cargo or personnel, without delay and in any degree of rough seas or weather. The relationship between pilot and navigator developed into a familial bond of brotherhood. Seven was Al’s best man at his wedding and the two couldn’t envision themselves in the cockpit without the other sitting next to them. Al was an awkward little man indeed, but he was Seven’s best friend and brother.
Eighteen months flew by for Seven in the Pacific Supply and Support Unit. Big Bev and her crew became legends in the squad and Seven accepted his role as the navy’s FedEx man with a consolatory sense of pride. He and Al frequently made light of their duties, noting that they were the ones to call when your package absolutely positively needs to be there overnight or offering a thirty minutes or less delivery time or “it’s free.”
Seven settled into his military life but he longed to obtain his own stories of flight and danger that the Colonel raised him on. He spoke to the Colonel at every opportunity. His leave times were spent back at the Georgia farmhouse that he knew as home. With each return visit he saw the effects of time slowly chipping away at his father figure. The Colonel seemed a little slower, a little grayer, and a little more forgetful, with every visit. The old man was getting older, but the legend was still inside his potbellied, silver-bearded frame. Gran, on the other hand, fought a beautiful battle with the aging process. The tight bun pulled to the back of her head kept her skin and face tight and permanently plastered with the look of concern and disappointment that Seven had known all his life. She was the same woman wearing the same floor-length dress that raised Seven and cared for his grandfather and produced the greatest rotary aviators that the US military had ever seen. Nearly two years into Seven Andrews’s military service he found himself content but still longing for excitement and danger. Little did he realize the wait was nearly over.