The Grim ReaperChapter 16: Springtime free porn video

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March to May, 2002

Mom was not at all amused by my thinking. All through dinner, which Kelly and I nuked in the microwave to warm up, she badgered me about why I was joining the Army. I pretty much gave her the same reasons as I gave my girlfriend. Dad mostly just sat there and listened. He insisted that they had to meet Sergeant Donaldson, and that I was not doing anything until after I got out of school. Eventually I could escape, and I took Kelly out and we went over to the mall, to do some window-shopping and talk some more in the food court. She wasn’t happy either, but she was calming down more than my mother.

Monday, my grandfather pulled me into his office over at the feed mill when I got there after school. “What’s this I hear about you joining the Army?” he asked.

“Mom call you?” I asked.

“Your father, but it’s the same thing. So, talk to me. All I got was that you don’t want to work here.”

I grimaced at that. Grandpa was a great guy and treated us all great. He was sort of quiet, at least around other people, but was much more open with family. “No, that’s not what I meant. It’s ... I mean ... I love you, Grandpa, but I don’t want to keep pushing a broom the rest of my life!”

“Well, who the hell says you have to?” he barked. “Grim, this is just something for you to do after school and make a few bucks and do the odd jobs that any business needs done. If you were working for me for real, do you think I’d waste you doing that?” I gave him a surprised look at that. I had never really thought about that. He kept going. “Your father and your Uncle Dave both worked here running the idiot stick, too! You see them doing that now?”

Again, that made me think. Dad had gone to college and become an engineer. Uncle Dave had also gone to college, but he was now running the feed mill.

“What did Uncle Dave do here?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Mostly what you’re doing. Idiot stick and go-fer, at least in high school and college breaks. Once he got out of college, I hired him full time and put him in sales. I told him he had to make it in sales before I would ever allow him to do anything else. I wasn’t putting some rookie in charge of guys who had twenty years’ experience on him. He worked his way up.”

“Huh,” I mumbled.

“We’re a family operation, Grim, but we have to pull our weight around here. I told you that when you started. Your brother will be next, and Dave’s boys. I don’t know if any of you will be the third generation running this place, but I’ll be long gone by then, anyway.”

“I don’t know what to say, Grandpa.”

“Just think about it. I don’t know if you’ll be in sales. Probably in the production side, on the line. It won’t be minimum wage, either. We mostly pay more than minimum-wage. We pay what people are worth, so make sure you’re worth more,” he said.

I nodded. I was being sent off to my broom. I stood and went to the door but stopped and turned. “What was the Army like, Grandpa?”

He looked at me for a second and said, “Mostly a lot of hurry-up-and-wait, just in green clothes. Listen, don’t be listening to those idiots in Washington about how we’re beating those jackasses over in the Middle East. Ain’t a one of them worth a shit. We’re in a war. You join the Army, sooner or later somebody’s going to send you somewhere nasty, and you’ll get reminded of that in a hurry! You hear me?”

“Yes, sir.” I headed off to work.

I had asked Kelly to not say anything to anybody about my joining the Army, so at least I didn’t catch any crap from my buddies. Even on the football team, most of my friends were planning to go to college, even if it was just M-Triple-C or Matucket State. Some of them I knew were smart. Bo and Brax were going to fancy schools like Kelly would go to. I just kept my mouth shut and mumbled about waiting to see how I did on my SAT’s. Those I took a couple of weeks after my birthday, and we had to wait six weeks to find out how dumb we were. I was not hopeful.

In the meantime, I called Sergeant Donaldson and made an appointment to see him after school, and then called the mill and said I had to be out that day. I drove over that afternoon after school and talked to him some more.

“Welcome back, Graham. I gather you’re still interested. Have you talked to your family about this yet?” he asked.

I gave a wry smile. “You could say that. When you called, I was in the kitchen with my family. They gave me the third degree afterwards.”

“How did they feel about you enlisting?”

“Not overly happy with the idea. Mom is very much against it. My dad will go along with it, but Mom really wants me to go to college, any college,” I admitted.

“That’s nothing new, Graham.”

“My parents want to talk to you about this.”

He nodded. “That’s quite common. This is a big choice to make. They have your best interests in mind. I often meet with families to explain the process and the benefits you can get from the service. She’ll probably be interested in learning about how the Army can help pay for you to go to college.”

“Really? They do that?”

He smiled. “Whether you’re in the service or afterwards, you can earn money to go towards a college education. Let me show you a few things.” With that he pulled out a few brochures on Army training and educational benefits and went over them with me. He said that when he met my folks, he would tell them as well. “This is real stuff, Graham. When I joined the Army, I was your age and right out of high school, just like you will be, and I got a Bachelor’s degree part-time at nights, and the Army paid for a lot of it. Even if you don’t make a career out of it, you’ll qualify for benefits under the GI Bill.”

That sounded pretty good to me. I hadn’t gotten my SAT scores back, but I doubted I was going to be in line for any scholarships. Then Sergeant Donaldson asked me about the SATs, and I told him I had taken them, but didn’t know the results. He told me that the recruiting center would be conducting a pre-ASVAB test soon to get an idea of what we might be able to do. Also, they would do a pre-fitness training camp, to see about making sure we were in shape before we reported for basic training.

“You look like you’re in pretty good shape already, Graham. Do you do anything special? Work out or anything?” he asked.

I had to smile at that. “I’m left outside linebacker for the Matucket Pioneers, so I am constantly running and lifting weights. Off-season I work at the feed mill over in West Springs, and part of that is lifting hundred-pound bags of feed.”

That surprised him. “You’re on the Goon Squad?”

I smiled at our nickname. “Yes, sir.”

“You guys almost took it last year! What are the odds for this year?” he asked.

“Better. Most of us last year were juniors. We’re all bigger and more experienced now. I think we can go all the way!” I answered proudly.

“Huh! I’ll keep an eye out for you this season. My kids are at Joseph Wheeler, but maybe we can come to a home game or two. And the feed mill, is that Reaper and Sons? I’ve been by there a few times.”

I nodded at this. “Yeah, that’s my grandfather. My father never went into the business, but my Uncle Dave mostly runs it now. I work there after school when the football season ends. You want to stay in shape, try stacking pallets of feed all day long in the summer sun!”

“I believe you. Well, keep working out and running. No matter how good a shape you think you’re in, you’ll need to get tougher and stronger for basic training. It’s very physical, which I think you’ll like.”

I nodded at that. I liked to stay in shape. Back when I got hammered by Candy Pants and his buddies, I hadn’t lost because I was small and weak, but because I was outnumbered four-to-one and needed to stay in the fight to give Kelly the time to run. If it had just been me and Randy Holden, I’d have cleaned his clock in a hurry!

We finished with Sergeant Donaldson giving me a schedule of events at the recruiting center I should be participating in and plans to make an appointment to meet my folks before the end of junior year.

The more I thought about this, the more it made sense to me. No matter what happened with Kelly and me, we were going to be separated for a long time while she went to some fancy school. We might see each other at holidays or vacations, but that might be it. Maybe I could spend some time in the Army and figure out what I wanted to do afterwards. That part simply baffled me. What did I want to do? I mean, I couldn’t say that I wanted to be an engineer and build things like Dad could or go into medicine like Mom and help sick people. I just didn’t know what I wanted to do, and so far, nothing I had run across in school sounded like something I wanted to do for the rest of my life. Dad had told me that he had wanted to build things since he was a kid, and Mom said she knew she wanted to be a nurse since she was in middle school. Me? I just wanted to play football, but that wasn’t going to last much longer. Maybe I could figure it out in the Army. Maybe they had something I liked and could do. Maybe the Army could train me to do something out in the real world afterwards.

The timing was such that it might work. If Kelly and I actually were able to make a long-term go of things, and she was off in college for a bunch of years, then I needed to do something during that time. They had something called the Four-Four plan, where you signed up for four years of training and active duty, and then you did another four years of inactive reserve. You were out at that point, though if there was an emergency, like the Martians were invading, they could call me up for the rest of my four-year term. Either way, after eight years, I didn’t have to stay. I could stay in all eight years, though, and then re-enlist and go career, but I didn’t see that happening. I’d be fucking ancient by then, twenty-six.

Regardless, this was still the only thing I had come up with that held any sort of interest for me at all, and no matter how much Mom screamed, once I was eighteen and graduated from Matucket High, she couldn’t stop me.

My SAT scores came back and weren’t any sort of surprise. I got 1050 out of 1600, which was close to average. I wasn’t going to win any scholarships, that was for sure. Compare that score to Bo Effner, who nailed a 1550 or Brax Hughes, who got 1520. Those guys were going to any college they wanted. On the other hand, my pre-ASVAB test down at the recruitment center said that I was qualified for any number of jobs in the service. I guess the Army liked average guys.

By the end of May, Sergeant Donaldson had come out to the house and met my parents. Mom still wasn’t happy with me, but she did agree that any sort of college education, even going through the Army, would be better than none. Dad didn’t say much, but he listened closely. His comments were to go with the Four-Four plan, just in case I decided I had made the huge fucking mistake that Mom thought it was. The other option was a Six-Two plan, same deal, six years of active service followed by two years of inactive reserve. That was more for a career soldier. Grandpa agreed with him, but he still didn’t say much about what he did in the Army. I don’t think he liked it all that much, or maybe it was just boring. He repeated that there was an awful lot of hurry-up-and-wait, and lots of silly rules that didn’t make a lot of sense. Even Kelly got over her mad, sort of. I think she realized that with a 1050 I wasn’t going to Harvard or any other school that she’d be attending.

The weekend before prom, Sergeant Donaldson had me come down to the recruitment center Saturday morning, for a mini-boot camp. Basically, everybody who was looking to enlist was invited for some physical testing. We had to do a bunch of basic calisthenics, not just anybody going into the Army, but also the other guys. We had a couple of sailors, a couple of Marine wannabes, somebody for the Coast Guard, and a pair of flyboys for the Air Force. While most of the services had different standards, everybody got tested on a bunch of things. We had to run a mile and get timed, and they timed how fast we could do sit-ups or push-ups or pull-ups, that sort of thing. You had to do a certain minimum number of things in a maximum amount of time to get into basic training. You fail that, you don’t make it in, no matter how gung-ho you are.

For instance, you had to be able to run a mile in no more than eight-and-a-half minutes, and I did mine in a minute less, without pushing myself. Likewise, we had to do seventeen sit-ups in a minute and thirteen push-ups in the same amount of time. I was in pretty good shape. Coach Summers had the entire team working out hard, and he didn’t let us slack off in the off-season and Grandpa had me humping bags of feed down at the mill. I nailed every test with room to spare. I have to say, though, I was in the minority. We had a few real butterballs there with us, and several others who would need to shape up or they were history.

Sergeant Donaldson and the other recruiters had a real simple solution to this problem. Every Saturday, from the weekend after prom until the day we were inducted, we had fat camp. We were to show up and work out. We would be weighed, and the goals were strict. Some of these guys had to lose forty pounds or more, and I knew they wouldn’t be able to make it. I would get a pass during training and football season, but after that I had to participate as well.

Most of the people there were guys, but not all. There were more women than I thought there would be, and I don’t think they were in any better shape than the guys. Most of us were about my age, juniors or seniors at Matucket or East Matucket, but a few were at M-Triple-C or Matucket State. I noticed that most of the kids going into the services and who were still in high school were from Matucket. East Matucket was a wealthier suburb, and most of those kids were going to college with their parents paying for it. At Matucket we had a lot of kids who were looking at the service to pay for college. My family wasn’t poor, and I could have gotten help from them, but we had a lot of kids at Matucket who didn’t have parents who could help.

As soon as Sergeant Donaldson let us go, I had to get home to get ready for tonight. It was the Saturday before prom, which meant it was time for the Spring Dance. I was a junior, so I was attending both. At least I didn’t need to rent a tux for the Spring Dance. Between the two weekends I would be coughing up the cash for two nights at a nice restaurant, two pair of tickets, a tux, and a corsage for the prom. It was going to be expensive. At least I wasn’t Bo Effner, who was currently dating a junior over at East Matucket. They held their dances and formals on Fridays, so he had been to their Spring Dance last night and would be at ours tonight, and next weekend he would be attending two proms. That would cost him a fortune! It was amazing what guys will spend to get laid.

The worst part, at least for me, was that for the first time in a year I was on a double date, and it was with my little brother, no less! He was a freshman, so he was attending. Mom and Dad balked at ferrying him around. If I was driving, I could drive him, too. They were dumping Bobbie Joe on Grandpa and Grandma for the night and going out on a date night of their own.

I would be wearing a new dark charcoal gray suit that Kelly and my mother had picked out for me. Dad’s comment the first time he saw it was, “The color’s good. You can wear it to either a wedding or a funeral. Sometimes they’re the same thing.” Mom threw a dishcloth at him when she heard that.

In any case, tonight I had the charcoal suit and Jack had khakis and a blue blazer. First stop was the O’Connor house, where we picked up Kelly. She wore a strapless green cocktail dress that fit her like a second skin, with matching shoes. I made the appropriate whistles and comments, and then escorted her to the Sienna. She knew it was a double date, which had earned me quite a few laughs from her. Jack got kicked to the back of the minivan and we went to pick up his girlfriend, Janice Balkowski. She was wearing a very pretty, blue knee-length dress, but it was more cute than hot. Kelly was hot, not cute. I drove with Kelly up front, and Jack and Janice sat behind us.

Janice was Jack’s latest girlfriend. He had broken up with Marty Halifax in January, an action that had both Dad and me wondering as to Jack’s sanity and mental competence. What was worse, dating your coach’s daughter or breaking up with your coach’s daughter? He’d better hope to make it to the varsity team next year! Since then, Jack had dated several of the other JV cheerleaders. Janice was the latest. Yeah, I knew that’s what cheerleaders were for, but one of these days they were going to gather in a group and burn him at the stake!

We were going to Mort’s, a steak house over in East Matucket. I just hoped I wasn’t recognized as one of the guys who had demolished their football team last year. Matucket High had an undefeated season and only been stopped in the second round of the post-season. East Matucket High had ended up losing a total of eight games. It was their worst showing in fifteen years! I whispered that the chefs were probably mixing cyanide in my plate right now.

“I’ll give you mouth-to-mouth resuscitation if they do,” she promised.

I grinned at her. “Remember when we were little, and you made me kiss your boo-boo?”

She laughed. “I do! I told Mom afterwards and she swatted my bottom! Daddy just laughed and said something in Gaelic.”

“Well, if I get a boo-boo, will you kiss it and make it better?”

“We’ll have to see on that one! I have a sneaky suspicion where you’re going to get a sudden pain!”

I tried to look innocent, but I don’t think it succeeded. Jack and Janice laughed, but I don’t think they understood what Kelly and I were talking about. Or maybe they did. Kids grew up so fast these days, not like when I was young.

The dance was very pleasant, and towards the end Kelly and I gathered up Jack and Janice and took them home. We dropped Janice off first, and then I drove home and kicked Jack out. Kelly and I kept going. It was May, and while the days were getting pleasantly warm, it was still too cool that night to spend it under the stars up at the lake. We ended up in the back of the Sienna for a bit. We still had to be cool around the O’Connor household. It was one thing to sneak in a quickie or two after school down in the family room, but no way was her mother going to let us get all romantic down there after a date, not while she was upstairs! Kelly promised she was trying to figure something out for after the prom but wasn’t real clear on what that might be. Maybe she could get her mother out of the house. It was late when I got home, and Jack was already asleep, still dressed.

For the prom, I rented a black tux, with a black shirt, and a black vest without a cummerbund. I tried it on twice beforehand, and it was a good thing I did. The first time they had the wrong size jacket, and the second time they had the wrong size pants. It didn’t matter what I wore, though, because after everybody got a look at Kelly, I was off to the trash heap! Kelly wore a long red dress with several layers of something transparent below her waist, each of which hung at a different angle. At least each layer was mostly see-through, but when you got them together it was mostly opaque. Above the waist it was something else, a bustier (Kelly had to teach me what that meant) that was mostly backless and pushed her boobs up with the most amazing display of cleavage! I took one look at her and started snorting and pawing at the ground! She seemed quite pleased with the effect it had on me.

Kelly had decided that as nice as we looked, we deserved to drive around in something more suitable. I parked the mom-bomb at her place, and Kelly tossed me the keys to her Miata. I had to push the seat all the way to the back, and drop it as low as possible to fit in, but it was much nicer. When she first handed me her keys, I had looked at her curiously. As nice a car as it was, there was no back seat for us to fool around in afterwards. “Trust me,” she replied.

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The Grim Reaper Adventures in Southern Law EnforcementChapter 11 Early Retirement

Seamus fell asleep in his car seat before Kelly got home. That made him extra fussy when we got there, and he was handed to me after she got him out of the car. For the next hour we kept putting him to bed and he kept waking up and fussing. Kelly and I talked about my father’s condition. “So, what happens next?” I asked. “This ever happen to your father?” “Not that I’ve ever heard. Maybe he doesn’t exercise as vigorously as your father does.” I had to laugh at that. “There are some things...

4 years ago
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The Grim ReaperChapter 31 Fire Team Leader

June 2005-March 2006 The next morning, we were back to the Army in earnest. Most everybody had filtered back, and we began with PT, physical training, including calisthenics and a four-mile conditioning run. I was hurting as bad as any of the other troops. Leave had left me soft. It didn’t matter, since I knew I would be back in shape in a few weeks, tops. Montoya and Gonzalez, the fuzzies just out of Benning, were in decent shape. Riley was coming off leave and was in about the same...

3 years ago
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The Grim ReaperChapter 47 Job Hunting

Nothing job-related came to my attention by Friday afternoon. I speculated what the perfect job ad would look like - “Wanted! Matucket Firearms Corporation has an immediate opening for product design and testing in their Machine Gun Division! Iraqi war veterans with PTSD desired! Call now, operators are standing by!” I remembered that the AK-47 was invented by a busted-up Russian sergeant during World War II. Too bad there really wasn’t a Matucket Firearms Corporation, either with or without...

4 years ago
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The Grim Reaper Reaper Security ConsultingChapter 15 Recuperation

Monday, September 26, 2022 Monday was a busy day. I bundled the kids off to school and then called Matucket State. While I didn’t go into details, I had to let her Department Vice-Chair know she was going to be away from work for a week or two. I didn’t know who to call at DARPA or the NSA, but Kelly didn’t talk to them daily anyway; she could handle that chore. Then I drove over to the hospital. By all accounts, I would be able to bring her home that day. First, though, she needed to be...

2 years ago
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The Grim Reaper Adventures in Southern Law EnforcementChapter 15 Background Briefing

Monday, March 19, 2018 “Dispatch to One-Six-Three.” “One-Six-Three to Dispatch, go ahead.” Dispatch to One-Six-Three, say location.” I was curious as to why Dispatch wanted to know where I was, since they had sent me to supervise an accident at Pinetree and Glen Aubrey. There was a three-car pileup on Glen Aubrey after the first car, a silver Nissan sedan had suddenly braked for a squirrel. The next car, a red Ford Fusion had slammed into the Nissan from behind and had then been...

3 years ago
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The Grim Reaper Reaper Security ConsultingChapter 34 Moving Forward

Hank called me later that evening, laughing about the three chuckleheads, as he called them, and told me that he had told them some more stories. Of course, he kept their glasses full, so it was a profitable conversation for him. He told me that he had told a bunch of war stories about ‘the old days’ and how we did things ‘back then.’ I laughed and invited him and his wife over some night, and to just call me or Kelly to schedule it. Over the weekend Kelly and I goofed off while driving the...

2 years ago
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The Grim Reaper Adventures in Southern Law EnforcementChapter 17 Preparations

Chief Crowley called the meeting to an end. He told Captain Abernathy to light a fire under the detectives and see if anybody had seen any African-American strangers recently. At best we had maybe a day or two before something might happen. Captain Bullfinch and Lieutenant Roscoe were told to give whatever support possible, including moving watch schedules around. Hank was told to assist me and dial up TRT. As far as I was concerned, Priority One was taking care of my family. What was even...

2 years ago
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The Grim ReaperChapter 60 Wedded Bliss

Saturday, June 21, 2008 I continued riding with Hank Jenkins for two weeks, and he signed off on turning me loose on the public on my own. During our time he taught me about the night and graveyard shifts, much like Jerry had taught me about the day shift and general police work. We also brought in a number of bad guys on various warrants, taking criminals off the street and otherwise making Matucket safer for all. It seemed like every shift would start with Hank handing me a stack of...

4 years ago
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The Grim Reaper Reaper Security ConsultingChapter 21 Bank Robbery

Fall 2023 The summer progressed nicely. I spent a fair bit of time down in Sullivan County and the nearby environs, first analyzing what they had and then developing the options everybody needed to consider. One thing I stressed with them was that by standardizing on similar doctrine, training, and hardware, the SWAT teams created would be suitable for any eventual regional coordination. How the politics would work out was questionable, but it would be easier if the local units had similar...

4 years ago
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The Grim ReaperChapter 30 Fort Drum

April 2005 - May 2005 A few days later I had to leave. I was due back at Fort Drum on Thursday, so Tuesday Kelly and I loaded up the back of the Outback with all my stuff. This time we added all my personal stuff that I had shipped home when I first deployed to Iraq in 2003. Jack was none too amused when I took the television set with me, since he had set it up in the bedroom, but I wasn’t impressed. “You want to keep it? Fine with me. Just buy me a new one,” I told him. “I don’t have the...

2 years ago
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The Grim ReaperChapter 17 Summer

June to August 2002 The following week we had finals, and that was it. Seniors had to go through graduation, but the rest of us were out for a couple of months for the summer. For me that meant I had about a week of goof-off time before I had to go back to the mill full time. That would take me through all of June and into July, at which time it was back to practice for the football season, running twice-a-days and sweating off about ten pounds under the July sun. Somewhere during that...

2 years ago
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The Grim Reaper Reaper Security ConsultingChapter 17 Miles Madigan

Summer 2023 The job in Sullivan Springs was a larger project than most of those I had already worked on. The spreadsheets were smoking by the time I got through with them. When I contacted Ballantine in two weeks, it was only to tell him I was still working the project. Unlike some of my other jobs, in this one I didn’t have a single answer already packaged. In my other jobs the chief or sheriff already knew what he wanted to do and simply needed an outsider to give him a third-party...

4 years ago
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The Grim ReaperChapter 41 Abu Dhabi

January 2007 Mom was very upset that I wasn’t going to come home on my leave. She just wasn’t buying my explanation about losing my squad. She wanted me to come home, squad or no squad. I think Dad understood, and he told me that his father understood, but Mom was very unhappy. I had been in the Army now for four Christmases, and three had been spent in Iraq. I didn’t even bother telling her about the incident at Yankee North. One of her latest kicks was, “Are you the only soldier in Iraq?...

1 year ago
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The Grim Reaper Reaper Security ConsultingChapter 2 Reunion

It seemed late when we finished dinner. There was a Welcome Aboard talk in the ship’s theater and after that we did a bit more exploring. There were all sorts of stuff on the boat, including a shopping center with incredibly overpriced stuff, a casino, and a bunch more bars, restaurants, and lounges. We walked around the deck and then went back to our cabin, where we discovered it had been made up, the bed turned down, and an odd animal formed out of some folded towels. Kelly decided she...

3 years ago
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The Grim ReaperChapter 48 Administrative Assistant

I was able to get in to see Captain Crowley on Thursday morning. Another young officer, African-American this time, was the one who escorted me in, and this time Crowley had some paperwork on his desk. I got the impression that after this meeting it would be time to shit or get off the pot. Crowley outlined the procedure to apply, and then reviewed the pay and benefits. “Grim, as an Administrative Assistant you make a bit more than minimum wage, but it’s a full-time job and it qualifies you...

3 years ago
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The Grim ReaperChapter 20 Schools End

Dad didn’t say anything to me the next day, so we must have covered our tracks. At least the back seat in the SuperCrew was wide enough for us to lay semi-flat on. We still drove around in the cold air with the windows down. Monday at school I saw Coach Summers and gave him the news. I was out for a week, and would be reevaluated afterwards, so I might be able to play if we won next week and went to State. “I won’t let you back on the field until you bring me a release from the doctor,” he...

4 years ago
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The Grim ReaperChapter 27 Returning Home

June 2004 - August 2004 Word came down from Battalion that the rest of Second Brigade would be deploying to Iraq soon. It was expected that they would show up sometime in July, but no dates were available. What they would do then was not known, or at least not known to us down at Camp Custer. Where exactly they would be positioned wasn’t known or might change before they got here. However, one interesting tidbit came out. Fourth of the Fourth was going to get some leave. Over the next few...

2 years ago
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The Grim Reaper Adventures in Southern Law EnforcementChapter 8 Sunday October 1 2017

For the last few days President Trump had been on a Twitter rampage, demanding that the NFL players stand during the anthem, demanding the team owners and coaches fire them if they didn’t, and promising dire actions otherwise. Both Jack and I were getting slammed left and right, me for not complaining about the football players’ protests and Jack for not doing more. He was also bitching about Puerto Rico, primary elections, and fake news. No wonder he wasn’t doing his job - he was spending...

3 years ago
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The Grim Reaper Reaper Security ConsultingChapter 24 Boxie

2024 Sunday, I helped Jack get home. He had chartered a plane to fly from California to Matucket (“ Can you imagine flying commercial through Atlanta with a wheelchair?”) so I simply drove over to their house Sunday morning and helped him out of the house and down to his rental. None of our homes had ramps and I asked whether we should build some for their next visit. “Grim, I’m not sure you should bother. I don’t think I’ll be coming back here any time soon.” “Jack...” “Grim, I just...

2 years ago
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The Grim Reaper Adventures in Southern Law EnforcementChapter 19 Rescue

I never really passed out, but I wasn’t in a mood to keep talking. The immediate threat was contained, and since I was trapped under a tree and wounded, I wasn’t going to wander around the battlefield. After a few minutes I began to hear sirens, both police and fire department; I wouldn’t be alone for long. I twisted my head to the left but couldn’t see to the end of the driveway out on Lakeside Drive. I did see flashing lights approaching, and the sirens went silent. Moments later I heard a...

3 years ago
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The Grim ReaperChapter 66 Old Acquaintances

Grandpa was right about some of what he had said. I googled ‘medal of honor procedure’ later and it turned out there was a huge process involved in giving the Medal of Honor. Once the recommendation worked its way up from Battalion to Brigade and then to Division, it landed at the Pentagon. At least two boards in the Human Resources Command had to approve it, and then it went before the Chief of Staff, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Secretary of the Army, the Secretary of...

3 years ago
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The Grim Reaper Adventures in Southern Law EnforcementChapter 12 Thanksgiving

Thursday morning was an exercise in controlled chaos. I had time to do a nice breakfast of scrambled eggs, toast, and bacon, which could be a bit of a luxury. I tried to cook a nice family breakfast on weekends but shift work with the MPD meant I frequently missed weekends. At least three of us ate well. Seamus only ate Froot Loops; he was almost three and was still a knucklehead in the Terrible Twos. After breakfast Kelly put Riley and me to work cleaning the house. Seamus, on the other...

3 years ago
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The Grim ReaperChapter 70 60 Minutes

Captain Crowley simply congratulated me on making it through SWAT and then told me that I needed to call CBS in New York. He gave me a phone number and told me to let him know what was going on. For my mind, I was basically done with publicity. The Army had mustered me out a second time, so they couldn’t order me back to New York, and if 60 Minutes wanted to do something on the MPD, they had to come to us in any case. The call went smoothly. Now that I was home from the Academy, CBS felt...

2 years ago
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The Grim ReaperChapter 8 Recuperation

Mom went back to work down in the ER the next morning, which I found a blessing. I mean, I loved my mother, but she was driving me completely nuts hanging around the room with me. She still dropped in at lunchtime, but I could handle that. Otherwise, I had her bring in a few books from home that I could read holding up with my left hand. Kelly came over after school on Tuesday. She had worked out an arrangement to take a different bus over to the hospital, and then either Mom would take her...

1 year ago
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The Grim Reaper Adventures in Southern Law EnforcementChapter 7 Friday September 29 2017 to Saturday September 30 2017

Friday started out like most other days. We got Riley off to school on the bus, and Kelly loaded Seamus in the Sienna to take to day care at Matucket State. The big difference was that we dug out all the luggage. While she was at class, I packed all my formal stuff in a hanging bag, with the rest in a suitcase. As soon as Kelly and Seamus came home, she grabbed her stuff out of the closet and told me to start packing, while she packed everything for the kids. It became a mad rush, since I...

2 years ago
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The Grim ReaperChapter 6 Kelly

Friday, February 16, 2001 School had just started again after the winter break. I was hanging out after lunch with some friends near the south stairwell lockers, with Tilly next to me, when Terry Watson muttered, “Holy shit!” as he looked at something behind me. I turned around and didn’t see anything unusual, at least not at first. What I did see looked like a bunch of girls hugging. Then I saw one of the girls turn around and come over towards us. She was slim, about my height, with...

3 years ago
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The Grim ReaperChapter 19 A Winning Season

Jack managed to finagle a ride home with a couple of cheerleaders who were juniors. I have no idea if he got anything more from them than a lift home, and I didn’t want to know. One of these days my brother’s love life was going to bite him in the ass. Some girl was going to find him with another girl, and there would be hell to pay. Hopefully she wouldn’t be carrying a weapon when that happened. The Sports Section headline Saturday morning was “UNDERDOG PIONEERS CRUSH WARRIORS!” I had no...

4 years ago
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The Grim ReaperChapter 68 Television

I knew what the citation said; whether I believed it was a different question. It didn’t matter much. I stood there, kept my mouth shut, and looked straight ahead. The President put the ribbon around my neck, and everybody saluted and applauded. He gave me a whispered, ‘At ease.’, and I was able to break position and shake his hand in thanks. That was the end of the official ceremony, and it was time for a meet-and-greet. Mister and Mrs. Obama escorted me down off the stage and over to where...

3 years ago
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The Grim ReaperChapter 53 Living the Dream

Police work was vastly different from military life. One of the biggest differences was that the U.S. Army was quite monolithic, in the sense that everybody trained and fought the same way. Every infantryman trained at Fort Benning. Every helicopter crewman trained at Fort Rucker. Every medic trained at Fort Sam Houston. You get the idea. The same could be said at any camp or fort in the country. Everybody did things the same. There’s a reason they called it the ‘big green machine.’ It made...

3 years ago
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The Grim ReaperChapter 63 Out of State Visitors

Saturday, October 24, 2009 My schedule that week was the night shift, Tuesday to Friday, and then I would have off, Saturday to Tuesday. That worked out well, since Saturday was my parents’ anniversary, and both Kelly and I would have the day off. I would be able to sleep late and then we could go over to the house later. Since it was their Silver Anniversary, the plan was for Bobbie Joe, Kelly, and me to take the parental units out to a nice dinner. Jack and Teresa couldn’t be there, of...

4 years ago
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The Grim ReaperChapter 69 Going Home

That was basically the end of the craziness. From Chicago we flew home for a long weekend. Monday, we flew back to New York, and I went on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, which proved interesting. Stewart was on the liberal side of the spectrum, but he always showed a lot of respect to the soldiers even as he crucified the politicians who got us into Iraq and Afghanistan. Most of the interview was the standard questions, but at the end he asked me something nobody else had asked. Stewart:...

3 years ago
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The Grim ReaperChapter 43 Aftermath

It looked like almost the entire platoon had arrived, led by Lieutenant Southerland. They rolled up to the front gate, actually driving over various body parts as they did so and stopped. The crashed Apache blocked the way in. The first guys to come inside the compound simply stood there and stared at the carnage, though a couple of guys tossed their cookies. Eventually somebody noticed I was standing there and Southerland and another couple of guys ran over to me. “Sergeant Reaper! Sergeant...

3 years ago
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The Grim ReaperChapter 18 Senior Year

Our first game of the season was at the end of the month, the last Friday of August, the 30th. It was a home game with North Cobb High, from up in Kennesaw. They were from a wealthy suburb of Atlanta, and North Cobb was a big school, certainly bigger than us. That was important in high school football, since the more students you had, the more likely you’ll be able to find better players. I commented on that to Kelly once, and she said something about Gaussian distributions and standard...

4 years ago
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The Grim Reaper Reaper Security ConsultingChapter 38 Coming Together

Things moved along through the summer. At times it seemed as if for every step we took forward we were taking two steps back. Still, some good things happened. Our new Auto Theft Division made a major arrest mid-June. They grabbed a few cars out of the impound yard and fitted them with GPS trackers and allowed them to be stolen. That generated enough information to get warrants on a pair of ‘chop shops’, garages where stolen cars could be taken and stripped for parts. Lieutenant Dupree of...

4 years ago
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The Grim ReaperChapter 49 Training

October 2007 - December 2007 Mid-October, about when it became obvious that I was going to stick it out and go to the academy, Tim Hungerford showed up at the rickety-bench-with-delusions-of-grandeur that I called my desk. He had a packet of paperwork with him. “Take a break,” he ordered. “You need to look this stuff over.” I looked at him. “Why? What is it?” “It’s the packet from the academy.” “Ah!” I nodded at that. “Let’s take a look. You’ve been through this, right?” Tim nodded....

2 years ago
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The Grim ReaperChapter 52 The Academy

January 2008 - March 2008 When I went back to work, I let Captain Carson know about meeting the Gorsky family, and that I was sure that a lawsuit was on the way. Both he and Lieutenant Brownell quizzed me on what I had told the Gorskys and I swore six ways from Sunday that I hadn’t said anything that could be construed as an admission of guilt. Their general feeling was that we would be named in the suit, but we could dump any responsibility onto the Sheriff’s office, since they ran the jail...

3 years ago
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The Grim ReaperChapter 46 Barbecue

We slept in the next morning, and I informed Kelly that she needed to pass an audition like I had done with her. How was I to know that she wasn’t a demanding wife? What if she was only interested in me for my body, and not my mind? That got me a smart-ass comment from her, “Really? You want to go there? Grim, you need to stick with your body! Your mind ain’t going to cut it!” That earned her a sharp smack on the ass, and I tickled her until she shrieked and begged me to stop. That led to her...

4 years ago
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The Grim ReaperChapter 59 Back to Work

Monday, May 26, 2008 Certain things worked out for me. The bullshit out of the CORB had gotten pretty extreme, and the Justice Department planned to investigate them and not me. The Review Board wasn’t helped when Pendergast was caught saying that he was hoping for the dissolution of the entire Matucket Police Department and its replacement by a federally supervised police force. That was considered more than a bit nutty, even for hard-core Democrats. In any case, it got me off the hook with...

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