban.
“Offer’s still good,” Naylor said.
“Offer is accepted.”
“You can take off, Tommy,” Naylor said to the driver. “I’ll see that Colonel Brewer gets home. Don’t be late in the morning.”
“No, sir. I won’t be. Good night, sir. Good night, Colonel.”
The two got out of the van and walked up the driveway and entered the house by the kitchen door.
Major Allan B. Naylor, Jr., in khaki trousers and a flowered Hawaiian shirt, was sitting at the kitchen table holding a bottle of Heineken beer.
“Well, if it isn’t the commanding officer of Headquarters and Headquarters Company,” Brewer said.
“With all possible respect, Colonel, sir, go fuck yourself,” Allan Junior said.
When Allan Junior had been released from the hospital, mostly recovered from mortar shell wounds suffered in Afghanistan, he had been placed on limited duty and assigned “temporarily” as executive officer of Headquarters and Headquarters Company, Central Command. It was a housekeeping job and he hated it.
Armor Branch Officer Assignment had asked him where he would like to be assigned when he was taken off the “limited duty” roster. He had requested, he’d said, “any of the following”: the 11th Armored Cavalry at Fort Irwin, California, where The Blackhorse now served as “the enemy” in training maneuvers; Fort Knox, Kentucky, the Cavalry/Armor Center; or Fort Hood, Texas, which always had at least one armored division.
When his orders had come, ten days ago, they had named him commanding officer of Headquarters and Headquarters Company, Central Command, and informed him it was at least a two-year assignment.
Brewer was not really offended by Allan Junior’s comment. For one thing, he had known the young officer since he was a kid in Germany; he thought of him as almost family. And he really felt sorry for him.
“If you don’t watch your mouth, Major, you’re liable to find yourself an aide-de-camp. Trust me, that’s a much worse assignment.”
“Well, Jack, you can go to hell, too,” General Naylor said, and then asked, “Allan, where’s your mother?”
“She and my wife and my sister and all your grandchildren are in Orlando, at Disney World. I am under maternal orders to look after you.”
General Allan B. Naylor, Sr., USA, Commanding General, United States Central Command, had four aides-de-camp—a colonel, two lieutenant colonels, and a captain.
They were his personal staff, as opposed to his command staff at Central Command. The latter was headed by General Albert McFadden, USAF, the deputy commander. Under General McFadden were nine general officers—four Army, three Air Force, and two Marine Corps—plus four Navy flag officers—one vice admiral, two rear admirals (upper half), and one rear admiral (lower half), plus enough full colonels, someone had figured out, to fully staff a reinforced infantry platoon if the fortunes of war should make that necessary.
Approximately one-third of these generals, admirals, and colonels was female. All of General Naylor’s personal staff were male.
Despite what Senator Homer Johns frequently said—and apparently believed—General Naylor’s personal staff did not spend, at God only knows what cost to the poor taxpayer, their time catering to the general?
?s personal needs, polishing his insignia, mixing his drinks, shining his shoes, carrying his luggage, peeling his grapes, and myriad other acts, making him feel like the commander of a Praetorian Guard enjoying the especial favor of Emperor Caligula.
Colonel J. D. Brewer, whose lapels had carried the crossed sabers of Cavalry before he exchanged them for the insignia of an aide-de-camp, was in overall charge. One of the lieutenant colonels dealt with General Naylor’s relationship with Central Command. The other dealt with General Naylor’s relationship with Washington—the Pentagon, the chief of staff, Congress, and most importantly, the White House.
The captain was in charge of getting the general—which meant not only Naylor, but those officers he needed to have at his side, plus the important paperwork he had to have in his briefcase—from where he was to where he had to be. This involved scheduling the Gulfstream, arranging ground transportation and quarters, and ensuring that Naylor never lost communication with either MacDill or Washington.
Jack Brewer and his boss went back together a long time. Brewer had been a second lieutenant in The Blackhorse on the East German-West German border when Naylor had been there as a major. Later, Brewer, as a major, had been the executive officer of a tank battalion in the First Desert War. He had been a promotable light colonel during the Second Desert War, and now he was waiting, more or less patiently, to hear that his name had been sent to Capitol Hill for confirmation by the Senate of his promotion to brigadier general.
It was said, with a great deal of accuracy, that Brewer’s rapid rise through the ranks had been the result of the efficiency reports that Naylor had written on him over the years.
“Following your mother’s orders,” General Naylor said, “you can start looking out for your old man by getting that bottle of Macallan from the bar and fixing Jack and me a drink.”